Trump Administration Calls On Teachers to Indoctrinate Students in American History

President Trump doesn't want history teachers to indoctrinate students unless it is his preferred form of indoctrination.

This week President Trump continued the demonization of public school teachers that defined his first term in office. In an executive order the Trump administration accused teachers of the following:

In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight. Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination. In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics.

Much of the president’s order directly impacts the teaching of American history in public schools.

First, we need to establish at the outset that there is no evidence that history teachers are actively indoctrinating students. The American Historical Association recently completed a thorough investigation of what students are learning in classrooms across the country. The report included a survey of 3,000 middle and high school US history educators, along with interviews of over 200 teachers and administrators, and the collection of thousands of pages of instructional materials from small towns to sprawling suburbs to big cities.

Investigators concluded:

Secondary US history teachers are professionals who are concerned mostly with helping their students learn central elements of our nation’s history. Teachers want students to read and understand founding documents to prepare them for informed civic engagement. They also want students to grapple with the complex history and legacies of racism and slavery. These goals are entirely compatible. We did not find indoctrination, politicization, or deliberate classroom malpractice.

I’ve been working with history teachers through, various professional development programs for over twenty years, and I have never met a teacher who resembles the accusations characterized by the president’s executive order.

If anyone is pushing for the indoctrination of our students, it is President Trump. Don’t take my word for it. He spells it out in the order calling for the teaching of “Patriotic education.”

(Source: President’s Executive Order, January 29, 2025)

This is the very definition of indoctrination. This program of indoctrination will be supported, in part, by a newly-revived Project 1776, which had been introduced in the waning days of Trump’s first term in office.

This commitment to “Patriotice education” through indoctrination and force is part of a much larger plan to expunge any exploration of race and gender in our history and its place in organizing our society today.

What Does This Mean For History Teachers?

The short answer is that it is too early to tell.

History educators across the country have been dealing with Republican threats and legislation attempting to intimidate and control their teaching for a number of years. It’s difficult to gauge the extent of the damage and how specifically these threats are shaping our classrooms.

That said, I don’t think my fellow k-12 history educators should ignore this executive order. Depending on the state and community in which they live, it may be wise to ask for guidance from department chairs and other administrators. It may be best to do so as a department rather than as an individual.

In other words, ask for clarification.

Force them to ask their superiors for clarification and so on. Get them on record both for later reference and as a way to begin the conversation.

My concern right now is not so much with the federal government, but with local right-wing activists like “Moms for Liberty” who will use this opportunity to ratchet up their hate campaign against local teachers.

What I do know is that the rhetoric coming out of the White House will continue and will likely get worse.

Once again, I find it infuriating that teachers, who are largely overworked and underpaid, are being turned into enemies of the state simply to serve the political interests of a tyrant.

This plan to indoctrinate students is matched only by the president’s own ignorance of American history, which he has demonstrated on multiple occasions.

“Never fight uphill, me boys.”