2024 is the year of the dragon, a fitting mascot for the fiery election that is set to take place this November. As many Troy High School seniors prepare to vote in their first election, a recent right-wing policy guide outlines a possible future for American students.
In April of 2023, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, unveiled Project 2025 and accompanying 920-page document, “A Mandate for Leadership: The Conservatives Promise.” Intended for the next Republican president, the document provides specific instructions on how to “rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left,” and instructs the president to “attack wokeness” on the fronts of trade, popular culture, and education. The Heritage Foundation advises the president to support an overhaul of the United States education system and to eliminate the United States Department of Education. Should this policy be passed, how would the student experience at Troy High School change?
The Heritage Foundation asserts that United States public schools tend to over represent leftist points of view when discussing political and social issues. To combat “possible indoctrination,” Project 2025 sees that teachers refrain from using materials that feature bias in favor of non-partisan, “pro-America” lessons.
Ryan Werenka speaks to his experience as an Advanced Placement U.S. Government Teacher. “AP classes are a convenient target for groups like the Heritage Foundation. They have objected to the curriculum from AP US History and AP African American Studies.” He continues, “The AP US Government and Politics curriculum is very well balanced from the foundational documents, mandatory supreme court cases, and all of the core concepts from the course and exam description. The curriculum was designed by non-partisan organizations and equal numbers of liberal and conservative scholars.”
Black Student Union advisor, Sydney Barosko adds, “A large part of education is teaching students to be critical thinkers.” She continues, “Working with and learning to spot bias is important in functioning in such a diverse society.”
The Heritage Foundation works to remove bias from classrooms by limiting a teacher’s role in classroom discussions. Under Project 2025, teachers would be barred from participating in conversations about politics, race and identity, only serving to observe and facilitate discussions.
Literacy coach Jodie Duda explains how teachers currently approach difficult subjects. “Teachers try very mightily to facilitate open discussion about difficult ideas. So many different views exist, and we try to help kids moderate those discussions in a way where they are exploring ideas, rather than trying to favor one idea over the other. It’s definitely a skill that we’re always working on; making sure that every voice is heard and not shutting down ideas. Even if ideas are unfavorable to some, perhaps open discussion can serve to show where certain ideas come from, fostering understanding.”
At Troy High School, teachers already play little to no role in leading students to ideological conclusions, so some might wonder what exactly would Project 2025 be legislating against.
According to Werenka, “[Project 2025] seems like a half-baked proposal that demonstrates a lack of knowledge about how classrooms function.” Further, he would “direct the Heritage Foundation and Paul Dans to audit a Free Speech class by UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh. Professor Volokh is a libertarian/conservative scholar that is well-versed on what speech is protected in schools.”
Project 2025 would seek to remove “radical racial and gender ideologies” from classrooms, by omitting discussions and explorations of identity in curriculum.
Barosko outlines how this could affect a student’s education. “Talking about identity is important in all subjects because every student enters the classroom with a different set of experiences. The way teachers, of any subject, approach issues is dependent on the lived experience of their students, and we can never presume that every student has had the same lived experiences.”
Barosko continues “The way students interpret information depends on their background, whether that be educational, ethnic or racial. When race is omitted, you ignore a large part of what our society and perceptions are built upon.”
The Heritage Foundation is vague about what is encompassed in “radical racial and gender ideologies,” and it is unclear exactly what Project 2025 would work to remove. Ryan Werenka assumes “the policy would try to remove legal protections from discrimination from LGBTQ+ and racial minorities. Right now racial minorities and LGBTQ+ are protected as suspect classes in the area of employment, but this could allow them to be fired or denied a job with no threat of legal consequences.”
The Heritage Foundation views their policy guide as a playbook for the next Republican president, and they intend the next right-wing executive to begin enacting Project 2025 on the day of the inauguration. Ryan Werenka predicted that “if Donald Trump wins the White House, I imagine that he would work quickly to try to remake the civil service in this way. I could see there being court challenges, but it is quite possible that the Supreme Court would allow these policies to take place.” However, it is up to the voters to determine whether or not Project 2025 will be the future of America.
