As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, there’s growing debate about how schools should teach what it means to be American. That made it a terrific time to check in with Richard Kahlenberg, the director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, where he researches how public education can help strengthen American identity. Kahlenberg, a proudly old-school liberal, has authored many influential books on K-12 and higher education, including Tough Liberal, his compelling biography of AFT founder Al Shanker. Here’s what Kahlenberg had to say.
—Rick
Rick: We’re celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary at a time of intense polarization and distrust. What’s this mean for schools?
Richard: I think public schools need to return to their fundamental mission: what the late teachers’ union leader Albert Shanker described as “teaching students what it means to be an American.” By that, he meant teaching the common values embodied in the Declaration and the Constitution—ideas that hold together a population of every race, religion, and ethnicity. A lot of our current division is based on identity politics. Some on the right argue that white Christians constitute the “real Americans”; some on the left elevate racial identity over shared citizenship. In a multiracial society, that’s a recipe for chaos. Schools can counter this trend by emphasizing the shared values of liberty and political equality in our founding documents. Every movement for social progress, from civil rights to women’s rights, has succeeded because it appealed to these noble aspirations. Schools need to return to teaching kids what they share in common as Americans.
Rick: Both left and right blame the other for education’s raging culture clashes. How do you apportion responsibility here?
Richard: There’s enough blame to go around. Extremists on both sides have more in common with one another than they are likely to admit. “One is the yin to the other’s yang,” as Yascha Mounk of Johns Hopkins University notes in his book The Identity Trap. Ashley Jardina of Duke University has documented the ways in which “threat to one’s group activates one’s group identity.” So as each side ratchets up its rhetoric, the other side responds in kind. The problem is that it is hard, if not impossible, to compromise over fights that go to one’s very identity. So, both sides are willing to cut corners. It’s no accident that among those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, there were several people holding Confederate flags. Likewise, on the left, when students tried to prevent people holding conservative views from speaking on campus, the subject matter is rarely labor policy, taxes, or the environment. It’s almost always race and gender. No one shouts down Grover Norquist for wanting to keep taxes low.
Rick: Young people express less enthusiasm for democracy, and even for America, than do older Americans. What’s going on?
Richard: This isn’t simply a cohort effect—the idea that young people have always been drawn to illiberal figures like Che Guevara and expressed unpatriotic views as part of a youthful rebellion that they grow out of with age. It’s special to this generation. PPI’s American Identity Project is investigating three hypotheses. One is economic frustration, a feeling that democracy is not delivering for young people, who are much less likely to move up the economic ladder than earlier generations. A second hypothesis is that left-wing education has radicalized young people. A recent Democracy Fund poll asked Americans if the Founders were better described as “heroes” or “villains.” Only 1 in 10 baby boomers said “villains,” while 4 in 10 Gen Z respondents did. A third hypothesis suggests a “Trump effect” may be at play. Young Americans have grown up with President Donald Trump as a strong presence in their lives for a decade, and many may have come to believe it is normal for a leader to continually denigrate the pillars of liberal democracy. Understanding which of these three explanations is most important will be critical in shaping remedies.
Rick: What don’t we Gen Xers understand about the world as students see it today?
Richard: I’m older than you and am at the very tail end of the baby boomers—so even more out of touch! I think older Americans need to understand that young people have legitimate beefs with how our democracy is working. A 2023 YouGov poll found that 31% of youth ages 18-29 agreed that “Democracy is no longer a viable system, and Americans should explore alternative forms of government” (compared with only 5% of those over 65). The charitable interpretation is that what they really mean is that our democracy doesn’t deliver and needs fixing. That’s reasonable. Research finds that Congress listens to economic elites more than regular people. At the local level, young people are upset that zoning laws artificially constrain the supply of housing and make buying a home unaffordable. The uncharitable interpretation is that they literally want an alternative to democracy. In that case, we need to double down on teaching them precisely what it’s like to live in nondemocratic societies.
Rick: In a piece commemorating the 100th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s birth, you wrote last fall that Democrats “have a patriotism problem.” What did you have in mind and what does it mean for schooling?
Richard: The Progressive Policy Institute polled working class voters after the 2024 election and found that, when asked which party was more “patriotic,” Republicans had a 19-point lead over Democrats. That didn’t used to be the case. My hero Robert F. Kennedy (Sr!) talked about patriotism constantly, calling the name “American” the people’s “most precious possession.” In our schools, that should translate into curricula that acknowledges America’s sins while also celebrating the heroic efforts to address mistakes. It means rejecting Trump’s attempts to soften discussions of slavery, but it also means rejecting the approach found on the academic left, which paints an unrelentingly negative portrait of America.
Rick: Should schools be promoting patriotism?
Richard: I think schools should be promoting what Alexis de Tocqueville called “reflective patriotism,” which is very different from a knee-jerk, America-right-or-wrong form of patriotism. Students should take enormous pride that America’s founders created what is now the world’s longest-lasting liberal democratic constitution. They should appreciate that the Declaration of Independence put forth revolutionary ideas about human freedom and equality. But they should also recognize that loving one’s country means speaking up when it fails to live up to our ideals. Speaking at the 50th anniversary of the march for voting rights in Selma, Ala., then-President Barrack Obama noted that the marchers were called Communists and unpatriotic. “And yet, what could be more American than what happened in this place? What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people … coming together to shape their country’s course?” That’s the patriotism I’d like schools to teach.
Rick: When it comes to teaching history, your American Identity Project tries to steer a middle path that rejects both “anti-Americanism” and a whitewashed narrative. What does that look like in practice?
Richard: My touchstone on this topic is a statement that you and I both signed onto nearly a quarter of a century ago from the Albert Shanker Institute. It called for teaching students about America’s warts—slavery; the disenfranchisement of women, Black people, and those without property; the Triangle Shirtwaist fire; Japanese internment; the persecution of gays; and McCarthyism, among others. But they also called for teaching about the movements to abolish slavery, to gain women’s suffrage, to establish worker safety, and to promote civil rights and civil liberties. With this balance, the Shanker Institute observed, students will come to understand that “the genius of democracy” is its “magnificent capacity for self-correction.”
Rick: Is there an appetite for that kind of approach?
Richard: The discourse may be polarized among elites who have free time to pontificate on X (Twitter) and Bluesky, but most regular Americans want the type of education the American Identity Project and the Shanker Institute have prescribed. For instance, a 2022 report from More in Common found that partisan disagreements on how to teach American history are much smaller than each side imagines. Republicans think most Democrats want schoolchildren to feel ashamed of American history, when 9 of 10 Democrats want kids to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in a positive light and be proud of figures like Washington and Lincoln. Meanwhile, Democrats believe most Republicans want to whitewash American history and ignore slavery and segregation, when 8 of 10 Republicans say children need to learn about these subjects.
Rick: On the right, there’s currently a fierce debate about whether being American is more a matter of ethnic heritage or constitutional ideals. What’s your take?
Richard: What makes America exceptional is both that it is founded on certain ideals of liberty and equality and that anyone who comes to this country legally and adopts those ideals can become fully American. Of course, JD Vance is also right that America is not only an idea—it is a place. An Australian who fully subscribes to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is not an American if he has never set foot in the United States. Borders, as Harvard professor Michael Sandel notes, have “moral significance,” which means “we owe more to our fellow citizens than we owe citizens of other countries.” But what Vance misses is that while every nation has borders, what sets America apart is that lawful immigrants of any race, creed, or color who subscribe to the American Creed can claim the name American just as surely as a descendant of someone who arrived on the Mayflower.
Rick: If you had one piece of advice for educators seeking to honor America’s 250th in an authentic and clear-eyed fashion, what would it be?
Richard: My advice would be to teach students a shared American identity. Forget what you learned in education schools about reinforcing racial and ethnic differences. What makes this country great is that, after long and bitter struggles, we strive to treat students as Americans rather than as members of groups. Scrap diversity, equity, and inclusion in favor of something better: integration, genuine equal opportunity, and belonging. Whereas “diversity” highlights differences across racial lines, “integration” emphasizes bringing children of different backgrounds together and teaching commonality. Genuine equal opportunity means pursuing a middle ground between DEI’s embrace of equality of group outcomes and the way some conservatives invoke equal opportunity in a pro forma manner. Finally, the principle of “belonging” should apply universally to students of every race, gender, economic background, and political persuasion.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.