The textbooks most commonly used in high-school history classes are badly deficient. These books, which shape the rising generation’s perception of the country they are inheriting, often leave out the core ideas that defined the American founding and the nation’s ideals. To recover America’s sense of itself, it’s crucial to teach high-school students the connection between ideas and events.

Guest Dan Currell joins us to discuss the erasure of the founding from high-school history and how we might restore it.

Dan Currell is CEO of the Digital Commerce Alliance and a senior fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School. He has served as a senior advisor at the Department of Education and as a fellow in the office of former senator Ben Sasse.

This podcast discusses themes from Dan’s essay in the Winter 2024 issue of National Affairs, “The Invisible American Founding.”