Across the country, activists are using state learning standards, which are adopted to define what students learn, as cover for political instruction. Last week, they said so out loud.
According to Marcy Winograd, a leader of the activist group Code Pink, California history standards provide “an open door” to anti-Israel activism. She told a room full of K-12 teachers how they could promote anti-Israel politics in their classrooms and still comply with state standards. She was right.
Last week, Code Pink hosted a four-part online training series for educators nationwide called “Challenging Zionism in Schools.” The purpose was explicit: help teachers push back against what presenters called “Zionist brainwashing” and challenge Holocaust education as justifying “state violence.” Teachers were promised “actionable strategies” and “adaptable lesson plans” for bringing Palestinian activism into curricula, student clubs, and school culture.
During my organization’s monitoring of the sessions, we observed presenters who were candid about tying activist materials to state standards. Standards alignment gives teachers “more protection” against “Zionist families,” one said. Another presenter taught educators to “cover yourself” by keeping relevant standards written in their lesson notes. And another taught educators to slip Palestinian activism in social emotional learning.
This is how activism enters classrooms nationwide. It moves through teacher training sessions, union-backed lesson libraries, and academic standards that are vague enough to be stretched over almost anything — including content designed to recruit students into a political movement.
As policy experts have long pointed out, state academic standards across the country often identify skills students should gain rather than content they must master: analyze texts, evaluate sources, examine events. That may sound rigorous, but in practice, it gives activist teachers a state-sanctioned path for any materials they choose.
It’s why one fifth grader studies the American Revolution, and another down the hall studies “resistance.” A poetry unit becomes a lesson on oppression. An art class becomes centered instead on political organizing.
To be clear, students should learn the complex history and contemporary debates around the Middle East and other controversial issues. The issue is whether a teacher may use a public classroom to recruit students to one side of a political conflict.
A dance teacher in Los Angeles, Laura Pinho, was one of the Code Pink presenters. She described using dance and culture instruction to teach students a one-sided view of the Middle East conflict. She also described helping students form a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and using students’ broader speech rights to advance activism on school grounds.
Agree or disagree with her personal politics — that isn’t the question.
The question is whether a public-school teacher should use instructional time to organize children for her personal political agenda. She controls the classroom and has authority over students. When she uses that position to pressure or mobilize students, she misuses her authority and breaches public trust.
Activists have a name for smuggling political instruction into ordinary lessons: “fugitive pedagogy.” In an April “curriculum build” webinar around May Day protests — hosted by the Chicago Teachers Union, in collaboration with the National Education Association — a teacher asked what to do if an administrator required political neutrality. The answer was not to respect that boundary. It was to be “savvy” and hide the politics.
Let that sink in. These are adults with public authority who are deliberately misusing the classroom for noneducational goals — all while using the language of standards, social emotional learning, and culture.
Teachers unions lend this approach a veneer of professional legitimacy. The American Federation of Teachers operates Share My Lesson, a free repository of lesson plans and professional-development materials searchable by grade, subject, and standard. Content created by Code Pink and other activists sits there alongside ordinary curricula, indistinguishable to a teacher or parent doing a search.
Parents should not have to discover after the fact that their child’s English class, dance class, or advisory period was in reality a vehicle for activism. Administrators should not be able to shrug and say the lesson technically satisfied a standard.
States can close the door that activist groups like Code Pink are walking through.
First, parents need to see what’s being taught. States should pass curriculum transparency laws that cover teacher-created materials, teacher training, and third-party lesson plans, such as those on Share My Lesson. Requiring schools to share materials in advance would help foster a culture of accountability and restore public trust.
Second, educator conduct codes should say plainly that teachers may not use classroom authority to recruit, pressure, or mobilize students for political causes. Many codes already prohibit teachers from exploiting their position for personal gain. That rule recognizes a core professional boundary: Educators must not use the trust and authority of their role to advance interests other than students’ education. That same principle should apply when the gain is political. The classroom belongs to student learning, not to any teacher’s personal political cause.
CALIFORNIA TEACHERS UNION SHORTCHANGES STUDENTS WITH LEFT-WING ACTIVISM
Finally, state law should tie licensure to teacher competency around teaching controversial issues responsibly: by presenting competing viewpoints, avoiding coercion, and keeping political organizing out of the classroom. Too many teachers avoid difficult issues altogether for lack of that training, leaving the field open to ideologues more than willing to bring their bias into the classroom. Education schools and training programs will start preparing teachers to teach responsibly when licensing rules require them to be competent at it.
Activists can see the gaps in our education system, and they are teaching others how to exploit them. They are telling us exactly what they are doing. We should believe them and close the door.
Dana Stangel-Plowe, an educator and attorney, serves as the chief program officer at North American Values Institute.