Friends, I'm ecstatic to make this groundbreaking announcement.
PragerU is now making it into schools.
>> Speaker 2: You just heard from the CEO over at PragerU, which, of course,
is not an actual accredited educational institution.
But Marissa Street argues that now Florida will allow PragerU
materials to be utilized in their grade school curriculum.
For now, that's only allowed in the state of Florida.
But this is a dream for the conservatives over at PragerU and
the wealthy donors that help to fund PragerU.
And when you consider the ideological slant there, it is a problem,
especially coming from the individuals who claim that they're concerned about
indoctrination in public schools.
But we'll get to the details on what the course materials could
involve in just a moment.
First, it's important to understand the scope of this project, PragerU is infamous
for their online videos, and there's plenty of that in PragerU Kids as well.
The PragerU Kids material can now be used in Florida public schools, and
PragerU Kids offers a lot more, including lesson plans,
worksheets, books, and shows.
PragerU Kids'most infamous show is Leo and Layla, and
it's about two time traveling children who ask historical figures for
advice on how to deal with modern day problems.
And as you can imagine, the modern day problems are often based on conservative
culture, war narratives and grievances.
So we're going to get to the examples in just a moment.
But Cenk, I mean, I was under the impression that conservatives didn't want
indoctrination in public schools.
>> Speaker 3: All of a sudden, when it's indoctrination from the right wing,
they seem to be pretty in favor of it.
So there's two different problems here, number one,
PragerU is funded completely by right wing billionaires.
So this is now a pipeline for some right wing billionaires going,
I'd like to indoctrinate the kids with my particular propaganda, so
I'm gonna pay Prager, and then Prager is going to get it into the schools, and
that way we're gonna brainwash the kids into horrible things.
So PragerU Kids is apparently a little bit different than PragerU overall.
>> Right.
>> Speaker 3: But PragerU does the worst videos.
So I'll just give you one example, and then we'll go back to PragerU Kids to give
you a sense of what this organization is about.
They did a video celebrating and praising Robert E Lee,
saying his statue shouldn't be taken down.
And in the video, they explained, because Robert E Lee, one of the upsides of
him was that he put down a slave rebellion and killed everyone who was rebelling.
Like, how is that an upside?
That's monstrous.
>> Speaker 2: I mean, look, considering what we just shared with you all in regard
to Florida's updated education standards and how they want to point to alleged
silver linings when it came to slavery, it's clear here what they're doing, right?
Like, there's revisionism, clearly revisionist history involved here.
And look, I don't want, can we just teach kids how to read?
Okay, we have a very real problem in the country right now where a huge portion of
grade school kids can't read.
Part of it is because the education system for
a number of years moved away from the phonics way of teaching kids how to read.
Part of it has to do with the coronavirus pandemic and how people had to resort
to teaching online and kids had to learn when they were home and that was really,
really difficult for them to do.
Could we just stop politicizing public school education and
focus on the basics here?
How about a personal finance class in high schools?
>> Speaker 3: That would be amazing.
>> Right, but we're not having that conversation.
Instead we're talking about politicizing curriculum,
when in reality these kids should be learning the basics so
they can survive and do well in life.
>> Speaker 3: Another part of the video celebrated Robert E Lee for saying, look,
slavery is a moral sin, but remember, blacks are inferior and
I think they can get educated, but of course they shouldn't be allowed to vote.
So this is what we're celebrating, this is what we're gonna teach the kids.
>> Speaker 2: Let's actually show you guys specific examples not from PragerU,
PragerU Kids.
Okay, the series featuring Leo and Layla.
So here's one clip about how Galileo wouldn't want you to take
the coronavirus vaccine.
>> Speaker 4: I am Galileo, I love experiments,
science is both a collection of steps and rules from past experiments and
also a never ending process of questioning and testing.
>> Speaker 2: Can you give an example?
>> Speaker 4: When I made my first telescope, I did not create it from
nowhere, I built upon findings of other scientists around Europe.
I followed their steps perfectly, but after careful observation,
I noticed that if I change some of the instructions,
I might be able to make a more powerful telescope.
>> Speaker 1: So it's okay to go against the instructions if you think you can make
something better.
>> Speaker 4: It is most definitely okay to have questions and
try to make improvements.
>> Speaker 5: That's right, Bob,
government officials are telling Americans who have questions not to worry.
Everyone just needs to follow the steps they've been given and trust the science.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Speaker 2: Right, except, look, that video totally avoids providing
information about how the vaccine was developed in the first place.
It makes it seem as though the vaccine was developed overnight when in reality
it had already, the mRNA technology had been developed in Canada years and
years prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
But of course that's left out of the conversation entirely in that video.
>> Speaker 3: Okay, let me explain how much they perverted the Galileo story.
So now Galileo was a legendary scientist and he wanted people to listen to
science back then instead of superstition and let's be honest, religion.
And so Galileo broke people's hearts by telling them that we are not the center of
the universe.
And Christianity and almost all the world religions were saying, no,
we are the center of the universe.
The sun goes around us, the entire universe goes around us, and
Galileo is like, I got bad news for you guys but science is real, right?
They were so mad at him, they threatened to murder him over and over and
over again.
And then, of course, they arrested him, and he died under house arrest,
which he could never get out of for the rest of his life because he did science.
Now, these right wingers, when it came to believing scientists,
did the same exact thing that the people who hounded Galileo did.
Don't believe the scientists, we don't like what they're saying,
we want you to be politically correct, not factually correct, okay?
Boo, scientist, and then they bring out Galileo cartoon as if he's on their side.
No, he's exactly the type of scientist you guys pilloried before and
are pillaring now.
And then they pretend he's on their side.
Come on, get out of here.
>> Speaker 2: I'm gonna skip ahead to the last video here.
I have not watched this one yet, but
there's other content outside of the Leo and Layla stuff.
So here's a YouTube short titled how to Embrace Your Femininity.
Again, this is part of PragerU Kids how to Embrace Your Femininity and
watch how they don't reveal the real point of the video until the very end.
>> Speaker 6: Most gender stereotypes exist because they reflect the way that
men and women are naturally different, and those differences aren't bad.
Men and women complement each other and create a well balanced family and
community.
So don't let anyone tell you it's bad to fit stereotypes,
those people are just trying too hard to be cool.
>> Speaker 2: Pink, how original.
>> Speaker 6: If you wanna wear pink, wear pink.
If you wanna dress up in a girly dress, do it.
Make yourself pretty, master the art of makeup.
Practice good hygiene, go buy all the things that
smell good and create a torpedo of fragrance.
If you want to wear high heels, go for it.
Just practice walking before getting close to any ledges,
embrace the idea of being a wife or a mother.
On the other hand, don't feel guilty if pursuing a career is the right choice for
your family.
>> Speaker 2: So, great, I mean, look, if you love your femininity,
obviously I love that celebrate your femininity.
But there's clear propaganda there [LAUGH] Come one
>> 100%, look, if she had said, hey,
listen, if you wanna wear pink and you wanna wear high heels, have added Haas.
And if you don't want to and you wanna wear sneakers, and if you're a woman and
you like other women, have added Haas, we believe in freedom.
We believe all these things are balanced and wonderful, etc, then great,
no problem, right?
No, that was 100% heterosexual propaganda, right?
>> Speaker 6: Yeah, it was meant to uphold traditional gender roles and
kind of push girls in that direction.
>> Speaker 3: 100%, so now, the schools don't actually in Florida and
other places, they're like, the schools teach people to be gay, they made that up.
No, they don't.
Like in kindergarten, is anybody going around going, guys,
you got to be gay [LAUGH] It's not a thing, right?
So they invented a problem that doesn't exist,
and their solution now is propaganda from PragerU, which actually is propaganda
saying you should be heterosexual and not anything else.
Again, if it was well rounded,
being the choice to do all the things she said in the video is no problem at all.
But when you tell kids that is the correct way of thinking,
that's exactly what propaganda is.
>> Speaker 2: And when you consider who funds their content,
then you get a sense of what the real objective is, right?
And look, the point I'm trying to make here it's all conservative focus,
and I don't like that.
And we should take any type of conservative propaganda out of public
education.
No, I want to be very clear,
we should take all politicized propaganda out of public education.
Kids should learn they should learn math, they should learn science.
They should learn actual, accurate history, they should learn how to read.
They should learn personal finance,
they should get the skills necessary to thrive in life, okay?
But instead it's now become a political war zone where you have the right
wing trying to inject their version of history into public education.
And it's so stupid, and it's making kids ignorant honestly.
>> Speaker 3: Look, guys, one quick point here, just think about that video.
Does that help you in math or science or history?
>> No.
>> Why are they showing that video to kids?
Like, they don't show a video telling kids, you know, it's okay to be gay,
being gay is awesome, let's all be drag, there is no such video.
Why is this in a school at all?
That's for the parents to decide how they wanna raise their kids, not for
Randall Barbie over here to brainwash the kids into a certain lifestyle.
So it's so ironic where they're like, just teach the kids reading and writing,
don't teach the propaganda and then they give them propaganda through PragerU.
>> Speaker 2: And just to give you a sense of just how much funding they receive,
this is a piece written in The New York Times back in 2020.
And at the time they wrote that in 2019, PragerU raised $22 million the next year,
meaning in 2020, it estimates it will raise $25 million,
its budget comes almost entirely from donor contributions.
>> Speaker 3: So we've explained this before, but real quick,
if you haven't seen those videos,
what that means is they're not a business where they get an investment.
They try to make a profit, return the money to the investors, etc.
That means they're just a marketing organization,
somebody gives them $25 million, they do propaganda videos, and
they're not expected to return the money, it's not an investment.
No, they are being paid to do propaganda.
And so now that propaganda, that the right wing donors paid for
is gonna go into your kids schools.
>> Speaker 2: And they're tax exempt as a nonprofit organization.
So fantastic.