While press reporting is scanty, it would appear that the America 250 Civics Education Coalition—an organization convened and coordinated by the U.S. Department of Education and the America First Policy Institute—is attempting to drive a particular historical bias on American history into public schools across the states at the same time the U.S. Department of Education is making grants to promote patriotic civics education in public schools.

Last September, when the  America 250 Civics Education Coalition was launched, the U.S. Department press release declared: “This landmark initiative is dedicated to renewing patriotism, strengthening civic knowledge, and advancing a shared understanding of America’s founding principles in schools across the nation… ‘As America approaches 250 years since its founding, we are proud to announce this coalition to ensure every young American understands the beauty of our nation and is equipped with the civic knowledge required to contribute meaningfully to its future,’ said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.”

Red flags appear later in the press release when the U.S. Department of Education lists the more than 40 organizations convened to operate the project.  They include the Alliance Defending Freedom, America First Legal, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Claremont Institute, the Council for National Policy, the Eagle Forum, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, the Goldwater Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, Moms for Liberty, PragerU, and Turning Point USA.

When the Department of Education and the  America First Policy Institute announced the project, News from the States’ Shauneen Miranda quoted an official from Department of Education: “The coalition will have nothing to do with school curricula, a department official said last month, acknowledging that the agency legally cannot dictate what schools teach. And it will not receive any federal funding from the department, the official added.”  This group promoting “patriotic history” will apparently compliment the work of two other coalitions, America 250 and Freedom 250, which are organizing the celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday this summer. There is a lot of hoopla here without many specifics about how any of this might affect what children learn in public schools about civics and American history.

In the inaugural address at the January 2025 meeting of the American Historical Association, a history professor at Western Washington University, Johann Neem discussed three very different ways people are approaching American history today. Neem’s explanation helps clarify what seems to be going on with the Trump administration’s purpose as it shapes our nation’s 250th birthday this summer:

“Despite the importance and need for national history right now, historians disagree profoundly on the narratives to offer Americans. Much like other Americans, historians are divided by politics and culture… (W)e find historians offering three distinct narratives, each with its own politics and each providing Americans a different civic story. The first, perhaps the dominant, paradigm among professional historians is what I refer to as the ‘post-American’ turn in U.S. history, a turn that reflects some progressive historians’ deep frustration with Americans’ unwillingness to confront the ongoing legacies of racism and other forms of inequality… In response, conservatives instead offer what I call a ‘hyper-American’ counternarrative in which the country’s best qualities become its constitutive features while its wrongs—including slavery and racial inequality—are contingent and secondary… Between the post-American and hyper-American paradigms is what I call ‘mainstream’ American history because it reflects the historical sensibility of most Americans regardless of race, ethnicity, or party affiliation… It combines a narrative of progress with acknowledgments of America’s wrongs and an emphasis on struggles for justice and equality. To mainstream historians, the story of America is that of an unfinished experiment.”

The Trump administration’s bias on American history has never been a secret. In 2025, President Trump released at least two executive orders which define what Neem calls the “hyper-American counternarrative”: Celebrating America’s 25th Birthday, on January 29th, and Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, on March 27th. Then on September 17, the U.S. Department of Education proposed guidance to define rules for Departmental grants supporting school projects in American history—Proposed Priority and Definitions–Secretary’s Supplemental Priority and Definitions on Promoting Patriotic Education—for comment in the Federal Register.  Here is some of the language in the proposed federal guidance:

“The success of the American experiment in self-government requires the cultivation of both citizenship, competency, and informed patriotism among the American People. Citizens must understand why our free-market economy is a highly evolved system of cooperation fostered by our constitutional republic, and how it functions to secure the blessings of liberty for all Americans… (O)ur voluntary individual actions channeled through the intermediary institutions of civil society—such as our companies, places of worship, schools, fraternal organizations and civic association—are critically important to the proper functioning of the American economic, social, and political system. In the American system of liberty, educated citizens who know their rights and meet their responsibilities cooperate to build a more perfect Union and inherit the opportunities of a free society…Proposed Priority: Projects that are designed to provide an introduction to and understanding of the founding documents and primary sources of the American political tradition in a manner consistent with the principles of a patriotic education… Patriotic education means a presentation of the history of America grounded in an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of the American founding and foundational principles, a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history; and the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified… Nothing in this definition should be construed as implicating a particular curriculum, program of instruction or specific academic content.”

As you might expect, the formal comments submitted on the proposed federal grant program covered a range of critiques—positive and negative. The American Historical Association asked its members to submit comments and suggested concerns: “Students deserve an honest and full account of U.S. history. This funding priority promises to support the teaching of ‘accurate and honest’ content. We consider this goal profoundly important, and this is why we are concerned about efforts to scrub historical content from federal websites, remove factual signage at historic sites, and attack curatorial decisions at Smithsonian museums, alleging that this history is insufficiently celebratory in its depiction of the United States… The Department of Education’s rule asserts that there can only be one interpretation of an event, an assertion that runs contrary to the practice of history, and the importance of allowing people to engage in civil deliberations… This rule narrows the concept of patriotism and patriotic education, with a disproportionate focus on the Founding Era, a period when most Americans could not vote, when many were enslaved, and before the U.S. Constitution explicitly embraced equal protection.”

In its formal comment, the Education Law Center does not accept the Department of Education’s assurance that its grants would avoid prescribing a specific curriculum: “By promoting a vague and ideologically motivated vision of ‘patriotic’ education, the U.S. Department of Education would violate federal law prohibiting interference with local control over curricula and chill accurate and inclusive instruction… The  proposed priority represents an unprecedented and unlawful attempt by the federal government to control state and local curricula… The federal government is in fact prohibited from interfering with state and local autonomy over curriculum. Federal agencies, including the Department, are expressly prohibited from directing, supervising, or controlling the curriculum, program of instruction, personnel or selection of instructional materials of any educational institution or school system.”

Warnings such as these are why Ohioans are concerned about a new initiative, announced last week, at Bowling Green State University, which is recruiting public school teachers for its CIVICS 250 Scholars Program: “Through funding by the (U.S.) Department of Education, the Democracy and Public Policy Network at Bowling Green State University is… establish(ing) learning communities among K-12 educators across the region over the next three years focused on developing and strengthening American history and civics education. Each cohort will consist of approximately 35 teachers who will receive year-long training and gain expert insight from BGSU faculty to establish learning communities in their districts… Through the learning communities, the Democracy and Public Policy Network will help Ohio’s K-12 teachers develop lessons and resources focused on the nation’s foundational principles, including the ideas, traditions and institutions essential to understanding American government and history. Teachings will focus on America’s founding documents including the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the anti-Federalist Papers, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, while also bringing in knowledge of lesser-known documents to broaden the scope of participating teachers’ ability to educate their students.”

Bowling Green’s Democracy and Public Policy Network, where the new initiative is to be housed, was created in 2024, is led by four of the university’s political science professors and has convened a bipartisan advisory board. Perhaps the university staff and the program’s board will ensure its political independence and freedom from historical bias. However, questions remain about the leaders’ and professors’ capacity to encourage open discussion and debate about major issues in American history when the grant that underwrites the program comes from the U.S. Department of Education, which launched the America 250 Civics Education Coalition.

Last November, the Harvard historian and writer for The New Yorker, Jill Lepore worried about the Trump administration’s effort to shape history: “An early executive order denounced ‘the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology’ abroad in the land and called for ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,’ under which the  Administration has sought to dictate what the American story is, and who can tell it. Much federal funding now requires celebrating American greatness, military valor, and exceptionalism… A tragedy of this year, if, admittedly, a small one relative to what else is going wrong in the United States, is that the two-hundred-and-fiftieth will be a missed opportunity to wrestle with the meaning of the American Revolution and of the principles on which the nation was founded at a time when debating those ideas and confronting their implications are desperately needed”