Schools wary of Clinton versus Trump minefields are avoiding lessons on government—but it’s to the detriment of our kids, say experts.
Schools wary of Clinton versus Trump minefields are avoiding lessons on government—but it’s to the detriment of our kids, say experts.
Mock-election student voters at schools across the country might expect to find useful information on the presidential candidates’ policy positions on Scholastic’s Election 2016 news site. Instead, Scholastic offers kids preparing to cast a classroom ballot a cheat sheet on Republican Donald Trump’s childhood (“As a teen, Trump was a star baseball player”), fortune, and many grandchildren. To introduce Hillary Clinton, Scholastic notes that the Democrat once sold cookies (“Clinton was a Brownie and a Girl Scout”), without mentioning that she later disavowed the idea of staying home to bake them. Foreign policy, guns, jobs—the topics that animate voting decisions in the grownup world—are glaringly absent.