In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder, the ideological poison permeating through the education system has become an overdue focal point.
Concerningly, the same ideological underpinnings that led to the tragic event manifest in different ways.
As Congress debates how to address the surge of antisemitism on America’s college campuses and whether federal dollars are indirectly subsidizing it, K-12 schools are planting the same ideological seeds. This spring, Pajaro Valley Unified School District in California approved a $90,000 contract with the controversial ethnic studies consulting firm, Community Responsive Education (CRE).
Despite concerns from the Jewish community over antisemitism, the board went ahead with the agreement for professional development and curriculum guidance. This was a local decision with national implications, underscoring how deeply these radical ideas have penetrated the education system.
While CRE and its allies deny allegations of antisemitic content, there is no doubt that the far-left ideology at the foundation of [liberated] ethnic studies opens the door for antisemitism.
Unfortunately, the doctrine pushed by these consultants is no longer limited to universities and a handful of school districts – it is being advanced throughout the education ecosystem and adjacent institutions.
In 1967, German Marxist, sociologist and activist Rudi Dutschke coined the slogan the “long march through the institutions.” He proposed it as a strategy for radical change, advocating for left-wing activists to infiltrate and transform societal institutions like education from within to achieve revolutionary goals.
Today, ethnic studies, masquerading as the study of “history” and “culture,” has become a primary vehicle to advance a deeply divisive, anti-American and antisemitic, far-left political programming and activism to achieve the goals Dutschke advocated for.
Activist consultants have capitalized on ethnic studies credentials and “expert” status to apply a heavy influence over K-12 curriculum, state standards, courses and lessons for education publishers and companies, and even to create curriculum for the Smithsonian Institution.
Like Pajaro Valley Unified School District, other districts have had agreements with CRE for curriculum and professional development. Evidence seems to validate the concerns community members have had about the content and ideology the organization is promoting.
For example, since 2021, another California district, Jefferson Union High School District, has been in contract with CRE for curriculum buildout and teacher training. One of the district’s early versions of its ethnic studies course included a focus on power, privilege and “oppressor” versus “oppressed” narratives. It also included how “Zionist settler colonialism” led to “Palestinian dispossession of lands/identity/culture.”
Even though the district claimed it revised the course in 2024, the only noticeable difference is the removal of the words “Zion, Zionism, and anti-Zionism” from the document.
While these far-left consultants have done the bulk of their work at the K-12 level training teachers and developing curriculum, they have also been influential at the state level.
After a 2019 Vermont law established an “Ethnic and Social Equity Standards Advisory Working Group” and charged it with reviewing and recommending additional standards focused on “ethnic groups and social groups,” the “Working Group” entered into contract with CRE to “provide critical research and substantial assistance in the conceptualizing and writing of a Standards Framework. Joining the CRE staff and Working Group was Samia Shoman, one of the principal creators of the “Teach Palestine” curriculum.
Unfortunately, the long march does not end there.
Because these left-wing individuals and groups benefit from being heralded as experts, they are also called upon to help create curriculums and lessons for education publishers and content providers.
Case in point, Newsela, an online subscription platform that uses news and nonfiction articles to help enhance learning, created a California Ethnic Studies Collection Guide in collaboration with CRE. The document states that the company has “aligned content and instructional resources” to CRE’s “curricular framework for Ethnic Studies.” Additionally, the company lists entities such as Al Jazeera, Facing History and Ourselves, and the Smithsonian Institution as partners.
In fact, despite the Trump administration’s issuing of an executive order calling for an audit of “improper ideologies” from Smithsonian Museums, the Asian Pacific American Center appears to have contracted last July with CRE for $40,000 to create “curriculum.” Furthering the far-left organization’s influence.
Using ethnic studies as a front, activists have infiltrated schools, universities, state level committees, companies and government-funded museums to advance divisive, anti-American, revolutionary ideologies.
Since the late 1960s, far-left radicals have been engaged in a long march through education institutions with the intent to overthrow Western culture.
In his 1838 Lyceum Address, Abraham Lincoln stated that danger to this Republic “cannot come from abroad,” but rather it will “spring up amongst us.”
Ethnic studies’ long march through the education institutions has sprung up “danger” that tears at the fabric of our culture.
Parents, communities and lawmakers need to demand an end to the platforming of these destructive ideologies and a return to a deep focus on teaching reading and math.
Rhyen Staley is a researcher for Defending Education. He holds a master’s degree in elementary education and has over a decade of classroom experience in both public and private schools. He has over 25 years of volleyball coaching experience from Women’s Division I down to junior high.
