Pentagon Schools Add Western Civilization Course

The Department of Defense is introducing a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity this fall in the schools it operates for military families, part of an effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning, according to an AP exclusive report.

The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) operates approximately 160 schools across 11 countries, educating roughly 70,000 students who are children of active-duty military or civilian service members. Unlike most public schools, these institutions are run directly by the federal government, making them a unique testing ground for education policy. Conservatives have long eyed the system as a place to implement reshaping education initiatives.

The New Course and Textbook

The Western civilization course, titled “Western Civilization to 1500,” will be offered this fall through the department’s virtual school and can fulfill a world history graduation requirement for high school students. The course will use a textbook published by Encounter Books, a conservative publishing house, titled “The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, Volume I: The Ancient World and Christendom.” The textbook includes suggested lesson plans created in partnership with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan that has developed influential materials for K-12 schools.

Historians and educators who reviewed excerpts of the text told the Associated Press it depicts points throughout history in misleading ways, representing Western civilization and Christianity as one and the same and casting Islam as a threat to both.

“You’ve got to wonder a bit whether Western civilization is a Trojan horse for classical Christian education,” said Phil Gorski, a historical sociology professor at Yale University.

Textbook Content Draws Criticism

The textbook’s authors credit early Christianity with promoting the idea that all people must be treated humanely, arguing that “Christian faith also supported a humane cosmopolitanism.” However, the book describes Islam as inherently more violent than Christianity. In a chapter on the Middle Ages, the text describes Arabs as resentful or bitter toward Christians and Jews.

In a section titled “Holy War and Martyrdom in Battle,” the book describes wars fought by Christians, such as the Crusades, as intended to defend and protect other Christians. Islam, in contrast, glorifies violence and war, the book says, invoking the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and 9/11.

“In recent decades, Islam as a religion has, understandably, aroused acute hostility from a great many non-Muslims around the world thanks to the behavior of radical Muslim terrorists,” the book states. “Sometimes referred to as Islamists, their atrocities have been applauded by depressingly large numbers of ordinary Muslims.”

Matthew Gabriele, a history and religion professor at Virginia Tech, said the book’s description of the Crusades and conflicts with the Islamic world strips out important details and context to depict Islam as an aggressive religious tradition while downplaying the religious motivations and violence of the Christian church.

“It’s trying to make a contemporary political point by continuously referencing things that happened in the 21st century,” Gabriele said. “The fact that (the book) does this very selectively and only when it suits a particular political project suggests to me that this is not a scholarly history in any kind of real sense.”

The book’s publisher, Roger Kimball, defended the work, saying it was peer-reviewed by 15 experts. “As the proud publisher of this incomparable work, I stand behind it in every detail,” he said.

One of the book’s co-authors, Harvard emeritus professor James Hankins, said the text does not attempt to characterize Christianity and Western civilization as one. He noted that segments of the book acknowledge the West’s cultural debts to the Islamic world. Hankins, who now teaches at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, defended the emphasis on Western civilization, saying it was standard until the 1970s.

“Abandoning it has been foolish in my view, and is one cause of the growing cultural disorientation of the last couple of generations,” he said. “People no longer know where they come from or where they belong in the story of our civilization.”

Broader Reshaping of DoDEA Schools

The new course is part of a wider reshaping of the Defense Department’s schools under the Trump administration. The department has begun hiring classical learning teachers and has brought in new academic chiefs with ties to classical learning charter schools and Republican-led efforts to promote more patriotic education.

In March, the department abruptly changed DoDEA leadership, replacing Beth Schiavino-Narvaez with Paul Craft as director. Hegseth described Craft as the right leader to reorient the school system “toward patriotic values and classical learning.” The Pentagon also replaced the education activity’s chief academic officer, hiring Tiffany Hoben, who previously worked in the Florida Department of Education under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. This summer, the department announced the hiring of Matthew Kirby as the system’s Americas regional director; Kirby is the CEO of Liberty Classical Schools, an Atlanta-based network of charter schools.

Admissions offices at U.S. military academies now also accept the Classical Learning Test, a college entrance exam that positions itself as a classical alternative to the SAT.

In an all-hands meeting after his appointment, Craft described classical learning as a priority that came directly from Hegseth. “He has tasked us with taking the best that we can from the lessons learned from classical learning in a private school setting to say, ‘How do we expose our kids to that in a public school setting like us?’” Craft said.

Hegseth’s Vision for Classical Christian Education

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has been a prominent advocate for classical Christian education. In his 2022 book “Battle for the American Mind,” he describes a history of progressives working to remove God and religion from public and private schools. For parents, he writes, not sending their children to classical Christian schools would be to admit defeat.

“It is certainly not sustainable, merely passing the same losing hand to the next generation,” Hegseth writes. “With this approach, we lose. We lose America — and Western Civilization.”

At a civics education event last September, Hegseth emphasized the need to teach these values to children early on, linking the country’s founding to Western civilization and early Christianity. “That type of brilliance didn’t come out of thin air,” he said of the Founding Fathers. “It was first inspired by God (and) inspired by an understanding of human history, an understanding of biblical history (and) an understanding of Western civilization philosophy and theology and civics poured into a generation of men and poured into an American experiment — it wasn’t an accident.”

Legal Challenges and Ongoing Controversy

The curriculum shift comes amid ongoing legal challenges. Last year, the ACLU sued the defense school system on behalf of 12 students over Hegseth’s decision to ban hundreds of books covering topics like race, gender and democracy. The lawsuit argued that the censorship violated students’ First Amendment rights and was endangering children by preventing them from learning critical information about health, hygiene, biology and abuse.

Susan Wise Bauer, author of a popular classical homeschooling program, said the broader classical education field is increasingly split on how to approach the curriculum. “Whenever you have a system of education where that is the impulse, … ‘This is us, and they are them over there,’” she said, “then the idea of a shared literary heritage becomes a weapon.”

The Pentagon said in a written statement it “remains committed to providing all of its military-connected students with the best possible education and opportunities,” but did not respond directly to questions about the textbook and the broader push for classical learning.

What to Watch For

As the fall semester approaches, the introduction of the Western Civilization to 1500 course will be closely watched by educators, historians, and military families alike. Key questions remain: How will the textbook’s portrayal of Islam affect Muslim students and families in military communities? Will the course expand beyond the virtual school to physical DoDEA schools? And how will the ongoing ACLU lawsuit and other legal challenges affect the implementation of these changes?

The move represents a significant shift in the Department of Defense’s education system, reflecting the administration’s broader effort to reshape American education toward patriotic values and classical learning. For the roughly 70,000 students in DoDEA schools worldwide, the coming academic year will mark a notable departure from previous curriculum approaches — one that raises fundamental questions about the role of religion and national identity in federally-run education.