This should come as no surprise.
Since the 2022 passage of the expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Program (ESA,) people like writers on this Blog and public school advocates have continually warned that such a move would welcome waste, fraud, abuse, and a race to soak up hardworking working and middle class tax payer dollars into a system that both provides welfare for the wealthy and a chance for ultra right wing organizations like Turning Point USA to develop or align with private educational institutions to further their own agenda and indoctrinate children to their world view.
In recent reporting by Dillon Rosenblatt at the Fourth Estate, he has found that the ESA program has provided a growing revenue stream to two ultra right-Pro Trump/MAGA-White Christian Nationalist private school organizations: The Turning Point aligned Dream City Christian and the Science Denying Tipping Point Academy.
Below is a graph provided by The Fourth Estate showing the growth in both schools since passage of the ESA expansion:
In an ironic twist, Rosenblatt ended his article with:
“…The same movement crying “indoctrination” in public schools and pushing book bans is now cashing millions in public money to run explicitly Christian, politically aligned academies. Arizona parents may think they’re choosing a school. In reality, they’re also subsidizing a political project.”
Those political projects include curriculum that does not recognize LGBTQ rights, maintains that wokeism (or as we know it fighting for social justice) is bad, includes supplemental Biblical Instruction in every subject, and the premise that “the word of God is the roadmap for life and living.”
Reacting to The 48th State Reporting on the proliferation of ESA funds to these indoctrination centers, Arizona Assistant Democratic House Leader and Educator Nancy Gutierrez commented to Blog for Arizona:
“This proves that private schools should not be allowed to take public tax dollars. Their curriculum can be as extreme and dangerous as they’d like. This is true indoctrination and our public dollars should not be a part of that.”
Dr. Teresa Leybra Ruiz, Democratic Candidate for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction also commented to Blog for Arizona:
“It concerns me that millions of taxpayer dollars are flowing to private religious schools. There is no way of knowing exactly what is taught and if students are meeting academic standards. ESA funds aren’t meant to be a blank check for private, religious, and partisan agendas! If schools take public dollars, they owe the public transparency and accountability as to what they are teaching our kids.”
Tyler Kowch, Communications Manager at Save Our Schools Arizona, which shared The Fourth Estate Report, conveyed:
“The school’s highlighted in Fourth Estate 48’s reporting are just two examples of schools among hundreds, if not thousands, of similar operations that are siphoning hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into unaccredited, unregulated private schools that can teach whatever they wish without any oversight as part of the state’s universal voucher program.”
These Right Wing Indoctrination Centers are Also Trying to Shape the History and Civics Lessons Public Schools Teach
Not content with confining their belief system to private or home school indoctrination Mecca’s, these right wing education systems are teaming up with other like minded schools to band with Donald Trump and his Project 2025-MAGA team to continue their first term efforts to develop history and civics curriculum that brings a sanitized version of American History and Government which downplays or ignores this nation’s ugly episodes from its almost 250 year existence.
Mr. Trump and his team, with their criticism of the Smithsonian and attempt to ban books from the Pentagon Library have recently said that the below picture of a whipped slave is counterproductive to their mission to “promote a more positive view of American History” and want it removed so their “patriotic” (a term Stalin used in World War Two) education experiment can thrive.
Commenting on this effort to shape History to their twisted and fact free ends, Kowch at Save Our Schools Arizona, which also shared this development, commented:
“We are deeply concerned about the coalition announced by the US Dept of Ed, which includes 40 partner groups that are closely aligned with the “MAGA” movement. The Trump administration has already begun redirecting $137 million from programs for minority students and teacher training in favor of “patriotic” American history and civics education, and the US Dept of Ed says it will provide discretionary grants to schools that promote their preferred curriculum.
The implications of a vague and undefined “patriotism” being taught in classrooms across the US, especially considering that the groups in this coalition are heavily political — including America First Legal, Moms for Liberty, the Heritage Foundation, and Turning Point USA — are extremely troubling. Allowing these groups to shape curriculum undermines democratic values and risks politicizing our classrooms and forcing the indoctrination of our children.”
Representative Gutierrez offered:
“As for as President Trump instituting a far right “civics” curriculum, Arizona has a process for developing and adopting curriculum and that will continue. Arizona also already requires civics instruction and each public school student is required to pass a civics exam in order to graduate. Perhaps the people promoting changing that should also be required to take that text before suggesting any changes.”
Dr. Ruiz stated:
“While fostering love for country and civic duty are worthy goals, we must ensure that “patriotic” education doesn’t become a tool to silence history and minimize injustice. Already, polling shows that 86% of teachers fear teaching civics due to the current hostile climate surrounding education. Mandates like this would only create a chilling effect – where teachers are afraid to include historically accurate curriculum and promote critical thinking – all in the name of fostering patriotism.”
Just ignoring the ugly parts of American History does not mean they did not happen.
This is why it is essential that more, not less, history, taught by people that are experts in the area should be required to stop the Orwellian efforts by Mr. Trump and his White Nationalist-MAGA-Project 2025-War on History apostates from taking a firm hold in the nation’s schools.
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