Case Study | Bias in the Teaching Beyond 9/11 Curriculum
“Teaching Beyond September 11th,” a high school and college curriculum created by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, was evaluated by NAVI for historical accuracy. NAVI’s review reveals that the material offers minimal detail on the actual attacks and completely omits al-Qaeda’s underlying ideology, choosing instead to focus heavily on Islamophobia and post-9/11 American policy. Furthermore, it repeatedly presents controversial political opinions as established facts while encouraging students toward political activism. Ultimately, these critical omissions and partisan framings render the curriculum an unreliable resource for balanced and historically accurate instruction about September 11th.
Social Justice Extremism
Texas Report | Political Activist Networks within Texas
In Texas, political activists are leveraging teacher unions and groups like the DSA and PSL to influence K–12 curricula. This report reveals how overlapping memberships in Dallas, Austin, and Houston blur the lines between labor representation and ideological organizing. These findings highlight a pressing need for scrutiny regarding political influence over Texas schoolchildren.
Texas Report | Training Teachers as Activists: Ideological Frameworks in Texas Education Schools
This report examines teacher preparation at Texas Tech, Texas State, Texas A&M, and UNT. These major programs increasingly prioritize social and political activism over academic instruction. By embedding identity-based frameworks into coursework and faculty scholarship, these institutions influence the K–12 pipeline. This shift raises significant concerns regarding the ideological direction of public education for Texas children.
Backgrounder | Behind Closed Doors: How NAIS Quietly Controls Private Schools
The NAIS quietly shapes U.S. private education by mandating DEI frameworks through accreditation standards. This influence impacts governance, hiring, and curriculum, often without parental awareness. Since reviews occur behind closed doors, families must demand transparency regarding accreditation requirements and the outside groups shaping their schools.
Backgrounder | Climate Justice
This Backgrounder examines the climate justice movement, which argues that solutions to environmental issues should emphasize social, racial, and economic inequalities. Originating from environmental justice activism, climate justice calls for community-led solutions, reparations, and systemic restructuring to empower marginalized groups.
Action Guide | Basic Guidelines for Public Records Requests
Parents play a vital role in shaping their children’s educational experiences, and access to information driving transparency is key to effective advocacy. Federal and state public records laws such as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), state-level public records laws (sometimes called Right to Know or Public Records Requests) provide powerful tools for parents to obtain information from public schools and school districts.
Federal – Template FOIA Requests
Here is a template to help parents request federal education records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FOIA allows you to access records from federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Use this template to request information about federal policies, funding, or communications that affect your child’s school.
IL – Template FOIA Requests for Illinois Parents
This resource provides five ready-to-use templates for Illinois parents to submit Right-to-Know Law (RTKL) requests to their school districts. The templates are designed to inquire about curriculum materials, communications regarding specific teachers, school board voting records, and detailed financial records, including budgets and contracts. The post also offers essential guidance on how to properly submit requests to ensure timely, lawful compliance from the school district.
PA – Template Right to Know Requests for Pennsylvania
This resource provides five ready-to-use templates for Pennsylvania parents to submit Right-to-Know Law (RTKL) requests to their school districts. The templates are designed to inquire about curriculum materials, communications regarding specific teachers, school board voting records, and detailed financial records, including budgets and contracts. The post also offers essential guidance on how to properly submit requests to ensure timely, lawful compliance from the school district.
Backgrounder | From Theory to Classroom- Paulo Freire’s Influence on K–12 Schools
The Backgrounder explores the influence of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, best known for Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and his belief that education should serve as a vehicle for political liberation and social transformation. Freire advocated teaching students to identify systems of oppression and mobilize as activists. His framework, grounded in Marxist theory, presents society through a binary lens of oppressors and the oppressed. This philosophy has become deeply embedded in K–12 curricula across the country, often emphasizing activism and ideological engagement over the development of core academic skills.
Union One Sheet | NEA Representative Assembly
Across the country, ethnic studies is being introduced in schools, often with the stated goal of promoting inclusion and representation. While that goal is laudable, school leaders should examine how these curricula are actually being implemented. Ethnic studies often reflects a political ideology that prioritizes activism over academic learning and discourages critical thinking and open discussion. Schools can meet the goal of inclusion by trengthening existing history and civics instruction, ensuring that all students can think critically about our complex past and engage as informed citizens.
Union One Sheet | Local, State and National – What’s the difference?
Across the country, ethnic studies is being introduced in schools, often with the stated goal of promoting inclusion and representation. While that goal is laudable, school leaders should examine how these curricula are actually being implemented. Ethnic studies often reflects a political ideology that prioritizes activism over academic learning and discourages critical thinking and open discussion. Schools can meet the goal of inclusion by trengthening existing history and civics instruction, ensuring that all students can think critically about our complex past and engage as informed citizens.
Union One Sheet | The Role of Caucuses within Teachers Unions
Across the country, ethnic studies is being introduced in schools, often with the stated goal of promoting inclusion and representation. While that goal is laudable, school leaders should examine how these curricula are actually being implemented. Ethnic studies often reflects a political ideology that prioritizes activism over academic learning and discourages critical thinking and open discussion. Schools can meet the goal of inclusion by trengthening existing history and civics instruction, ensuring that all students can think critically about our complex past and engage as informed citizens.
Primer | Ethnic Studies
Across the country, ethnic studies is being introduced in schools, often with the stated goal of promoting inclusion and representation. While that goal is laudable, school leaders should examine how these curricula are actually being implemented. Ethnic studies often reflects a political ideology that prioritizes activism over academic learning and discourages critical thinking and open discussion. Schools can meet the goal of inclusion by trengthening existing history and civics instruction, ensuring that all students can think critically about our complex past and engage as informed citizens.
Action Guide | More Than One Side — Teaching Critical Thinking Through Viewpoint Diversity
In today’s polarized climate, students need more than just answers. They need the tools to think critically and independently. Viewpoint diversity plays an essential role in helping students learn how to think, not what to think. That means creating classroom environments where multiple perspectives are explored with intellectual openness, respectful disagreement is welcomed, and students are encouraged to think critically by grounding their reasoning in evidence rather than opinion. This short guide will help you recognize viewpoint diversity in your child’s classroom and partner constructively with educators to encourage it.
Backgrounder | Radical Activism Pipeline
This backgrounder goes into the influence of radical ideologies rooted in critical theory on teacher training programs at universities and their subsequent impact on K-12 education, emphasizing a shift from academic excellence to activism and identity politics.
Action Guide | Annotated High School Global History Syllabus
NAVI has reviewed the course syllabus to demonstrate how radical ideas can be embedded in high school curricular materials. While the syllabus does not include the 10 Activist Terms to Look For, it frames global history through a critical theory lens that promotes a singular, ideologically driven interpretation of history. Our analysis shows that although activist terms can serve as helpful warning signs, they are not sufficient when bias is deeply embedded.
Parent Guide | How to Review Schoolwork at Home
When your child brings home a worksheet, writing prompt, or class discussion topic, you’re getting a window into the classroom. Some activities are designed to build skills and curiosity. Others may steer students toward a single viewpoint or skip over real thinking for the purpose of imposing a specific political narrative or ideology. Here’s how to tell the difference and how to get involved.
Parent Guide | Top 10 Activist Terms to Look For
Across the country, schools are adopting language that sounds positive but often signals something very different in practice. These terms are sometimes used by well-meaning teachers seeking to support their students. But they also appear in policies and curricula shaped by political activists and powerful teachers’ unions, which frequently prioritize activism over academic learning.
Countering Activism in the K-12 Classroom
Across the country, ethnic studies is being introduced in schools, often with the stated goal of promoting inclusion and representation. While that goal is laudable, school leaders should examine how these curricula are actually being implemented. Ethnic studies often reflects a political ideology that prioritizes activism over academic learning and discourages critical thinking and open discussion. Schools can meet the goal of inclusion by trengthening existing history and civics instruction, ensuring that all students can think critically about our complex past and engage as informed citizens.
Backgrounder: Rethinking Schools’ Teaching Palestine*
This backgrounder exposes the extreme bias and harmful narratives within Rethinking Schools’ Teaching Palestine curriculum. Under the guise of education, it promotes anti-Israel and often antisemitic content to students K–12. Download the full report to understand the serious implications for classrooms, educators, and the broader public discourse.
Backgrounder: A Growing Threat: “Anti-Palestinian Racism” in K-12 Education
A surge in extremist rhetoric, declining academic standards, and unchecked activist influence are fueling a hostile climate in the School District of Philadelphia, particularly for Jewish students. This internal backgrounder outlines incidents of antisemitism, identifies key actors and networks shaping the district’s ideological direction, and highlights systemic failures that prompted a federal civil rights investigation.
Backgrounder: The Social Studies Curriculum of the School District of Philadelphia
Philadelphia’s 12th grade social studies curriculum replaces civic education with political activism. Designed around critical theory, the course teaches students to view American government, economics, and society exclusively through the lens of oppression and resistance. Every unit—on voting, economics, and financial literacy—steers students toward activism rather than critical inquiry. Instead of preparing students for civic participation, the curriculum undermines their ability to engage thoughtfully with complex systems and histories.
DEI is Not the Cute Puppy in the Window
Grounded in a commitment to equal opportunity, this backgrounder outlines concerns with DEI approaches that prioritize group identity over individual experience. It focuses on fairness, access, and dignity for all, while critiquing programs that push a one-size-fits-all mindset or making broad assumptions about race, privilege, or power.
Backgrounder: Philadelphia U.S. History Curriculum
Philadelphia’s U.S. History curriculum sidelines the nation’s founding and replaces it with a narrative centered on identity, oppression, and ideological activism. By omitting core events like the Revolutionary War and embedding critical theory throughout, it leaves students with a skewed and incomplete understanding of American history. Read the full backgrounder to see how the past is being reshaped in the classroom.
Backgrounder: Philadelphia World History Curriculum
Philadelphia’s World History curriculum sidelines major global events—like the Holocaust, the French Revolution, and World War II—in favor of ideological lessons on oppression, capitalism, and identity politics. Instead of studying history through facts and primary sources, students are pushed toward activist frameworks that distort complexity. The result is a course that replaces historical understanding with political messaging. Download the full backgrounder.
Backgrounder: Philadelphia African American History Curriculum
Philadelphia’s 10th-grade African American History curriculum replaces historical complexity with political ideology. It downplays key figures like Martin Luther King Jr., elevates radical voices, and normalizes violence as a tool for change. Instead of equipping students with critical thinking skills, it presents a narrow, grievance-driven narrative that distorts the past and limits their future. Explore our in-depth report to see what’s really being taught—and what’s being left out.
Backgrounder: Chicago
Chicago Public Schools receive over $1 billion in federal funding annually, yet student performance continues to decline. Instead of focusing on academic recovery, CPS has prioritized identity-based activism—promoting ideologically driven curricula and aligning with political agendas that have fostered antisemitism in classrooms. With backing from the mayor and the Chicago Teachers Union, CPS has become a platform for activism at the expense of student learning. Read the full backgrounder.
Illinois State Board of Education Backgrounder
Despite record spending, Illinois students are falling further behind in math and reading. The state’s education priorities have shifted away from academics toward ideologically driven programming that centers identity, activism, and “liberation” over core instruction. The result: declining performance, rising costs, and classrooms shaped more by politics than learning. Download our full backgrounder.
Backgrounder: Growing Extremism and Antisemitism in Philadelphia Schools
A surge in extremist rhetoric, declining academic standards, and unchecked activist influence are fueling a hostile climate in the School District of Philadelphia, particularly for Jewish students. This internal backgrounder outlines incidents of antisemitism, identifies key actors and networks shaping the district’s ideological direction, and highlights systemic failures that prompted a federal civil rights investigation.
Backgrounder: How Teachers Unions and Associations Are Being Radicalized
Once seen as champions of education and equity, many teachers unions are increasingly influenced by radical political agendas, particularly anti-Israel activism. This backgrounder examines how activist networks have captured union platforms, shifting their focus from educational advocacy to ideological battles, raising alarms for parents, educators, and communities committed to fundamental educational values.
Decolonization Primer and Discussion Guide
The concept of “decolonization” has evolved from ending colonial rule to a radical rejection of Western values, institutions, and modes of thought—including liberalism itself. This guide explores how decolonization ideology now targets education, science, and even Jewish identity and Israel, framing them as outposts of “white supremacy” that must be dismantled to achieve equity and liberation.
Policy Brief: How Jewish Organizations Should Respond to the Spread of “Liberated” Ethnic Studies
In this policy brief, Jewish organizations will find guidance on how to address the growing influence of radical ethnic studies curricula, particularly those with anti-Israel or ideologically charged content. The report outlines key strategies for opposing these harmful ideologies while promoting pluralism and democratic values. It also offers recommendations for supporting alternative, non-ideological ethnic studies programs that respect diverse perspectives.
The Long March Through The Institutions
This infographic provides a visual timeline tracking key moments in the evolution of radical ideologies that have shaped modern institutions. It highlights milestones from the rise of postmodernism in the 1950s to the surge of antisemitism following recent global events, illustrating the complex intersection of academic, political, and social movements that have impacted American education and public discourse.