In fourth-grade ethnic studies, Berkeley Unified School District teachers asked nine-year-olds to define ‘covert resistance’ and ‘overt resistance.’
In Berkeley, Calif., elementary schoolers are learning about “cisgenderpatriarchy,” “ableism,” and “decolonization,” a House Education Committee investigation found.
Representative Tim Walberg commissioned the investigation following an uptick in antisemitic incidents after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks against Israel. While the report, which was shared with National Review, documents instances of antisemitism in all three school districts the committee examined, investigators also found a broader pattern of left-wing bias that shapes how young children are being taught history, reading, geography, economics, and other subjects.
In some instances teachers and National Education Association union leaders discouraged colleagues from sharing certain controversial lessons “directly with families.” One such lesson aimed to teach Berkeley students about Israel and Palestine. Lesson plans obtained by the committee claimed that “from the river to the sea” — a popular activist slogan that calls for the elimination of the state of Israel — can be “a call for freedom and peace.” The same lesson avoided describing Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Berkeley’s ethnic studies curriculum offers several examples of how these political themes enter the classroom.
In fourth-grade ethnic studies, Berkeley Unified School District teachers asked nine-year-olds to define “covert resistance” and “overt resistance.” Teachers also introduced the terms of “colonization,” “decolonization,” and “settler.” With these new definitions in mind, the curriculum explained that history “is often presented from a colonizer’s perspective” and expressed the importance of “decolonizing historical narratives.”
The district’s fifth-grade ethnic studies curriculum takes a similar approach to civics. A unit titled “defining democracy” sought to “critique empire and its relationship to white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.”
When teaching about the Founding Fathers, Berkeley’s fourth-grade curriculum aimed to “challenge imperialist/colonial hegemonic beliefs and practices on the ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized levels.” The term “Founding Fathers,” the lesson says, is “harmful because it does not acknowledge the Indigenous communities who lived here before colonization.”
The investigation found similar politicization in the School District of Philadelphia. A lesson taught to ninth graders linked capitalism to imperialism and colonialism.
“The rise of capitalism has been closely intertwined with imperialism … which led to the subjugation of peoples and the extraction of resources from colonized lands,” reads one lesson plan.
Philadelphia’s ninth-grade lesson on “American Economic Foundations” teaches that “the United States’ economic foundations are rooted in systems of exploitation, particularly through the extraction of land and labor from Indigenous, Black, immigrant, and working-class communities.” It also claims that “capitalism has adapted to maintain inequality.”
For younger students in Berkeley, the school district encouraged teachers to use an alphabet book called “P is for Palestine” to celebrate Arab American Heritage Month in April. The picture book contains a page that says, “I is for Intifada.” Intifada is the Arabic word for “uprising” and is commonly used to describe periods of violent Palestinian resistance to Israeli governance, including antisemitic attacks on Israeli civilians. The school district also recommended teachers use a children’s book that erases Israel from maps of the Middle East.
Berkeley elementary school teachers also conducted “teaching Palestine” workshops to prepare their colleagues for lessons on the Middle East. One lesson included in the workshops described Hamas terrorists as “fighters in Gaza who were angry about how Israel has been treating people in Gaza.” Another lesson labeled Israel as Palestine.
Politicized Middle East lessons seem to have bled into out-of-classroom activities as well. The investigation found that students at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School raised money for the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) through a bake sale and “Palestinian bracelet sale.”
Berkeley Unified School District, the School District of Philadelphia, and the National Education Association did not respond to request for comment.