The Department of Education Celebrates America, and the Left Hates It

By Daniel Buck

Monday, April 06, 2026

 

Last December, the Department of Education launched its History Rocks! tour, an initiative to mark the 250th anniversary of America’s Founding. For this tour, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and other department officials promised to visit schools in all 50 states to “promote a shared understanding of the principles that shaped the founding and history of our nation.”

 

It’s all quite prosaic. But if we must have a federal Department of Education, there are far worse things that it could be doing — placing onerous regulations on schools, bankrolling ideologically suspect projects, or weaponizing Title IX, for example. By comparison, leveraging the department’s bully pulpit to celebrate our country is relatively harmless.

 

However, the left hasn’t viewed the administration’s pro-America tour in the same way. Several days ago, the Washington Post described the controversy that has followed the initiative around the country: Four stops have been canceled, and many more have been met with protests.

 

We’ve seen this same story before. The Trump administration does something politically routine (e.g., immigration enforcement, staffing departments with allies, or appointing originalist justices). The left responds in a frothing rage, with spittle flying and placards waving. Then, the media reports on the supposed controversy — never failing to peddle the left’s narratives.

 

What the progressive media forget is that these cross-country school visits are standard fare for the Department of Education. Under the Biden administration, then-Education Secretary Miguel Cardona hosted a politically charged “back-to-school bus tour” in the lead up to the 2024 election to boast of his administration’s education policies. Nary a peep was heard about it.

 

Meanwhile, the History Rocks! events have been notable for their lack of politics. Take one recent stop at a high school in Brookfield, Wis.: The principal and superintendent spoke, a local teacher led a history and civics trivia game, and one department official, Murray Bessette, offered brief remarks. Bessette stressed that technological advances “are reshaping how we learn, work and the questions your generation will confront,” and that addressing these challenges “require not only knowledge, but judgment, integrity and collaboration.” He then praised the Badger State’s transformation from a “frontier territory” into a state known for “innovation in agriculture, industry, conservation, and education.” Parents who actually attended the event “found the presentation neutral.” Even the local NPR affiliate was forced to acknowledge that Bessette’s remarks were “non-political.”

 

The department has made similar stops in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, Alabama, and Delaware. After the department’s visit to Chicago, Ike Muzikowski, principal of Hope Academy, observed that the event marked the first time his students had said the Pledge of Allegiance in years — an anecdote that demonstrates the impact this tour could have on forming young Americans to be patriotic, engaged citizens.

 

Fundamentally, schools are culture-shaping institutions. As Abraham Lincoln quipped, “The philosophy of the schoolhouse in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.” The left has always understood this truth. Among academics, the common phrase “Hidden Curriculum” alludes to the countless unwritten rules, norms, values, and beliefs that schools inculcate in the next generation. This influence needn’t be explicit indoctrination of any kind. For example, whether students read Shakespeare or Diary of a Wimpy Kid communicates a worldview about literature, tradition, and our relations to them.

 

Oftentimes, though, the left is explicitly and inappropriately ideological, pushing pride books into elementary school classrooms and placing federal grant priorities on programs that reflect the values of, say, the 1619 Project. They do this because they know well that the philosophy they teach in schools will become the assumed wisdom of the next generation.

 

The right is starting to learn this lesson. For years, conservatives set aside cultural battles in education to focus on testing, accountability, and standards — all while the left won the culture war. Speaking metaphorically, conservatives were busy fixing the plumbing of the education system; distracted, they turned around to discover that their house had new furniture, new books, and that little Johnny was wearing a dress.

 

But recently, conservative policymakers have begun to get classic literature back in the classroom, fight curriculum battles, and, with this History Rocks! tour, promote positive framings of our country’s history, traditions, and heritage.

 

To be sure, the hosting of these events in schools around the country doesn’t constitute the Trump administration’s most consequential win in education policy. Of more concrete and immediate significance, the administration has halved the department’s staff and shifted its operations to a smaller building, signed agreements to transfer its programs to other federal agencies, and invited state leaders to request waivers from burdensome departmental regulations enacted under prior administrations.

 

Still, this tour represents a broader, welcome shift among conservatives to once again pick up cultural fights in our schools and counterbalance the self-loathing narratives that seem to have characterized our national discourse for the better part of two decades.