Fact Check: U.S. Public Schools STILL Teach Declaration Of Independence

Widely Taught

Does the U.S. public education system no longer teach the Declaration of Independence? No, that's not true: American public schools still teach the Declaration of Independence as a foundational document in American history and government. It is typically included in curriculum materials and is often studied in history, civics and government classes. The Declaration of Independence holds significant importance in understanding the principles and ideals upon which the United States was founded.

The claim appeared in a post and video on Facebook (archived here) published on July 7, 2023, under the title "This young man is on to sumthin." The video's caption says:

This guy is right on point 👇👇👇👇👇 👇👇 Truth Bombs!!! 💥💥💥💥💥💥

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

(Source: Facebook.com screenshot taken on Mon Aug 7 14:30:04 2023 UTC)

The video

The clip above comes from "The Victor Nieves Show" on Real Talk 93.3, which is part of a Missouri-based conservative talk radio network. The original version of the video the excerpt comes from runs just under 44 minutes and was published on Facebook (archived here) on March 25, 2022. Here's the transcript of the 2:20 clip that begins about 28 minutes into the longer video:

Why does the public education system not teach the Declaration of Independence? They'll talk about all kinds of other things, but they will not discuss the American Declaration of Independence. Because the American Declaration of Independence very clearly says that it is the people's duty to overthrow a tyrannical government--the duty of the people to overthrow a tyrannical government. Therein lies the purpose of the Second Amendment. It's not about anything else.

Our Second Amendment is so that we can be well armed in the unlikely event that we ever have to 1776 again. Right, our Founding Fathers had literally just fought a Revolutionary War. They understood the value of the people being well-armed. In fact, little history note: the battles of Lexington and Concord that started the Revolutionary War, those were fought over munitions depots. Lexington and Concord are where the colonists had their guns, and the British understood that if the colonials were well armed, they had a problem on their hands. So, they tried in the middle of the night, they tried to go take their guns. That's where the infamous 'the British are coming, the British are coming' [comes from]. Because they had a system set up, because they feared that the tyrants would come try to take their guns. Well, does that sound a little familiar? Does that sound like something that, I don't know, maybe we worry about today?

I think the reason they don't teach the Declaration of Independence to children is because if they did, it would red pill the crap out of a whole bunch of young people all across the country. Because they would hear, they would read the grievances of our founding fathers. And they would say, 'Well, [unintelligible] wait a minute. These are the exact same grievances that I have today.' Hey, history never changes itself. It's cyclical. It just repeats over and over and over. And we're not that far off from history repeating itself again and I think that's the reason they don't talk about the Declaration of Independence in our schools.

In fact, you know, another reason that they don't discuss the Declaration of Independence in our schools is because the Declaration of Independence directly mentions the name of God Almighty, multiple times. Right? It says that we understand that our rights are given to us by God and not government.

State by state

There's no evidence to support the claim by Nieves that the public education system does not teach about the Declaration of Independence. Lead Stories found information on the laws and education programs for all 50 states and the District of Columbia that shows the assertion to be false. Additionally, the Education Resources Information Center of the U.S. Department of Education lists such details in its annual "The State of State Standards for Civics and U.S. History." Links to our findings for Alabama through Wyoming are listed below:

1. Alabama
2. Alaska
3. Arkansas
4. Arizona
5. California
6. Colorado
7. Connecticut
8. Delaware
9. District of Columbia
10. Florida
11. Georgia
12. Hawaii
13. Idaho
14. Illinois
15. Indiana
16. Iowa
17. Kansas
18. Kentucky
19. Louisiana
20. Maine
21. Maryland
22. Massachusetts
23. Michigan
24. Minnesota
25. Mississippi
26. Missouri
27. Montana
28. Nebraska
29. Nevada
30. New Hampshire
31. New Jersey
32. New Mexico
33. New York
34. North Carolina
35. North Dakota
36. Ohio
37. Oklahoma
38. Oregon
39. Pennsylvania
40. Rhode Island
41. South Carolina
42. South Dakota
43. Tennessee
44. Texas
45. Utah
46. Vermont
47. Virginia
48. Washington
49. West Virginia
50. Wisconsin
51. Wyoming