Vox recently surmised that, in the wake of Congress slashing over $500 million dollars of funding (and some estimates put that number even higher, at $1.1 billion) from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a new player is poised to swoop in and fill the role of providing news and educational content for children, youth, and young adults, now that local PBS and NPR stations might be forced to shut down. This player is, of course, PragerU, which Vox describes as a "conservative content mill" and a "nonprofit organization that specializes in creating right-leaning educational short videos for adults and children." The company has already been tapped by the Trump administration to be an educational partner for its "Founders Museum" physical exhibition at the White House and the accompanying online videos, "The Road to Liberty," and some experts see a future where PragerU content gets promoted by the federal government for use in public schools across the United States.
Vox describes PragerU:
Since its founding in 2009, PragerU has become a juggernaut in the conservative educational media space, with their videos reaching millions of followers across social media. The organization has helped launch the media careers of right-wing figures like Candace Owens. Their popular videos elevate narratives that have been sharply criticized as climate denialist, Islamophobic, and "misleading" about slavery.
The Hollywood Reporter also provides this overview of PragerU:
Originally called Prager University, the tax-exempt media organization specializes in five-minute videos promoting "Judeo-Christian values," as fundraising materials put it. Its clips have amassed nearly 10 billion views, according to the organization. Key to that success have been high-profile video hosts, aggressive marketing and enlisting Hollywood production talent who, according to PragerU's leadership, are fed up with the industry's wokeness.
PragerU has long been controversial, drawing reprimands over the years from the Southern Poverty Law Center, GLAAD, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Human Rights Campaign. Some critics, like Kansas State University researcher Adrienne McCarthy, argue that the organization serves as a gateway to far-right extremism through the values it promotes.
In addition to providing material for the Founders Museum, PragerU content has, since 2023, been available for use in public schools across the United States, thanks to deals made with state school boards and school superintendents. The Hollywood Reporter states that, unsurprisingly, the first state on board was Florida, in 2023. Shortly after, eight more states struck deals with PragerU and invited its content into their public school classrooms: Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Idaho, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arizona, Montana, and Texas. While the same videos that are available to teachers in public schools have been accessible for free online since PragerU Kids launched in 2021, being approved for use by state boards of education provides protection for teachers who want to use the content in their classrooms. Furthermore, this approval makes it "easier for teachers to access the resources through official education portals that they used for things like lesson planning and grading." Vox explains that these partnerships do not mandate that schools use PragerU materials, but the content gets official status as approved content to use if so desired.
The Hollywood Reporter offers a glimpse into some of the content that many public school teachers now have official permission to use:
There are now about a dozen shows for three age categories. "Otto's Tales", for kindergartners through second graders, is a storytime show in which host Jill Simonian reads books about "American monuments, holidays and community helpers" over an animated version of the story. "Unboxed, USA," for third- to fifth-graders, teaches about state history by having kids open boxes and guess the state based on what's inside. For sixth grade and up, "How To" purports to teach life skills, like managing money. PragerU's critics argue that even such seemingly nonpartisan content has a conservative bent. Media Matters has argued that the financial literacy series "Cash Course" mocks taking on student debt to attend a "big-deal drama school," which it links to Republican attacks on higher education.
In a recent episode of Vox's podcast "Explained," co-host Sean Rameswaram interviewed Laura Meckler, who writes about national education policy and practice for the Washington Post. Meckler provides more insight into some of the content being offered online and in public schools:
There's a video with Christopher Columbus, who is talking to some modern-day kids who are saying, basically, "I heard bad things about you." And he says, "You have to judge me by the standards that were true at the time."
I've heard critics reference this particular episode, "Christopher Columbus: Explorer of the New World," from the PragerU Kids show "Leo & Layla's History Adventures," many times so I had to see if myself. I transcribed one of the most egregious sections of dialogue, which starts about the 9:30 minute mark:
Christopher Columbus: "Slavery is as old as time, and has taken place in every corner of the world, even amongst people I just left. Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don't see the problem."
Time traveling child: "Well in our time, we view slavery as being evil and terrible."
Christopher Columbus: "Ah, magnifico, that's wonderful! I'm glad humanity has reached such a time. But you said you're from 500 years in the future? How can you come here to the 15th century and judge me by your standards from the 21st century? For those in the future to look back and do this is, well, estupido."
Time traveling child: "Are you calling me dumb?"
Christopher Columbus: "Certainly not. I can tell you're a very smart young lady. But the idea of throwing away the past because of your present values is… Listen, I love and am thankful for the ancient Greeks, but they did lots of things that here in 1493 I do not agree with. They permitted lifestyles and worshipped gods that as a Christian I think is very bad. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't respect and honor all of the incredible and amazing things they did!"
Time traveling child: "So good and bad is based on the time you live in?"
Christopher Columbus: "That is a great question. I told you I knew you were smart. Some things are clearly bad no matter when they happen. But for other things, before you judge, you must ask yourself, what did the culture and society at the time treat as no big deal. Not everyone can time travel as you do and see how normal becomes very not normal."
Time traveling child: "Some things are, some things aren't. Sounds complicated."
Christopher Columbus: "It is. And so is life. And history can be too. If people in your time want to celebrate me for being a perfect hero, then they are very mistaken. Only my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is perfect, and I hope to spread his teaching to all the lands I find that don't know his name. but if people in your time want to celebrate the guts I had to get this journey approved, start it, survive it, and get back to tell about it, well, that seems pretty good for any time and age."
So, what I'm seeing here is that PragerU doesn't include slavery in the practices that are "clearly bad no matter when they happen," but, instead, implies that it should be treated as "no big deal." Laura Meckler states, and I agree, that:
The upshot of this video and other Prager videos is to — I think it's fair to say — minimize the role of slavery or how much we should focus on it or how upset we should be about it from our past and to try to look on more, shall we say, uplifting ideas from American history.
However, some school officials that have embraced PragerU actually praise the content, including Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. The Hollywood Insider reports that Ryan stated that "he had used PragerU materials as a history teacher. 'You're actually telling history the way it was,' Walters said. 'The left for so long has controlled the narrative.'"
There are plenty of other critical analyses of PragerU's content online that I'd urge you to go read, including this report released in September 2023, The lessons Florida public school students will learn from PragerU Kids, by John Knefel of Media Matters, who watched every PragerU Kids video available at the time. The Hollywood Reporter explains:
Some of the clips they found most troubling came from the animated show Leo & Layla's History Adventures, for elementary schoolers, in which siblings time-travel to meet historical figures. In one they highlighted, a cartoon Booker T. Washington says slavery has "been a reality everywhere in the world" but that "America was one of the first places on Earth to outlaw slavery" and "future generations are never responsible for the sins of the past."
Conspirituality Podcast's most recent episode, 271: The Miseducation of PragerU, also provides a terrific (and harrowing) deep dive into PragerU's online content. Host Derek Beres watched dozens of videos from the PragerU site while putting together the episode, and plays numerous clips from the shows while discussing their underlying ideologies. Beres explains that for adults, PragerU hosts about 15 main ongoing shows, including "Real Talk with Marissa Street" (CEO of PragerU) where she recently hosted Hungary's authoritarian leader Viktor Orban; "Ami on the Loose" with host Ami Horowitz, who wonders in a recent episode if anti-ICE protestors are really "mostly peaceful"; and "American Presidents," which provides overviews of historical figures that are, as Beres states, "just basically puff pieces that skim over a whole lot of history." Beres also found several dozen more playlists with titles such as "Healthcare Is Not a Right," "Why Capitalism Beats Socialism…Every Time," "Are You There, God?", "The Ten Commandments," and "Understanding the Torah." Islamophobia abounds at PragerU, as well, through videos like "Radical Islam's Threat to Freedom," and "The Dangers of Radical Islam."
Beres states that PragerU definitely has a right-wing agenda, but argues that they're "very smart" in how they present it. He continues:
They are fundamentalist Christian, they are pro-Israel, anti-Islam at every turn. They are conservative and Trumpian, they are deregulatory and pro-Reaganomics. BUT, they hire a diverse range of hosts and they use animated videos of very diverse characters — you know, all the shit that the right has said that sit-com TV shouldn't be doing, they very much do. They might be anti-DEI, but they're making sure to include equal numbers of women, Black people, and Latinos.
Beres also explored the dozen or so PragerU Kids shows available on PragerU's website, which include "Cash Course" (described on the PragerU website as teaching "essential financial literacy for youth to young adults"), "Otto's Tales" (an animated show described on PragerU as a "storytime show that teaches kids about American monuments, holidays, and community helpers"), "Craftory!" (described on PragerU as "American history made fun for young kids with easy, family-friendly DIY crafts"), and "Around the World" (described on PragerU as "global issues that teach middle and high school kids what makes America unique").
Beres sums up what PragerU Kids is teaching, stating that "the sprawling, well-funded network teaches kids to hate DEI, love paying taxes, and recognize that the Bible offers the only salvation on this planet." Beres also offers insight into how PragerU Kids hides this problematic (to say the least!) content behind animation and graphics that would look at home on PBS Kids, stating:
"They've deliberately adopted these corporate multi-cultural style optics as well as a PBS-kids style of graphics, to try to normalize and have that sort of fun bright colors and really cool graphics, which normalizes their overtly conservative, and at times, straight up racist content."
So will we see content like this become state or national curriculum? So far, only nine states currently have agreements with PragerU and, as stated above, no school districts currently mandate that PragerU content be taught, which is good news, for now. But with the whitewashing of history at, for example, The Smithsonian, that Trump is currently pushing, it's not a great leap to believe that public school curricular content could soon be controlled or heavily influenced by the folks at PragerU. National education policy reporter Laura Meckler speculates, in an interview with Vox, that expanding education into the states is "the heart of the PragerU plan" and sees connections between the defunding of PBS and the rise of PragerU:
I don't actually think these two decisions are directly related in any way — at least that I'm aware of — but I do think that they maybe both reflect a larger worldview, which we very much are seeing from this administration: an effort to stamp out what they would call "woke ideology." They see that in lots of different places, and they're going after it in all sorts of different ways, whether it be pressure on universities to diversify their faculty, [or] whether it be defunding PBS and NPR, which they think are overly liberal. All of these are examples of using the power of the federal government to try and essentially diminish or change institutions that are not ideologically aligned [with them]. And that has happened across schools where you saw bans on conversations about race in classrooms in a bunch of different states. You're not allowed to talk about quote-unquote "divisive topics." [There is] a lot of concern that topics like slavery were not going to be properly taught anymore, or the civil rights movement, or all sorts of other things that get at the various elements of systemic racism in our country.
It's definitely not a done deal yet, so we need to fight back against a PragerU takeover of public school curricula. This can look like educating yourself about PragerU, sharing that information with others and especially with folks with students in public schools, and contacting your local school boards and superintendents of education. You can also read, discuss, and widely circulate this media literacy booklet created by Current Affairs, entitled A Student's Guide to Resisting PragerU Propaganda, which focuses specifically on how to "analyze and debunk PragerU's lies," about climate change, socialism, American history, policing, Israel, and more. Drop me a line if you know of other resources and organizations actively fighting against PragerU!
Previously:
• PragerU: 'our propaganda cartoons are headed to Texas schools.' Texas school officials: 'absolutely not.' Who is right?
• Prager University: 'Anti-racist' rhetoric is 'fighting America itself'
• Florida approves right-wing jingoistic propaganda channel for use in schools
