Mitch Daniels

David Rovics

A tribute to the students of Jefferson County, Colorado, who stood up for peoples history and education. This song is about Mitch Daniels attempt to ban Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States in Indiana.

“As part of the long-running textbook wars over American school curricula, the Jefferson County Colorado Board of Education moved earlier this month to alter AP U.S. history standards to meet a more right-wing view of the world, emphasizing “patriotism” and the “free enterprise system” and downplaying “social strife.” Its proposal reads as follows:

Review criteria shall include the following: instructional materials should present the most current factual information accurately and objectively. Theories should be distinguished from fact. Materials should promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage. Content pertaining to political and social movements in history should present balanced and factual treatment of the positions.

What Board Chairman Ken Witt probably didn’t expect is what happened next. Yesterday, hundreds of students from five high schools marched out of their classrooms and into the streets to reject the conservative board’s proposal. Carrying signs such as “people didn’t die so we could erase them,” the students demanded that the proposal be withdrawn.
To get a sense of the size of the protests, the local CBS station reported that 500 students walked out at a single high school, Arvada West High. That is about a third of the students at the school.”