Dive Brief:

• North Carolina's state Department of Public Instruction is facing scrutiny for a new social studies curriculum that it "highly recommended" Wednesday.
• When the department decided it wanted to update the curriculum for a required course on founding principals, it entered into a $100,000 sole-source contract with the Virginia-based Bill of Rights Institute, an education non-profit with financial ties to David H. Koch, the Charles Koch Foundation, and the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation.
• Charles and David Koch are billionaires who have donated regularly to conservative political agendas.

Dive Insight:

The department's decision to contract the Bill of Rights Institute was troubling to educators for a number of reasons. For one, many educators told the Charlotte Observer that they already had tons of resources and didn't need anything new in place. Additionally, there's the question of one's sphere of influence. The Charlotte Observer spoke with one social studies teacher, Bryan Proffitt, who was concerned by the fact that individuals whose "principal concern is profit-making” would be in any way connected to the development of curriculum.

The required course on founding principals was influenced by legislation proposed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative non-profit that supports free markets, limited government, and federalism.