In a Nutshell
At a deeply polarized moment in American history, political movements on the right and the left are working to introduce their political beliefs into K-12 classrooms. Right-wing activists seek book bans, mandatory Bible instruction, and restriction on teaching about slavery. Left-wing activists, including leaders and others associated with the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), have also been promoting measures to bring their own overtly political goals into K-12 classrooms.
Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, when 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered and 240 people were kidnapped as hostages into Gaza, the MTA has embraced a series of measures that have supported anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activism and encouraged teachers to do the same. These measures have included:
- Promoting multiple one-sided resolutions that demonized Israel and its supporters. This included one that accused Israel of genocide, while failing to mention Hamas’ murderous October 7 attack and also ignoring the plight of hundreds of Israeli hostages.
- Hosting a webinar that purported to address “Anti-Palestinian Racism,” but was in fact dedicated to presenting an extreme, one-sided narrative about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that identified support for Zionism as racism, demonized Israel and its supporters, and made false, disparaging assertions about Jews, their values, and their beliefs.
- Sponsoring a three-hour workshop entitled “Teaching and Learning About Palestine,” which encouraged teachers to develop one-sided lesson plans for teaching about Palestine.
The MTA has also said that it intends to develop new curriculum resources that would supplement existing one-sided material available to members for teaching about Palestine and its conflict with Israel. The relevant resolution encourages teachers to bring these new resources to their students. The process is being led by the Director of Training and Professional Learning, Ricardo Rosa, who made social media posts celebrating the October 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) Appears to have a Jewish Problem
The MTA’s initiative does not support diverse perspectives on a complex struggle between two people that each have historic claims to the same territory. Instead, it provides ideologically informed narratives that function in a manner similar to medieval Passion Plays, dramas about good and evil that have a fixed storyline and preordained heroes and villains. The net result is to perpetuate anti-Jewish tropes that malign Israel and its supporters.
The unabashed bias evident in the MTA’s project prompted State Senators Rebecca Rausch and Jason Lewis to send a joint letter to MTA President Max Page. They observed that the MTA “appears to be promoting a one-sided ideological view that, if perpetuated, would further isolate and potentially endanger Jewish and Israeli people in our schools and communities.” While the Senators’ letter, sent in April 2024, heightened public awareness of the MTA’s dangerous excesses, the MTA has only intensified its political program.
The Danger of Politicizing K-12 Education
This has generated concern that teachers are being enrolled, perhaps unwittingly, to indoctrinate students in points of view favored by radical MTA activists and their leaders. Most parents and community members do not want students to be told which political candidate to back, which faith to believe in, or which cause to support. They want students educated, informed, and empowered to make their own judgments. Encouraging teachers to use their position to bring preferred political views into K-12 classrooms risks eroding public trust, undermining the integrity of K-12 schools, and endangering those who suffer the prejudices resulting from extreme, one-sided activism.
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