What should have been most worrying was the undermining of Jefferson's interpretation of the First Amendment as establishing separation of church and state. What people latched on to, though, was that previously the World History standards called for explaining the impact of certain Enlightenment philosophers on revolutions in the 18th and 19th century. Despite his influence on the French Revolution, Jefferson was removed from this list (along with any mention of revolution or the Enlightenment, actually) and replaced with religious philosophers Aquinas and Calvin, along with Blackstone. Afterwards it was commonly reported he was removed from the curriculum without pointing out that he still appears elsewhere, but still it was an egregious example of politically-motivated micromanaging of the curriculum.

They also did some petty things like striking the term "democratic" from the description of our form of government, replacing it with "constitutional republic".