(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Dennis Prager's PragerU: Grooming Public School Kids With Right-Wing Funded Propaganda [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-17 “PragerU shows up everywhere with medicine for the mind so that we can cure and help people think clearly.” Marissa Streit, CEO, PragerU Its ultra-conservative videos on historical and contemporary hot button issues are available for use in public school classrooms in at least six states. And its influence is growing. PragerU is in the forefront of spreading misinformation and disinformation about climate change, U.S. history, economics, race relations and an assortment of other topics. And, it is being funded by a coterie of right wing foundations and donors. Let’s start with some basic questions. What is PragerU? Who is the U’s namesake Dennis Prager? And how in heaven’s name are the videos it’s producing getting into public schools across the country? According to The Washington Post’s Hannah Natanson and Laura Meckler (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/06/13/prageru-conservative-education-videos/), in 2009 PragerU was founded by conservative talk show host Dennis Prager and screenwriter Allen Estrin. They “began by producing videos aimed at college students and expanded its offerings in 2021 to reach younger students. Its website says its goal is to counter ‘the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education’ by promoting ‘American values.’” The Washington Post reported on the nonprofit’s broad reach, “count[ing] more than 11.3 million followers across its social media profiles on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and X according to a Post tally. PragerU’s website says it draws 5 million views each day. Its revenue catapulted from $36 million in 2020 to $68.7 million in 2023, tax records show.” According to The Guardian, Prager “has become a fundraising Goliath, raking in close to $200m from 2018 to 2022 with big checks from top conservative donors, tax records reveal.” Prager is savvy enough spend a chunk of his money on marketing. And that marketing is paying off; he has 3 million subscribers to his YouTube channel. Donors have included the ultra-conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the National Christian Foundation and Texas fracking billionaires Farris and Dan Wilks, according to the Guardian and SourceWatch.org. DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund that supports conservative and libertarian causes and has channeled funds to PragerU. Grooming Kids Most recently, PragerU has been concentrating on its Kids content NPR reported in early March. According to NPR’s Lisa Hagen, “Arizona recently became the latest state where education officials have embraced online videos produced by PragerU. It follows at least four other states that approved Prager’s material for use in public school classrooms last year…” The videos are short and oversimplified. One video, according to NPR, “features an animated Christopher Columbus saying: ‘Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.” Columbus then goes on “to scold two time-traveling kids for judging him based on current-day thinking about slavery.” Another video claims that abolitionist Frederick Douglass defended the Founding Father’s support of slavery. Douglass was well known for vigorously opposing compromising about slavery. In a statement to NPR, PragerU stated: “It appears that any material that contradicts the left’s narrative cannot be permitted because their arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny, even just five minutes’ worth.” “PragerU’s materials are hyperpartisan to the point of propaganda, inaccurate and incredibly substandard,” said Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, a statewide teachers group. Arizona launched a PragerU partnership in January. “Supporters of the PragerU partnerships,” Natanson and Meckler pointed out, “note that teachers are not being required to deploy the materials. They say the introduction of PragerU to public school classrooms is a much-needed course correction after years in which schools adopted implicitly or explicitly left-leaning lessons based on materials like the New York Times’s 1619 Project, which positions slavery at the heart of the nation’s founding.” While it is currently unclear whether PragerU’s videos are actually being used in classrooms in states with PragerU partnerships, one thing is clear; the videos are chock full of inaccuracies. The Washington Post noted that “Critics say PragerU lessons distort history and facts to serve a conservative worldview. Some scientists have said PragerU videos lack context and downplay climate change as climate alarmism, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations alleges some videos are anti-Muslim. Other complaints center on the nonprofit’s portrayal of slavery. In many PragerU videos that deal with the topic, various historical figures assert that people in the 21st century should not view those in the past by the light of modern-day values.” Distinguishing truth from lies, fact from fiction, in the age of social media on steroids, advancing artificial intelligence, masters of deception, and purposeful disinformation brokers is extremely important yet preposterously difficult. PragerU does not adhere to rigorous academic standards, peer review, or scholarly scrutiny, which are essential for maintaining educational integrity. PragerU’s video invasion into public schools makes the work of ferreting out fact from fiction that much more difficult. 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