Restoring the Curriculum

How do you conquer a nation without firing a shot?* Leading Progressives like John Dewey came up with the answer over a century ago. Just embed your agenda into the educational system, and in a few generations you will transform the country.

Political Progressives had little use for America’s founding principles. Woodrow Wilson, the first progressive president, complained that “some citizens of this country have never got beyond *the Declaration of Independence,” and said the Declaration was “of no consequence” to modern Americans.* This view now dominates in our public schools.

And educational Progressives had little use for traditional teaching methods and purposes. Rather than teaching the Great Books of the Western tradition, Dewey recommended education as social development. The past century has seen curricular and teaching excellence replaced with short-lived theories rarely lasting more than a generation.

As a result, many public schools are no longer effective at teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. They also no longer teach young Americans the history of their country and how it was founded on the principle of equal rights, and how it grew to become the freest and most prosperous nation in history.

Good citizenship is impossible without this knowledge about America and as a result our liberty is fading fast.*

That’s why Hillsdale has launched the Barney Charter School Initiative: to answer the urgent need for fundamental reform of American K-12 education.

After just five years, the initiative has helped found 13 charter schools nationwide, with a goal of opening fifty schools by 2022—each one based on a classical liberal arts curriculum, and each one including a strong history and civics component.

Source: Hillsdale College, 33 East College St Hillsdale, MI 49242 USA