1619 Project creator: Parents shouldn’t decide what is taught in schools

by WorldTribune Staff, December 27, 2021

Parents should not be deciding what is taught in their kids’ schools, according to Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project.

Nikole Hannah-Jones / C-SPAN

“I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught. I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science. We send our children to school because we want them to be taught by people who have expertise in the subject area. And that is not my job,” Hannah-Jones said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.

The 1619 Project asserts that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. Despite being discredited by historians of all political stripes, the project has made its way into hundreds of school curricula.

Related: 1619 Project author: America ‘not an exceptional nation’; Curriculum widely adopted by U.S. schools, September 10, 2020

Referencing former Virginia Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Hannah-Jones said, “When the governor or the candidate said he didn’t think parents should be deciding what’s being taught in school, he was panned for that, but that’s just the fact. This is why we send our children to school and don’t homeschool, because these are the professional educators who have the expertise to teach social studies, to teach history, to teach science, to teach literature. I think we should leave that to the educators. Yes, we should have some say, but school is not about simply confirming our worldview. Schools should teach us to question. They should teach us how to think, not what to think.”

McAuliffe’s support for the teaching of critical race theory was a key reason he was defeated in last month’s gubernatorial race by Republican Glenn Youngkin.

Last week, Hannah-Jones claimed that journalists are too neutral when covering politicians.

“Now, in an attempt to say, ‘Well, we’re going to treat both political parties equally’ when we clearly have, in this moment, one political party that is passing anti-democratic policies, that is upholding people with authoritarianism ideas,” Hannah-Jones said.


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