President Donald Trump stamped his imprint on the contentious debate over American history and how it鈥檚 taught last week by in schools and announcing the creation of a national commission to promote 鈥減atriotic education.鈥� It was part of Trump鈥檚 ongoing rhetorical focus on what schools teach as he campaigns for reelection. But his criticism of the 1619 Project鈥攁 series of essays in the New York Times magazine that place slavery and its legacy at the center of American history鈥攁nd its place in classrooms clashes with his 2016 campaign platform for education, or an executive order from his own administration.
As our colleague Sarah Schwartz wrote recently, the for using a specific curriculum, and it can鈥檛 mandate that schools teach history or any other subject in any particular way. That limitation on Washington鈥檚 role in the classroom has enjoyed bipartisan support for years.
A explicitly endorses this view. 鈥淚t shall be the policy of the executive branch to protect and preserve State and local control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, and personnel of educational institutions, schools, and school systems,鈥� the order states. It goes on to cite the Every Student Succeeds Act鈥攖he main federal law governing K-12 schools鈥攁nd other statutes.
The order frames this in general as well as legal terms by stressing how 鈥淔ederal interference鈥� in such matters is prohibited.
The order then directs the education secretary to examine whether federal regulations and guidance 鈥渃omply with Federal laws that prohibit the Department from exercising any direction, supervision, or control over areas subject to State and local control, including ... the curriculum or program of instruction of any elementary and secondary school and school system.鈥�
Four years ago, Trump was unambiguous about who should control education and who should not. 鈥淭here won鈥檛 be education from Washington, D.C. There鈥檒l be education locally,鈥� he said in a , adding praise for parents and local school boards. 鈥淓ducation has to be at a local level. We cannot have the bureaucrats in Washington telling you how to manage your child鈥檚 education,鈥� a month earlier. Those remarks were consistent with the common view among conservatives and Republican politicians that the federal government shouldn鈥檛 play a big role in K-12 education.
In those videos and elsewhere, Trump leveraged the idea of locally controlled education as an attack on the Common Core State Standards. For years, many conservatives have said the Obama administration crossed a line by coercing states into using the content standards, which were developed outside Washington and don鈥檛 constitute a curriculum.
In his remarks over the summer, including last week鈥檚 speech at the National Archives, Trump was not explicitly calling for an end to legal prohibitions on federal involvement in education. Yet his remarks had a markedly different tone and message from a few years ago. A person who only paid attention to Trump鈥檚 remarks about education in the last few months might be surprised to learn about his 2017 executive order and his 2016 campaign rhetoric.
In a separate event last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said state and local education officials were in the best place to make decisions about curriculum, but did stress the importance of curriculum that 鈥渁ctually honors and respects our history and embraces all of the parts of our history.鈥�
The White House did not respond to requests for comment on Monday about whether his position has changed, and for more details about the education commission he announced last week. Bloomberg reported over the weekend that Trump has pushed for companies to provide $5 billion for that commission鈥檚 work.
Some history teachers and organizations that represent those educators . In a statement last week, for example, the National Council for Social Studies said it 鈥渞esoundingly rejects any effort by the federal government to silence social studies curriculum that explicitly addresses the centrality of slavery in the historical narrative of the United States.鈥�
Yet others have indicated that while they鈥檙e in the issue, there are legitimate concerns about how history classes balance competing interpretations of the nation鈥檚 past, especially given the 1619 Project鈥檚 growing impact in classrooms as the basis for curricula. And school choice advocates say providing parents with options about how children learn, and thus choices for their classes about American history, provides a solution to questions about how presidents and others in power should talk about classroom instruction.
Photo: President Donald Trump speaks with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos during a workforce/apprenticeship discussion in 2017. --Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP