Opinion: Cash Course, and the ethics of influence
Published: 10-01-2023 7:00 AM |
Christopher Herr of Concord is a teacher at Concord High School and a parent.
Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut and the NH State Board of Education have made it clear in recent years that teachers should never use their positions to push their values, opinions, and/or political ideologies onto their students. In June 2018, the State Board of Education adopted The Code of Ethics for NH Educators. Principle III states in part, “the educator acts in the best interests of all students by…endeavoring to present facts with fidelity to the content and without distortion, bias, or personal prejudice.”
Commissioner Edelblut, in an op-ed posted April 15, 2022, titled Education’s Sacred Trust, discussed at length his concerns that a growing number of New Hampshire teachers were inappropriately using their classrooms to push their own beliefs onto their students. The commissioner stated that “...effective educators know that blatant displays of bias are not necessary. They can teach challenging and sometimes controversial topics without allowing their personal preferences to seep through to the children.”
This is something, I imagine, on which we can all agree. Students should have the opportunity to develop their own personal and political values and beliefs, and schools can help facilitate that discovery but should rarely, if ever, try to influence its direction outside of promoting and securing physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
Enter PragerU.
Our state educational leaders and the leadership of PragerU have repeatedly stated that the Cash Course program is a politically neutral, competency-based program for achieving financial literacy. At the same time, many New Hampshire residents these past weeks and months have also questioned the neutrality of PragerU, and there have been more than a few Letters to the Editor published by readers concerned about the highly political, conservative perspectives presented in the non-Cash Course videos on PragerU’s website.
PragerU CEO Marissa Streit responded to these allegations in a letter to Drew Cline, chair of the NH State Board of Education, in which Ms. Streit stated, among other things, that “Our lesson plans are non-political, especially Cash Course, which focuses only on financial literacy.”
Is Cash Course non-political?
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I reviewed all of the videos within the Cash Course. Most are, in my opinion, non-political, as PragerU claims. They are also completely lacking in depth and in no way ensure our students will be competent in “effective planning and management of financial resources,” as would be required under the proposed new graduation competency in ED 306.27(u)(6)(g). But that’s another matter. However, two of the videos, one titled ‘Understanding Taxes’ and another titled ‘Reading your Paystub,’ are also blatantly political and anti-tax.
‘Understanding Taxes’ contains two different images of people screaming when the word taxes appears or is spoken by the narrator. The video description states “nobody likes taxes” and during the video, the narrator states “taxes are an unavoidable and frustrating part of life.” In ‘Reading your Paystub,’ the narrator comments that it is “annoying that people don’t get to keep all the money they’ve earned” while later a character states that not keeping all of their pay is “gross.” And for good measure, the ‘Reading your Paystub’ narrator states that what students have learned will enable them to make better choices when they vote someday.
Those statements are not “non-political” as Ms. Streit states (neither is the imagery of screaming). Those statements emphasize the simple conservative ideology that taxes are bad —“unavoidable,” “frustrating,” “annoying,” and “gross.” Those statements also seem to blatantly violate the expectations our state government has set for the ethical conduct of teachers.
So what gives?
Are Learn Everywhere programs held to a lower standard than teachers in New Hampshire? Did the State Board of Education and Commissioner Edelblut not notice the blatant bias and attempts to politically influence our students present in those two videos? Did they notice and not care?
How would Commissioner Edelblut and the State Board of Education feel if it was not a PragerU video but a teacher making the same statements in a New Hampshire classroom? What if the teacher screamed every time a picture of President Trump was shown in class? What if the teacher stated “Nobody likes the Second Amendment?” Or “Republicans are annoying, frustrating, and gross?” What if the teacher followed up by stating that students should remember those words when they vote?
Commissioner Edelblut and the State Board of Education are correct that teachers should never attempt to push their values and beliefs onto their students. We do have a sacred trust and our students should be free to explore, learn, and develop their own identities, values, and political beliefs. I would hope the same ethical expectations apply to Learn Everywhere programs and if they do not, I would hope the commissioner and the State Board of Education can and will explain why not.
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