Proclaim oppression in every lesson: Philly students will be 'historically illiterate' social-justice activists

Philadelphia, birthplace of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, wants students to see America as a land of racism, greed, exploitation and oppression, reports Frannie Block on The Free Press.

The recommended curriculum emphasizes “multi-perspectivity and dialectical thinking involving marginalized and historically excluded voices,” Ismael Jimenez, the district’s director of social studies curriculum, said last year. Educators are “agents of change," he said in a March Instagram post. “Every child should walk into a classroom and feel the revolution stirring in the air because that’s what real education is: liberation with a syllabus."

Jimenez also has "posted an image of the American flag being thrown in the trash and compared the U.S. to the Soviet Union and North Korea," Block writes.

Multi-perspectivity is a fancy way of saying that students should learn about different perspectives on events, but a veteran social studies teachers told Block that the curriculum reflects only one view of history. “It’s just teaching opinions and couching it as liberating and the truth,” the teacher said.

Block provides sample lessons:

• An African American history assignment asks students to select a song to "replace" the national anthem after "critically examining race and racism."

• Students are taught to examine the “development of American foreign policy” through the lens of historical “race and racism.”

• A unit about domestic politics during the Cold War concludes “with an examination of the concept related to middle-class identity and mythology of whiteness tied to normalcy of status quo economics.”

• A unit in world history teaches that “economic inequality” shows “the need for systemic changes and equitable economic policies.” The unit examines “the intersections of climate justice, economic justice, anti-fascism, and human rights.”

The curriculum “gives students an incomplete and overwhelmingly negative view of our history, and it doesn’t teach students how to evaluate information and arguments in order to reach their own conclusions,” concludes an evaluation by the North American Values Institute (NAVI). “Students will leave the classroom historically illiterate yet primed for ‘social justice’ activism,” said Mika Hackner, a NAVI researcher.

Of course, teachers could ignore the curriculum, if they choose, but some may not know enough history to challenge its assumptions.

It's not clear whether students will be liberated or just confused. "Just 18 percent of the district’s eighth graders are considered “at or above proficient” in reading, compared with 30 percent nationwide, according to 2024 national assessment results," writes Block.

Philadelphia has embedded African and African-American history in the K-12 curriculum, Sierra Lyons wrote in 2024 on The 74.

Seventh-graders studying world history spend twice as much time on indigenous people in North and Latin America as they do on ancient civilizations such as Greece and Rome. Jiminez told Lyons he wants to take the focus off Europeans.

"Students are encouraged to focus less on essay writing and multiple-choice tests and more on what the district calls authentic performance tasks to show their knowledge of course material in creative ways, such as conducting mock trials, writing letters to museums inquiring how they obtained certain African artifacts and contacting school districts and companies that make maps to ask about biases and racism in their creation," reports Lyons. Students watch short videos.

Tenth-grade African-American History is a graduation requirement.