As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States, I’m increasingly concerned that many of our K–12 schools — including here in Greater Boston — are failing to teach young people how to understand, appreciate, or even recognize the American story. The goal of education has never been blind nationalism. It is to ensure that the next generation inherits a shared civic identity, understands our founding principles, and feels some responsibility for preserving them. That foundation is now cracking.

I’ve spent my entire life as a Massachusetts liberal. I grew up believing in the values that shaped this state: fairness, public service, civil liberties, support for the vulnerable, and pride in America’s long democratic experiment. I supported reproductive rights, strong public institutions, and the separation of church and state — the full Massachusetts liberal package. Never once did I feel that loving this country contradicted those commitments. Patriotism wasn’t something to whisper about; it was part of being a responsible citizen.

That balance is increasingly missing from our schools.

Recently, my organization documented how a particular ideological framework has taken hold in school systems across the country, reframing American history, civic identity, and even daily school culture through a narrow political lens. This is not a problem confined to distant places. It is happening right here in Massachusetts.

In recent months, the Massachusetts Teachers Association circulated professional-development materials that many parents, educators, and lawmakers described as inaccurate or divisive. As State Sen. Walter Timilty testified, “What we are seeing is indoctrination, not education, and it has no place in our public schools.” His comments came during State House hearings examining how political content enters the training of roughly 120,000 educators statewide. The concern was not one rogue teacher or isolated incident. It was the broader message embedded in the materials: that America is defined almost exclusively by its failures, with little acknowledgment of its progress or its capacity for reform.

Or consider the long-running disputes in Newton’s schools, which I attended growing up. For more than a decade, families have raised concerns about course materials that frame America’s global role in a consistently lopsided way or assign students predetermined conclusions about controversial topics.

A widely reported example of ideological focus in education involved a high school worksheet describing U.S. military actions solely as “imperialist aggression,” without presenting alternative perspectives or historical context. The district later revised the lesson, but the episode highlighted a broader drift away from balanced instruction and toward political framing.

This shift matters. When education is filtered through ideology, students stop learning how to question, debate, and evaluate evidence. Instead, they learn how to conform. As U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics Peggy Carr noted recently after the release of national civics results, “Too many students are struggling to understand the basics of America’s constitutional system.”

The data backs her up. National civics and history scores have fallen to record lows. Only 22% of eighth graders are proficient in civics. Many cannot name the three branches of government. Fewer still can explain the Bill of Rights. Even here in Massachusetts — long considered the nation’s top-performing state— MCAS scores show troubling declines in core subjects like reading and math. Academic rigor is slipping at the very moment civic knowledge is becoming more essential.

NAVI’s report points to one reason: a teacher-training pipeline that increasingly emphasizes activism over academic mastery. Unions and bureaucracies often promote political lenses as professional norms. Outside groups — including some funded by foreign governments such as Qatar — offer ready-made lesson plans that districts adopt with too little scrutiny. In this environment, classrooms risk becoming echo chambers rather than spaces for inquiry.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Massachusetts has long prided itself on leading the nation in education. Our public schools helped forge the civic culture of a young republic and define the American idea itself. As the cradle of American democracy, we should use the nation’s 250th anniversary as an opportunity to reset — not by ignoring historical injustices, but by restoring a balanced civic education grounded in facts, reason, and confidence in America’s capacity for self-correction.

Students should learn about our failures and our achievements. They should study injustice and the institutions designed to remedy it. They should learn to recognize propaganda, whatever its political source. Above all, they should emerge as thoughtful, informed citizens capable of sustaining a free society.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, we should expect our schools to recommit to rigorous academics, honest history, and genuine civic formation. Our students deserve classrooms that prepare them for citizenship. And our Commonwealth can lead once again — if we choose to.

Robert Casper is Chair of North American Values Institute