National Education Reform Committee
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The National Education Reform Committee (NERC) is a federal advisory committee established by President Isaac Dillon of Superior on 10 August 2024 that seeks to craft policies to advance reform for the country's education system. The official goal of the NERC is to push for reforms to the education system in order to establish a "new precedence committed to education, learning, and truth over political manipulation and indoctrination through academia" best described as "nonpartisan education". While officially a body seeking to promote nonpartisan education policies, it serves to advance the interests of the 1866 Initiative, a goal to promote "patriotic education" in Superior and combat perceived leftist indoctrination and bias in Superian academia, within the legal limitations placed on the Dillon Administration by the High Court of Superior following the 2023 ruling Department of Education v. New Hanover that struck down the initiative and its goals as unconstitutional following a successful legal challenge by the Liberal Democrat-led government of New Hanover.
Established by executive order, the committee consists of 23 members, including all members of the previous 1866 Commission, and new ones with the organization being co-chaired by Secretary of Education Lydia Bachmann and former president Alexander Harper, the latter of which had first coined the term nonpartisan education as a policy goal during his time as Leader of the Opposition and later president, and has advocated for it since leaving office in 2015. The policy specifics focuses on identifying cases of ideological bias within academia, in particular among teachers, professors, and other similar professionals as well as other members of academic staff and seeking to eliminated the presence of any political bias within textbooks and educational material on the grounds of ensuring "accurate and authentic tellings of objective facts on areas of science, mathematics, and history" according to the committee's official website.
Reactions to the committee have been mixed and the NERC itself is controversial with reactions overall being divided among partisan lines. Support mainly comes from conservatives who see the NERC as necessary towards improving education and removing perceived left-wing bias and indoctrination within academia, the latter of which is claimed to be extensive by Superian and other Anglo-American conservatives. By contrast opposition to the NERC is from liberals and progressives who have accused the committee of advancing propaganda and censorship of academia for political gains under the guise of nonpartisanship.
Background
Harper Administration
During his tenure as president of Superior, Alexander Harper had advocated for what he called nonpartisan education; an education policy seeking to limit the influence of politics on the country's education system. In general, Harper believed that politics as a whole should only be taught as part of civic education and in history classes with current events being reserved for any history class that had them and discussed them, backing the latter as a means of fostering an environment of healthy discussion of current affairs and a free exchange of ideas. In regards to political ideologies, Harper called for them to be taught in a historical context, but were never to influence any school's curriculum nor the teaching of certain subjects was to be influenced by the political views of any teacher believing that political bias was an issue within academia that negatively effected the country's education system at-large. Harper first attempted this in 2005 with the passing of the National Education Act in which the Department of Education would help oversee and screen educational material to ensure it was aligned with objective facts on their respective subjects and was free from political bias. Two legal challenges were issued against the act by the Liberal Democrat-led opposition, first being the 2006 case Lansing v. Department of Education where the court had ruled that the act hadn't violated any constitutional boundaries and was thus legal, however a leaked report in 2009 showcasing that science textbooks were intentionally told by the Education Department to remove or downplay references to climate change by federal order or risk a loss of funding and removal from schools lead to a second legal challenge Minnesota v. Department of Education in which the High Court ruled that the federal government had violated its legal boundaries by forcing history textbooks to remove subjects on political grounds and threatened to undermine freedom of expression in academia and so the bill was struck down.
The idea of nonpartisan education is rooted within Harper's personal philosophy as a teacher where Harper had rarely discussed politics and intentionally avoided the subject all-together whenever possible, restricting referencing politics to lessons about various moments in the history of Superior to explain the context behind certain historical events, figures, and eras. In regards to current events, classes where they were discussed wouldn't emerge until the 2000s, long after he entered politics after flirting with the idea for several years, and intentionally avoided discussing them believing that it would cause division and needless arguments and tension, viewing the classroom as an area that should be separated from it. After retiring from national politics following the 2015 Superian federal election, Harper returned to teaching as a professor at the University of Augustus where he teaches both history and politics (mainly civics and nature of politics as a whole) where he is known to retain his longstanding philosophy, now modified to talking about politics in a neutral sense and keeping his political opinions to himself while in the classroom.