Pop quiz, teachers: Would you like to inject a strong dose of libertarianism into the curriculum you take back to school this fall?
If you answered yes, then a Koch-funded think tank has exactly what you need. And it won’t cost you or your school a penny.
The EDvantage, a project of the libertarian Institute for Humane Studies, bills itself as an online “curriculum hub for pioneering educators.”
The website offers high school teachers and college professors educational videos, articles and podcasts on topics including economics, history and philosophy. But as people might expect from a think tank whose board is chaired by billionaire libertarian Charles Koch, most of the project’s economics content features two common themes: vilify government, promote the free market.
For example, teachers using EDvantage can find economics videos explaining how the Environmental Protection Agency is bad for the environment, how sweatshops are good for third-world workers and how the minimum wagecosts workers jobs. Content featuring opposing viewpoints, however, is sparse.
“The minimum wage is supposed to help the poorer, less-skilled and younger workers in the economy,” says the narrator in “The Truth About the Minimum Wage,” a video produced by the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education and featured on EDvantage. “But it doesn’t. It gets them fired.”
According to its website, EDvantage is funded by the John Templeton Foundation, whose core funding areas include “individual freedom and free markets.”
Right wing (Fascist) propaganda is all the rage, and quite profitable, these days.