Leftist Indoctrination

In Our K-12 Public Schools

BY SARA DOGAN AND PETER COLLIER
 Copyright 2018
David Horowitz Freedom Center
PO BOX 55089
Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964
Elizabeth@horowitzfreedomcenter.org

www.frontpagemag.com
Printed in the United States
 Leftist Indoctrination:
In Our K-12 Public Schools

One of the most dangerous developments

of the last few decades has been the subversion of
our universities by radicals who in the 1960s first
tried to burn them down and then, after this strategy
of destruction failed, decided to get on the tenure
track to take them over. Their generational long
march succeeded, possibly beyond their wildest
expectations. With the exception of a few rear guard
actions by brave conservative students, American
higher education is now an indoctrination center
for cultural Marxism, identity racism and other
anti-American ideas.

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 But the left’s demolition project is not yet
complete. To make the victory complete, it must
take over all of American education, including the
schooling of our youngest and most vulnerable
students. This effort is now well advanced as
radical leftists use their control of the university
Ed schools and the teacher unions as a base to
extend their ideological campaigns into the K-12
system. Their shock troops include teachers,
administrators and textbook publishers and feature
“theorists” such as former Weatherman Bill Ayers
(who reinvented himself as an eminent Professor
of Early Childhood Education at the University
of Illinois when his days as a terrorist had ended)
who provide the manuals on “teaching for social
justice” that target teacher training programs and
ultimately children as early as kindergarten for
radical indoctrination.

The effects of this systematic effort

to radicalize K-12 education are being felt in
school districts all over the country. No corner
of the classroom is immune from indoctrination.
Young students learning arithmetic are given
thought problems involving homelessness and the
percentage of “undocumented workers” subjected

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to heartless deportation proceedings. Social studies
is now a race, gender and climate change-obsessed
curriculum designed to frighten rather than educate.
In the hands of leftist teachers, America is a nation
of victims rather than a nation of immigrants.

Some concerned parents and educators

appalled by this new regime have reported
educational horror stories that should concern
every citizen. The following give a sense of the
scope and intensity of the onslaught our youngest
and most vulnerable students face after the school
bell has sounded.

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Indoctrination on Race and “Social Justice”

*On February 1, 2018, Vermont’s Montpelier High

School flew the Black Lives Matter flag for the
month of February to mark Black History Month
in response to pressure from the Racial Justice
Alliance, a student group at the school where 18 of
350 students are African American.
*A teacher at Norman North High School in
Oklahoma was recorded by a student stating in
class, “To be white is racist, period.” The teacher
who made the comment was white. Despite being
part-Hispanic, the student who taped the teacher
and her family took offense at the comments.
“Why is it ok to demonize one race to children that
you’re supposed to be teaching a curriculum?” her
father wondered.

*Students in a literature composition class at Aloha

High School in Aloha, Oregon were given a “White
Privilege Survey” to complete as homework. The
assignment included such questions as “I can
go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well
assured that I will not be followed or harassed”
and “I can turn on the television or open to the
front page of the newspaper and see people of
my race widely and positively represented.” A

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school district spokeswoman attempted to excuse
the exercise by stating that the class covers current
issues including race and that the goal is for
students to “gain empathy, understanding and to
build bridges,” but the father of one student in the
class stated, “The way this survey is read, it almost
wants to like, shame you for being white.”

*Highlands Elementary School located in Edina,

Minnesota—one of the state’s highest ranked
elementary schools based on standardized
tests—has instituted several initiatives on racial
inequality and social justice. Kindergarten classes,
for instance, spend weeks participating in the
“Melanin project,” which involves, among other
things, coloring images of their hands which
were attached to a banner reading “Stop thinking
your skin color is better than anyone else’s!”
Meanwhile, first graders were to write poems
about social justice and fourth and fifth graders
participate in a performance project that links the
anti police and racially divisive Black Lives Matter
movement with peace. The principal’s page on
the website of Highlands Elementary School in
Edina, Minnesota, effusively praises Black Lives
Matter and reproduced the entry on the BLM’s
own website which states, “We are committed to

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disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family
structure requirement by supporting each other
as extended families and ‘villages.’” The school
principal also reported on her page that “students
of color” had experienced 291 “microaggresions”
in a 90 day period, meaning that they had been
encouraged by the school’s racialized atmosphere
to convert imagined slights all around them into
instances of white racism and to inform on their
fellow students.

*Teach for America is partnering with the

organization EdX to craft a six-week online course
for middle school teachers called “Teaching Social
Justice through Secondary Mathematics.” A
course overview states “This education and teacher
training course will help you blend secondary math
instruction with topics such as inequity, poverty, and
privilege…” Ideas for sample math lessons include
instruction on “Unpaid Work Hours in the Home
by Gender” and “Race and Imprisonment Rates in
the United States.” There is no lesson on violent
crime rates by race so the inevitable conclusion
is that if more blacks are incarcerated than their
proportion in the population, white racism must be
responsible.

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*In February 2017, teachers and staff serving in the
Rochester City School District in upstate New York
received an email stating that February 17 would
be designated “Black Lives Matter at School.”
The email urged staff to purchase a “Black Lives
Matter at School” T-shirt and included links to
leftist websites featuring propaganda about why
the phrase “all lives matter” is racist. The email
explained that educational goals for students will
include “Understands inequities based on race”;
“Affirms that the lives of people of color matter”;
and “Believes that we all have a responsibility to
work for equity.” In other words the lesson is that
inequalities are solely the result of racism, with
differential abilities, application and individual
talent playing little or no role in social outcomes.

*In January 2017 an activist group within the

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers called the
Caucus of Working Educators launched an
optional lesson plan for the city’s kindergarten-
to-12th grade students that included six days of
“social justice action.” Children in lower grades
were required to work on “The Revolution Is
Always Now” coloring book; older students had
science lessons about the biology of skin color. The
focus in all classrooms was on imbuing children

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with a heightened awareness of “white privilege”
while fostering feelings of racial resentment and
guilt. Teachers were also encouraged to wear
Black Lives Matter T-shirts. Some Philadelphia
teachers objected to such blatant politicization in
the classroom, not to mention its racist overtones.
One English teacher caused controversy by stating,
“I don’t think kids should be taught that Western
society is perpetrating a war on black people.”

*At Highlands Elementary School in Edina,

Minnesota, one of the publications principal Kate
Mahoney touts for younger students in her space
on the school blog is an A-B-C book titled A is for
Activist. The pages feature text such as this: “A is
for Activist. Are you an Activist? C is for Creative
Counter to Corporate Vultures. T is for Trans. X is
for Malcolm. As in Malcolm X.”

*The Edina School District’s employees must take

“Edina School District Equity and Racial Justice
Training: Moving from a Diversity to a Social
Justice Lens.” This includes bus drivers, who are
instructed that “dismantling white privilege” is
“the core of our work as white folks,” and that
working for the Edina schools requires “a major
paradigm shift in the thinking of white people.”

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Drivers were exhorted to acknowledge their racial
guilt, and embrace the district’s “equity” ideology.

*In October 2016 2,000 Seattle educators wore

Black Lives Matter shirts at their schools in a
district-wide action. The event was organized
by Social Equality Educators, a group of Seattle
teachers. At Chief Sealth International High
School, dozens of educators and students gathered
outside the building and held up banners and signs
that said “Black Lives Matter” and “We Stand
Together” with logos in the shape of a clenched
fist.

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Indoctrination About Islam

*In May 2017, the San Diego Unified School

District (SDUSD) inaugurated an anti-Muslim
bullying campaign developed in conjunction
with the Council on American Islamic Relations
(CAIR). CAIR is part of the Muslim Brotherhood
terrorist network and was named as an “unindicted
co-conspirator” by the U.S. Department of Justice
in a 2007 case brought against the Holy Land
Foundation, which funneled money to Hamas. The
San Diego campaign will include giving teachers
and administrators new calendars showing Muslim
holidays, creating “safe spaces” for Muslim
students, and including lessons on Islam in the
curriculum which emphasize prominent Muslims
in history. No such educational programs exist to
teach students about Judaism, although religious
hate crimes against Jews are eight times greater
than those against Muslims.

*Students at La Plata High School in Maryland

were ordered to copy the Islamic creed “Shahada”
which states in part, “There is no god but Allah,
and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
Students were also made to memorize and recite
the Five Pillars of Islam. Two weeks of class time

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were devoted to instruction in Islam while only
one day was reserved for Christianity—which
was portrayed in a negative light. One worksheet
distributed at the school stated “Most Muslims’
faith is stronger than the average Christian.”

*Middle School students in the Maury County

School District in Tennessee were ordered to copy
the Five Pillars of Islam including the Islamic
conversion creed, the Shahada, which states “Allah
is the only god” during a unit on world history.
Several weeks were spent on Islam and its doctrine
compared to the much more limited and perfunctory
time spent on Christianity and Judaism.

*In 2007, San Diego’s Carver Elementary School

made special accommodations for 100 Somali
Muslims who had transferred from a charter school
that had been closed. The school rearranged recess
periods to allow time for Muslim afternoon prayer,
added Arabic to its curriculum, and took pork and
other non-halal foods off the lunch menu. When
these changes resulted in complaints from non-
Muslim parents, the school removed the prayer
break, but changed the lunchtime schedule so that
prayer time was still accommodated.

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*In 2015, a Huntington Beach, California teacher
taught a class of seventh graders a song to which
she had crafted lyrics supporting and romanticizing
Islam. The song is set to the tune of Rachel Platten’s
“This is my Fight Song.” The lyrics state: “Like
how a single faith/can make a heart open/They
might only have one God/But they can make an
explosion.” A parent brought the song and lesson
to public attention after her son came home with a
notebook showing a stick figure stating “Believe in
Allah! There is no other god.”

*Freshmen at Salem Junior High School in Utah

were told by a teacher to get inside the mentality
of a terrorist organization like ISIS. The project
worksheet asked students to list “eight reasons
why young Muslims join ISIS” and instructed
them to create a “terrorism propaganda poster.”

*Third grade students at the Beverly J. Martin

elementary school in Ithaca, New York were made
to sit through a blatantly one-sided presentation
featuring radical anti-Israel activists who told
Hamas propaganda lies about the Israeli state. The
presentation on “Palestinian human rights” was led
by pro-terrorist and radical Israel-basher Bassem
Tamimi who videos his own children attempting

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to provoke Israeli soldiers and Ariel Gold who
holds “delegitimizing Zionism” as a personal goal.
Full footage of the event was released only after
the school district was compelled by a Freedom of
Information Act request. This footage revealed that
the presentation included a video made by Tamini
and featuring his daughter sharing a “message
for the world from the Palestinian children.” This
“message” states: “We don’t like [that] Israel kill us,
kill Gaza, kill Palestinian and we don’t like they to
kill us [sic]” and “They [Israel] can’t be terrorists.
We don’t like them to be terrorists.” After parent
complaints, the full footage was released and the
superintendent of the Ithaca City School district
issued a Letter of Reprimand stating that the event
was “politically skewed” and “inflammatory.”

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Indoctrination on Gender

*Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North

Carolina assigned the book “Jacob’s New Dress,”
a story about a boy who prefers to dress like a girl,
to all first grade classes. After a teacher launched
a complaint which sparked outrage among
lawmakers the decision was reversed. Instead, first
graders will read “Red: A Crayon’s Story” about
a red crayon who views itself as blue. The school
board is now attempting to add sexual orientation
and “gender identity/expression” to its diversity
policy.

*New health and physical education standards

created by the Washington Office of Superintendent
of Public Instruction (OSPI) became part of the
curriculum for students from kindergarten through
high school in the 2017-2018 school year. It
required the teaching of “gender identity” and
“gender expression.” Its goals were summarized
as follows: Beginning in Kindergarten,
students will be taught about the many ways to
express gender. Gender expression education
will include information about the manifestations
of traits that are typically associated with one

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gender. Cross dressing is one form of gender
expression. (One of the books kindergarteners read
is “Introducing Teddy.” In it Errol, a friend of a bear
named Thomas, asks why he is sad and Thomas
says, “I’m a girl teddy, not a boy teddy” and asks
to be called Tilly instead.) Third graders will be
introduced to the concept of gender identity. These
children will be taught that they can choose their
own gender. Fourth graders will be expected to
“define sexual orientation” and taught that they
can choose their own. Fifth graders will learn
about the relativity of gender roles and why such
roles are “social constructs” not inherently related
to who we are as male or female human beings, a
fundamentally anti-scientific view that ignores the
biological fact is that gender is not a choice but
genetically determined. Seventh graders will be
expected to “distinguish between biological sex,
gender identity, gender expression, and sexual
orientation.” High school students will critically
“evaluate how culture, media, society, and other
people influence our perceptions of gender roles,
sexuality, relationships, and sexual orientation.”

*Sixth graders at Fox Chapel Middle School in

Spring Hill, Florida were given a survey by their

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teacher that included explicit questions on sexuality
and race. Students were supposed to read each of
these statements and indicate how comfortable
they were with the situation described:

“A friend invites you to go to a gay bar.”

“You go to the gay bar and a person of the same sex

invites you to dance.”
“You discover that the cute young man/woman that
you are attracted to is actually a woman/man.”
“You discover your teenage brother kissing a male
friend.”
“Your two next door neighbors in your hall are
lesbian/gay.”
“Your mother ‘comes out’ to you.”
When some of the children proposed bringing the
survey home, the teacher told them not to show it
to their parents.

*A kindergarten class in Rocklin Academy, a

prestigious school in Rocklin, California was
exposed to transgender instruction without parental
notification. Two children’s books espousing

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transgender ideology were read to the class. Also
a male kindergartener was reintroduced to his
classmates as a girl. Later on, a first grader at the
charter school was sent to the principal’s office after
a girl accidentally “misgendered” the classmate in
what administrators called a “pronoun mishap.” The
girl called the student by his given name – apparently
unaware that the boy now identified as a girl.

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Anti Trump Indoctrination

*Before the 2016 election, a teacher in an advanced

placement history class at Minnesota’s Edina High
School demanded that students known to be Trump
supporters explain to the rest of the class why they
shouldn’t be considered racist. The day after the
election, many of the teachers at the school were
in tears, one telling her students, “Today is worse
than 9/11 or Columbine.”

*After the 2016 election, Chicago Public Schools

sent students home with a letter bashing Illinois’
Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and President
Trump. The letter stated, “Dear Families, Governor
Bruce Rauner, just like President Trump, has
decided to attack those who need the most help.
Governor Rauner and President Trump regularly
attack Chicago because they hope to score political
points. It is shameful.”
*A high school art teacher in Seth, West Virginia,
wore a profane anti-Trump patch on the back of her
jacket during school hours stating, “Tuck Frump”
with the T and F highlighted in white.
*Brainerd High School, a public school in

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Minnesota, published a 2017 yearbook containing
violent and derogatory quotes from students about
President Trump. One student stated, “I would like
to behead him.” Another commented, “I feel like
Donald is very racist and sexist and doesn’t care to
give people a chance before knowing them.” Yet
another stated, “I don’t like the way he comes off,
he seems really rude.”
*The Wall Township Public Schools in New Jersey
ordered a school yearbook to be reissued after at
least three photos of students wearing clothing
with logos supporting Trump were intentionally
altered. Grant Bernardo, a school junior, wore a
“Make America Great Again” shirt in his school
photo, but the image that appeared in the yearbook
was digitally altered to show him in a black T-shirt
instead. A photo of a student wearing a Trump
logo on his sweater vest was also cropped to erase
the logo. And a quote from Trump sent in by the
freshman class president to appear on her page also
did not appear in the yearbook, although it was
confirmed that it was received before the deadline
.
*A teacher of sixth-grade English at Paulo
Intermediate School in Staten Island, New York
assigned students to complete a vocabulary

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assignment that forced them to insert words in
sentences disparaging President Donald Trump.
Among the phrases students were asked to complete
were the following:

“President Trump speaks in a very superior and

_________ manner insulting many people. He
needs to be more ________.

“Barack Obama set a ________ when he became

the first African American president.”

The teacher was looking for students to

insert the words “haughty” and “humble” in the
one question and “precedent” in the other. When
the father of an eleven-year-old in the class
objected to the assignment and refused to have his
child complete it, the teacher docked the student 15
points for an incomplete assignment.

These are not isolated incidents but part of

a national pattern. This leftist indoctrination in
K-12 schools is the daily classroom experience of
children around the country, a concerted assault on
the values of the families from which they come as
well as on the intellectual integrity of the students
themselves. Under this regime, students are not

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taught how to think, but told what to think. And
what they are told to think is racially divisive,
intellectually vulgar, politically partisan, and often
unscientific and simply untrue. It is little wonder
that after years of such classroom indoctrination,
buttressed by forced readings of anti American texts
by Howard Zinn and other leftist propagandists,
many high school graduates arrive at college
seeing the world through the lens of grievance and
victimhood, illiterate in basic civics, hostile toward
the rich complexity of the American experience,
and willing accomplices in the leftist political
order that now controls higher education.

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Combatting the Assault on K-12 Schools

The David Horowitz Freedom Center

has historically taken a leadership role as an
early warning system for America on the radical
subversion of American higher education. It
uses that experience in a new campaign designed
to make K-12 schools places of objective and
unbiased education rather than indoctrination. The
goal of this campaign is to secure legislation in 50
states that would create a “Code of Ethics for K-12
Teachers” that would enforce traditional rules of
fairness and non-partisanship in our public school
systems. Among other things, the Code forbids
teachers from taking partisan political positions in
the classroom which include endorsing candidates
or pending legislation; introducing controversial
material not germane to subjects being taught;
engaging in actions which impede access of military
recruiters or federal law enforcement authorities
to the school site; advocating either side of public
controversies; segregating students by race or
singling out one racial group as responsible for the
sufferings or inequities of other racial groups.

In short, the Code of Ethics for K-12

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teachers we have designed forbids teachers from
using their classrooms as a bully pulpit for political,
ideological, racial, or religious indoctrination, or
attempting to use the authority of the classroom to
support one side of a public controversy.

The Code, in other words, is a reassertion

of the common sense principles—presenting
unbiased educational materials in an unbiased
way—that guided American public education from
the time of the one-room schoolhouse of the 18th
century until radicals began their assault on the
contemporary K-12 classroom.

Teachers in violation of the Code would be

subject to penalties such as probation, suspension
and loss of their teaching licenses. This Code
has the potential to stop the leftist assault on our
schoolchildren in its tracks.

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Translating the Code into Action

The public may have become inured to the

radicalization of higher education, whose appalling
absurdities have become so notorious that they are
now the stuff of nighttime comedy routines. But
while parents may feel that the universities are
at least temporarily beyond repair, they continue
to be heavily invested in our public schools. It is
our belief that when the public learns about the
stranglehold “progressives” are trying to obtain on
K-12 curriculum it will be outraged and demand
action.

But while public awareness is important,

stopping the indoctrination in our schools ultimately
requires a legislative solution. The Code of
Ethics will ban the abuses without infringing First
Amendment rights. (It has already been thoroughly
reviewed by First Amendment lawyers.)

The Freedom Center campaign to

implement the Code will identify legislators on
education committees of states across the nation
who are concerned about the conversion of our
public schools into indoctrination centers for leftist

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politics and racial views, and willing to draft and
introduce statutes based on our Code of Ethics.
We are simultaneously identifying think tanks
and public policy organizations in those states to
collaborate in generating public awareness about
this issue and promoting this legislation.

We are now working with concerned

legislators in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota,
Texas and other states.

The subversion of our K-12 public schools

is already well advanced. It is imperative that
parent groups and concerned organizations initiate
a counter-offensive to turn back this determined
effort to make our schools into academies for leftist
ideologies and anti- Americanism. The Center’s
Code of Ethics for K-12 Public Schools will
educate the public about the extent of the threat to
our educational system and our essential liberties
and carry the fight directly into the political and
legislative arena.

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A Code of Ethics for K-12 Schools

[The following Code of Ethics for K-12 teachers

forbids teachers from using their classrooms
for political, ideological, or religious advocacy.
Teachers in violation of the Code would be subject
to penalties such as probation, suspension and loss
of their teaching licenses.]

Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility For

Educators in K-12 Public Schools

Whereas the purpose of public education

in America is to produce knowledgeable and
competent adults able to participate as informed
citizens in the democratic process;

Whereas education in a democracy is best

served by teaching students how to think, not
telling them what to think;

Whereas our country is divided over many

issues affecting its citizens;

Whereas it has been established through

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surveys that a majority of K-12 teachers discuss
controversial issues in their classrooms;

Whereas it has been established that some

teacher training institutions, teacher licensing
agencies, state education departments and
professional teacher organizations have condoned
and even encouraged this behavior under the guise
of “teaching for social justice” and other sectarian
doctrines;

Whereas time spent on political or

ideological indoctrination takes time away from
instruction in the academic subjects taught by
public educational institutions including the
foundational subjects of mathematics, science,
English, history, and civics and prevents students
from receiving the best possible public education
as funded by the taxpayers of this state;

Whereas parents and taxpayers have a

right to expect that taxpayer resources will be
spent on education, not political or ideological
indoctrination;

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 Therefore be it resolved that this state’s
[board of education or other relevant regulating body]
will promulgate clear regulations and enforcement
mechanisms for appropriate professional and
ethical behavior by teachers licensed to teach in
this state; that these guidelines shall make it clear
that teachers in taxpayer supported schools are
forbidden to use their classrooms to try to engage
in political, ideological, or religious advocacy.

At a minimum, these regulations shall

provide that no teacher is permitted during class
time or while otherwise operating within the scope
of employment as a teacher in a public educational
institution to do the following:

(1) Endorse, support, or oppose any candidate

or nominee for public office or any elected or
appointed official regardless of whether such
official is a member of the local, state, or federal
government;

(2) Endorse, support, or oppose any pending,

proposed, or enacted legislation or regulation
regardless whether such legislation or regulation
is pending, proposed, or has been enacted at the

28
local, state, or federal level;

(3) Endorse, support, or oppose any pending,

proposed, or decided court case or judicial action
regardless of whether such court case or judicial
action is at the local, state, or federal level;

(4) Endorse, support, or oppose any pending,

proposed, or executed executive action by an
executive branch agency of the local, state, or
federal level;

(5) Introduce into class any controversial subject

matter that is not germane to the topic of the course
being taught;

(6) Endorse, support, or engage in any activities

that hamper or impede the lawful access of military
recruiters to campus;

(7) Endorse, support, or engage in any activities

that hamper or impede the actions of state, local, or
federal law enforcement;

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 (8) Advocate in a partisan manner for any side
of a controversial issue, defined as an issue that is
a point in electoral party platforms at the national,
state or local level. To ensure that students have
the resources to make up their own minds on such
issues, teachers must provide them with materials
supporting both sides of the controversy, and
present those views in a fair-minded non-partisan
manner. Teachers may express their opinions
on these matters but only in such a manner that
students understand that they are free to make up
their own minds and to disagree with the teacher
without incurring any penalty for doing so.

(9) Segregate students according to race, or sin-

gle out one racial group of students as responsible
for the suffering or inequities experienced by
another racial group of students

The regulations promulgated pursuant to this

act shall apply to all teachers at public educational
institutions, tenured and non-tenured. Moreover,
the regulations shall contain clear guidelines for
enforcement and provide penalties for violations,
up to and including termination. The state’s [board
of education or other relevant regulating body]

30
shall provide written notification to all teachers,
parents, and students of their respective rights and
responsibilities under the regulations promulgated
pursuant to this act and shall provide at least three
hours of annual continuing teacher education
instruction to teachers to instruct them regarding
their responsibilities under said regulations.

Moreover, we call on the state’s

professional teacher organizations and unions
to voluntarily adopt an educators’ code of ethics
and professional responsibility that incorporates
the above principles and specifically prohibits
teachers in K-12 schools from using the classroom
for political indoctrination.

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 Peter Collier is the Vice- President of Programs
and Co-founder of the David Horowitz Freedom
Center

Sara Dogan is the National Campus Director

for the David Horowitz Freedom Center. She
has written numerous articles and reports about
academic freedom, classroom indoctrination, and
anti-Semitism on campus.

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