No One Should Want the Federal Government Dictating Civics Education (Opinion)

In the flurry of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump since he assumed office in January, there is one rattling many cages in the civics and history space.

Signed on Jan. 29, the Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling order promises to end indoctrination of anti-American ideologies in schools; reestablishes the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission, which Trump created during his first term to promote patriotic education; and proposes the 1776 Commission coordinate biweekly lectures grounded in patriotic education principles to be broadcast to the nation throughout 2026, America’s 250th birthday.

Any reasonable person should oppose any form of indoctrination in schools, no matter which political ideology it espouses. But how exactly will the federal government define indoctrination?

What would constitute patriotic education under a Trump administration, and how could that classification differ under subsequent administrations, potentially jumbling what students previously learned?

Will teachers be afraid to discuss controversial topics, like race, gender, politics, or difficult aspects of American history—or present opposing viewpoints in class? A 2022 EdWeek Research Center survey found that nearly a third of teachers are already intentionally avoiding those topics.

And what would an enforcement mechanism look like, given Trump’s pledge to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education?

These are questions civics and history teachers—and the nonprofit and for-profit groups supporting these educators—are wrestling with right now.

Some who once advocated greater federal intervention in civics and history education are getting a hard lesson in “be careful what you wish for.” Many nonprofits in particular cited a desperate need for massive federal investment in civics and history under the Biden administration, pointing out wide funding disparities between civic education and other subjects like science, technology, engineering, and math. Their advocacy efforts resulted in the Civics Secures Democracy Act, introduced in the 2021-2022 Congress, which would have allocated $1 billion a year for civics and history initiatives but never reached a full floor vote.

Now, the country has a presidential administration ready to devote significant resources to civic and history education, drawing on funding and other resources from the Education Department and other agencies, such as Defense and Health and Human Services. But the enthusiasm for federal solutions seems to have quickly disappeared.

The Organization of American Historians issued a statement saying that the executive order “is an effort to ban, censor, and otherwise restrict the teaching of multiple important topics in U.S. history” and that it would have the effect of “restricting historical pedagogy” and “stifling deliberative discussion.” This seems to largely mirror what we are hearing from many others in the field.

Federal funding leads to federal control, and that is bad for teachers and students. It does not matter if federal intervention occurs through a bill or an executive order, who holds the Oval Office, or who controls Congress. The decisions will ultimately be made by politicians or politically appointed agency heads. That is why setting the civics and history agenda at the national level is a bad idea.

At the Bill of Rights Institute, we work with more than 80,000 civics and history educators who support more than 8 million students per year. We have been perhaps the largest nonprofit focused on civics and history that has consistently refused to endorse greater federal involvement in civics and history education. We have been beating that drum for more than a decade, sometimes without much support from others in the space.

We warned publicly and privately, including in the fall of 2024 ahead of the election, that federal involvement was “a recipe for whiplash-inducing changes that could sow chaos in schools as political winds shift.”

It did not take a crystal ball to make that prediction, just a common-sense understanding that greater federal involvement in any curricula increases opportunities for political influence, erodes local control, and can force tens of thousands of schools to pivot on a dime when Washington power dynamics change.

And that is true no matter which party is in charge.

The deeper question here is, what role the federal government should play in setting curricular agendas for our schools?

Answer: none.

The federal government is actually prohibited under law from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum” for schools or “over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials.”

The larger issue is not Trump’s executive order itself. Supporters and opponents have already emerged, and there is even some room for common ground. For example, there is broad agreement on teaching patriotism in schools. Research from the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research and Rossier School of Education found that both Democrats and Republicans support teaching patriotism in school.

These education decisions can and should be made primarily at the local level. Local schools have the infrastructure—through school board meetings, elections, and even direct outreach to administrators—for concerned citizens to be heard on curricular choices, school policies, and other issues they care about.

The more we inject federal intervention into the process of local school control, the more we run the risk of politicized solutions and sweeping mandates that can change at any time.

And none of us should believe we can selectively invite or disinvite greater federal involvement in education based on our individual or collective support for the person or party in charge.

That is not how Washington works. Once you invite Uncle Sam to the table, he does not leave easily.