Hillsdale College, a classical liberal arts institution whose leaders held key positions in the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission, has released a new K–12 curriculum that aims to teach young Americans “honest history” and an “accurate account of civics.”
The curriculum carries on the mission of the now-dissolved 1776 Commission, which was tasked by President Donald Trump to produce a report on the nation’s founding principles while providing guidance on how the federal government could promote those principles in public education. Larry P. Arnn, Hillsdale’s president, chaired the commission and Matthew Spalding, Hillsdale’s vice president overseeing education programs in Washington, served as its executive director.
“The teaching of honest history and an accurate account of civics is the key to forming good citizens,” Spalding said in a press release. “The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum has been carefully designed to do just that, providing parents, teachers, and schools not with what they should oppose, but with a solid curriculum they can wholeheartedly endorse for all of America’s children.”
The curriculum was developed by Hillsdale’s K–12 Education Department, professors, and teachers in classical schools affiliated with the Michigan-based college. In the coming months, Hillsdale will release additional U.S. history lessons, including units on colonial America, the Early Republic, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the Great Depression and the World Wars, the Cold War, and modern America.
“The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum was made by professors and teachers—not bureaucrats, not activists, not journalists—teachers,” said Kathleen O'Toole, assistant provost for K–12 education at Hillsdale College. “It comes from years of studying America, its history, and its founding principles, not some slap-dash journalistic scheme to achieve a partisan political end through students. It is a truly American education.”
