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COLUMBIA — Advocacy organizations are calling on the state Legislature to increase oversight of decisions made by the state Department of Education following the recently announced partnership with PragerU that makes some of the conservative nonprofit's media available in South Carolina school lessons. In a Sept. 20 press conference on the Statehouse steps, representatives from the South Carolina Education Association, the League of Women Voters and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union took turns blasting the media organization's content.
They particularly targeted Prager's offerings on social studies and history as flawed and offensive, and tantamount to efforts to whitewash difficult topics like slavery in South Carolina's education system. Much of PragerU's content, they argued, presents inaccurate or fantastical accounts of history. Some highlighted animated videos representing historic figures like abolitionist Frederick Douglass or Christopher Columbus offering apologetic explanations for slavery.
Others appear to downplay the severity of humans' influence on climate change or make the case that America was founded on an explicitly Judeo-Christian value system — materials Courtney Thomas with the South Carolina ACLU said could violate the Establishment Clause in the U.S. Constitution.
"I think Superintendent (Ellen) Weaver needs a civics lesson as a quick reminder of what the First Amendment actually says," Thomas said. Education department spokesman Jason Raven described the new partnership as part of its efforts to provide "high-quality, standards-aligned" civics resources to school districts for free. PragerU's materials will be optional for teachers to use, Raven said in a statement.
SC Education Department partners with conservative media platform PragerU Several PragerU videos linked to South Carolina education standards in a document published by the media platform approach historical, political, economic or religious ideas and events from a conservative perspective. In a series of videos about a pair of time-traveling siblings, a cartoon Frederick Douglass tells them that the Founding Fathers wanted to end slavery and warns them to stay away from radical activists. Other videos from PragerU argue that “income inequality is good,” that voter suppression is a “myth,” that the Democratic Party is responsible for racial inequality facing Black Americans and that that immigration from the Middle East and North Africa is part of the “suicide of Europe.
” One video from conservative political commentator Steven Crowder argues that efforts to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day are about “teaching your children to despise Western Civilization.” Videos about environmental issues argue that solar and wind energy are bad for the environment because of their building material needs, that a world without fossil fuels would cause “doomsday” and that conservatives’ approach to protecting the environment is better than a progressive one. Today's Top Headlines Story continues below How did 14 of the world’s deadliest snakes end up in a South Carolina neighborhood? North Myrtle Beach's Alligator Adventure offers $6.
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on video': SC man recovering after being bitten by world's most venomous snake Commentary: I'm tired of being called a book banner — and of our loss of common sense TGI Fridays says thanks as it exits the Charleston market on a Tuesday A video about the cause of the Civil War does say that slavery was the “single most important” cause of the conflict. Some of the videos are also about personal finance concepts, such as budgeting and saving money, or introduce pupils to different careers. AP African American Studies class cut by SC education department was an 'eye opener', students said The new partnership signified another step by Weaver to use the power of her office to unilaterally advance controversial and political policies without input from the state's other elected officials.
PragerU contacted the Education Department to initiate the new partnership, Raven said, which is still working with the media platform to finalize a "customized list" of resources that will be posted to the department's website and a teacher curriculum portal. It will make South Carolina the seventh state in the country to offer its materials to teachers. Since those resources are supplemental materials, rather than textbooks, they didn't need approval from the State Board of Education, Raven said.
Educators and legislators alike said they were caught flat-footed by news of the PragerU partnership. In the two years Weaver has been in office, there have been numerous examples of controversial policies being implemented with little-to-no input from lawmakers or the public. Against educators' protests, the education department unilaterally moved in June to not offer an AP African American Studies course as an official state class, citing a budget provision governing how schools can teach some ideas about race.
Some districts are now offering the class's curriculum as an honors class, after the full AP course had been taught in some South Carolina schools during a pilot program. Earlier in the year, the State Board of Education adopted a new regulation mandating the age appropriateness of school materials and establishing a statewide path to challenge them, with the legislature receiving the proposed standards far too late into the 2024 legislative session to actually do anything about them. The latest example, House Education and Public Works Committee member Rep.
Jermaine Johnson, D-Hopkins, said Sept. 20 is a sign the legislature needs to have greater say over what policies the department is allowed to implement. While the Statehouse already has a nonpartisan Education Oversight Committee, its powers are relatively limited, largely serving as an advisory body.
Weaver's actions during her tenure have created bipartisan concerns among some members that the position currently has too much power, Johnson said, and that this session might see some movement toward limiting the board's authority. "This is something that we need to make sure that we address because we cannot allow this to continue to happen," Johnson said, adding "we cannot allow somebody with that much power to dictate the futures of millions of children across the state." Beaufort Republican Reps.
Jeff Bradley and Shannon Erickson, the first vice chairman and chairwoman of the House Education and Public Works Committee, did not immediately respond to requests for comment..
