The promotional videos all start the same: Each begins with Marissa Streit, chief executive of PragerU, the conservative nonprofit primarily known for producing web videos featuring right-wing pundits and short documentaries criticizing progressive policies.
Streit introduces a top state education official, who then raves about the new partnership between PragerU and their state’s public schools.
In one clip, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters says he “could not be more excited to get this content into our classrooms,” adding that he used PragerU videos himself as a history teacher.
New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, in his appearance, explains enthusiastically that students in his state can use PragerU videos to meet a high school graduation requirement, noting, “It’s quality content — it’s highly engaging for the kids.”
Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen, meanwhile, says her state’s new relationship with PragerU will help educators recognize “how to teach things.”
PragerU was founded in 2009. Its recent videos feature messages opposing transgender health care and suggesting Americans say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy holidays.” Last year, the organization debuted a line of cartoons and classroom materials aimed at school children, called PragerU Kids, which over the last six months has received approval from four state education agencies.
The PragerU Kids video content ranges from lessons for teens about why universal health care systems in countries like Canada are worse than the United States’ system, to an explanation for young children about Israel’s Iron Dome.
In one animation, two time-traveling kids ask Christopher Columbus whether he enslaved Indigenous people. Cartoon Columbus responds, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed,” and insists it is “estupido” to judge him by modern moral standards. In another, the abolitionist Frederick…
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