CONCORD, N.H.— Today, the New Hampshire School Board of Education approved a Prager U Financial Literacy video course for a ½ credit towards graduation from New Hampshire Public Schools. AFT-NH President Deb Howes released the following statement.
“Self-described as “edutainment,” PragerU does not even pretend to be a legitimate educational institution and certainly not one that is deserving of the trust that Granite State families put in the state of New Hampshire to ensure that each child is receiving an honest, academically rigorous and unbiased public education.
Instead of ensuring that students will learn financial literacy, the unelected NH Board of Education, approved a series of shallow 5-minute videos, with no educational rigor that encourage passive viewing and rote memorization but no deeper understanding. Even worse, approving this financial literacy content legitimizes the whole catalog of incredibly objectionable content in PragerU’s kids video library. At best these videos are historically inaccurate and at worst they are purposefully teaching students inaccurate, inappropriate, harmful and biased views on history, science, civics and government and roles in society. They are produced by media company PragerU specifically to push an extremist viewpoint and agenda, one that is out of step with most Granite State families.
The appointed State Board of Education should set high academic expectations for all Granite State public school students. It should demand that all courses seeking approval for public high school credit be academically rigorous and the materials be of the highest quality without introducing any political bias into our public schools. They failed today and cheapened the education of every Granite State student in the process.”
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