Too many educators in government schools have crossed a line from teaching to mobilizing. Reporting shows teachers and school staff not only discussing contentious current events, but actively organizing and promoting student protests, distributing political materials in class, and using instructional time to recruit or endorse outside causes. These actions matter because classrooms shape civic norms; when teachers model protest as an imperative rather than a subject for critical study, they risk encouraging children to view direct action—sometimes even dangerous or violent action—as their duty to “remedy” perceived public injustices.
There are painful, concrete examples.
In November 2023, reporting showed a Brooklyn parent/teacher coalition that promoted and helped organize a 700-student walkout for Palestine involving 100 schools and provided antisemitic signs proclaiming, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Recommended chants included “Resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want Zionists here!” Some students were captured on video yelling, “F**k the Jews!”
After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, national coverage documented numerous educators whose social media posts were met with disciplinary action. Facebook comments by post-secondary faculty in response to Kirk’s death included “You reap what you sow,” and “This isn’t a tragedy. It’s a victory.” In South Carolina, a social studies teacher posted: “Thoughts and prayers to his children but [in my honest opinion] America became greater today. There I said it.”
Equally alarming are verified reports of K–12 teachers reacting to the attempted assassination of President Trump. A Wisconsin High School social studies teacher was placed on administrative leave after posting on X, “I am not impressed with recent presidential assassins. It’s [expletive] embarrassing! Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, Oswald must all be spinning in their graves! MAGAA (make Americans great assassins again)! Sad!”
These are not isolated online slips. When trusted adults publicly celebrate or excuse political violence, and when they bring their political organizing into government school settings, students can internalize that extreme actions, including violence and even murder, are acceptable tools of civic engagement. Young people emulate authority figures; teacher endorsement of violent rhetoric or direct recruitment into protest activities lowers the bar for risk-taking, normalizes dehumanizing language toward classmates and neighbors, and can induce real-world violence that puts students and others at risk of harm.
Most recently, Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old part-time tutor and Caltech graduate from California, was charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump after charging a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Allen’s background was described in multiple news outlets as a highly educated tutor, “teacher of the month,” and former engineer. The U.S. Department of Justice reports Allen carried a shotgun and a handgun and sent a roughly 1,000-word manifesto to family members in which he described himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” and said he intended to target Trump administration officials.
The latest report by the Skeptic Research Center found that people who hold graduate degrees are about twice as likely to say that “violence is often necessary to create social change” compared with those who have completed lower-level college degrees or opted out of higher education altogether. Among those with a master’s degree, 40 percent said violence could be justified to enact social change.
Colleges are rife with Marxist nonsense masquerading as enlightenment. It should be no surprise that, overall, people who spend more time in these institutions getting advanced degrees are more prone to adopting leftist views, including the use of violence to achieve their ends.
U.S. Parents Involved in Education recently published a report titled “Are Government Schools Redeemable?” and its conclusion is a resounding “NO” — at least not for the short term. The patterns documented here — educators promoting protests, organizing students, and in some cases celebrating or condoning political violence — are among the many problems that led to that judgment.
Parents should protect their children from harmful government schools and elect to educate their children alternatively. In the meantime, because most students attend government schools, policymakers must ensure tax dollars do not support educators who condone or promote political violence or use the classroom to advance biased political agendas. Stronger oversight, clear district policies and consistent enforcement are needed to keep classrooms focused on education — not recruitment.
Sheri Few is the Founder and President of United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE), whose mission is to end the U.S. Department of Education and all federal education mandates. Few speaks regularly on radio and television across the country and served as Executive Producer for the documentary film titled “Truth & Lies in American Education.” Few is also the host of USPIE’s podcast, “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few,” which educates Americans on the various forms of indoctrination, harmful policies and affronts to parents’ rights occurring in government schools across the country. Listen to “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few” on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, and X.