Pro-America nonprofit announces partnership with Louisiana public schools

PragerU, which creates educational videos on American values, has announced it will partner with Louisiana to provide the state’s teachers resources to use in the classroom.

“PragerU Kids’ ultimate goal is to teach what should be taught in American classrooms and in homes around our nation,” Marissa Streit, CEO of Prager University Foundation, told The Epoch Times, adding that materials created by PragerU for students will “reinforce that America, while not perfect, is still the best hope for human flourishing and prosperity because of the values it was founded on.”

Louisiana becomes the latest educational recruit of PragerU’s school initiative, joining the ranks of states such as Arizona, Florida, Montana, New Hampshire and Oklahoma.

In an interview on the partnership, Dr. Cade Brumley, state superintendent of education, told Streit the impetus behind the partnership came from recognizing that the state’s lowest proficiency numbers were in social studies, history and civics. Louisiana was recently ranked 40th among the states for pre-K-12 education. 

“We embarked on a year-long process, and we ultimately were able to have a set of standards approved for what our children are supposed to know and be able to do in the state of Louisiana from K through 12^th grade,” Brumley explained. 

“We call it the Freedom Framework. It sets out the fact that we want students to explore the people, the places and the papers that have contributed to the greatness of America. We wanted them to appreciate how America is on a quest for a more perfect union, and not there yet. 

“We wanted them to understand and appreciate the sacrifices and struggles that various groups have gone through in the quest for that more perfect union.” 

Various left-wing commentators and organizations have spoken out against the partnership, characterizing PragerU’s content as “discriminatory” and inaccurate. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) demanded Louisiana’s Department of Education cut ties with PragerU on the basis that the group “has a history of spreading ahistorical propaganda and Islamophobia.”  

While the state of Louisiana will make the materials created by PragerU available to teachers for use in fulfilling the required standards of the Freedom Framework, Brumley stressed that teachers are not mandated to use the materials. He said the partnership is “simply about providing teachers a resource that they might use and consider as they teach their students the Freedom Framework.”