Educational Warfare: K-12 Schools Infiltrated by Marxist Extremists and Foreign Influence
America's enemies infiltrate public education institutions to brainwash children with anti-American, anti-capitalist propaganda.
The election of Donald Trump has led to many reforms across the federal government, including the steady dismantling of the Department of Education. Removing -ideological agendas from federal programs has had downstream cultural effects, and it seems America has started to leave many of these dangerous ideologies behind. But resistance remains, and leftists who hold power have made defending their programs an imperative.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in our public schools.
Watchdog groups like Restoration News continue to expose extremist infiltration of America's public schools—exposure that in some cases triggers government investigations and program cancellations. Yet anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, and anti-American ideologues persist and dangerous curricula remain in place. Light must keep shining on the dark forces seeking to influence and brainwash the nation's children.
Extremism from Within
The Zinn Education Project (Zinn) remains embedded in many schools across the nation, despite continued exposure of its un-American themes.
The late Howard Zinn authored the popular A People's History of the United States that teaches history through a lens of "racial and sexual oppression." Mr. Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist. . . Maybe a democratic socialist." Zinn claims to have over 177,000 registrants and calls itself a "leading resource" for educators. According to the website, Zinn provides "social justice resources for teachers," mainly in the field of history.
One lesson called "We the People: Whose Rights Does the Constitution Protect?" strives to teach students about their "rights" and how "law enforcement agencies disproportionately target marginalized communities." The lesson's twisted narratives ask students why America so often denies rights, "especially to Black, Brown, poor, queer, and immigrant communities?"
The Zinn Project instructs students to advocate for the U.S. to adopt a new global Bill of Rights that would grant everyone the "right to change his nationality."—essentially requiring open borders. This new Bill of Rights would mandate socialism, declaring that everyone "has the right to social security" through the resources of the state for "economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality." Everyone would have the right "to protections against unemployment" and the right to an adequate "standard of living."
The Zinn Project wants to combat efforts to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, opposing groups like Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, PragerU, and Turning Point USA. The project delves into revisionist history, advocating for teachers to instruct their students of the "fundamentally racist and sexist" nature of the United States.
The group seeks to turn children into Marxist social justice warriors through their "#TeachTruth Syllabus." This curriculum teaches "how racism and other forms of inequality were built into the foundation of the United States, how these inequalities have persisted and changed over time, and how individuals and groups have resisted and organized for justice."
It subjects middle schoolers to a lesson called "Teaching Climate Disobedience" that instructs them how to use "civil disobedience to stop the flow of oil."
The Zinn Education Project recently posted on social media that "ICE should not be at the World Cup (nor anywhere else for that matter!)."
The most troubling aspect? Most states and a majority of local districts across the nation have adopted this curriculum. Check out their own map of where its users are located.
Dr. Brianna Pitts, a professor at Western Michigan University who instructs future teachers said the Zinn Education Project is foundational in the way she sees the world. She said, "Zinn has enabled my students and myself to connect the long struggle to see different people . . . it is foundational to my coursework."
In 2025, the nation's largest teachers' union, the NEA, partnered with Zinn to "design curriculums" and "facilitated the dissemination of lesson plans they developed."
This harmful ideology comes from within, from home-grown anti-American socialists. Foreign influence also persistently infiltrates the nation's educational institutions.
Qatar's Role
Qatar is a leading supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group described as "the root of all modern Islamist terrorism." Qatar somehow has maintained influence over America's public education institutions for decades.
Research by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) found that the Qatar Foundation International (QFI) has spent more than $65 million on teacher-training and curricula for social studies and Arabic-language classrooms. The curricula included the promotion of Islamic religious values and practices and pushed anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda.
A QFI funded program in Austin, Texas, uses a textbook that instructs from the Quran and Hadith. You'll also find the program's influence in school districts across the nation, including in big cities like Portland, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
Until 2025, Brown University had the Choices Program—which supplied social studies curricula to K-12 schools nationwide, including free online content and professional education workshops. 8,000 schools in every state used the program, reaching over a million students. Brown even marketed it as a replacement for traditional textbooks.
The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) launched an explosive report in March 2025, exposing the Choices Program's ties to QFI.
The Choices Program identified itself as a nonprofit organization, but school districts contracted with Brown University, not the nonprofit. While universities can have affiliated non-profits, they must disclose these on their tax returns. ISGAP found that tax statements did not identify the relationship between Brown and the Choices Program. The Higher Education Act of 1965 requires institutions of higher education to disclose to the Secretary of Education any gifts from foreign sources or contracts with foreign entities of $250,000 or more.
The Choices Program began to change its narrative on Israel in its curriculum around 2015. It removed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and the textbooks began to depict Jews as colonizers. New curriculum revisions in 2017 delegitimized Israel and downplayed the atrocities of the holocaust, identified by some as "soft Holocaust denial."
According to the ISGAP report, QFI touted its funding connections to Brown University despite Brown attempting to downplay the relationship. ISGAP's investigation provides extensive evidence that QFI played a major role in the Choices Program curriculum development, including financing.
A flyer advertised QFI funding the Choices Program curriculum for seventh to twelfth grade teachers to provide free units on the Middle East.
Image from The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy's report on Foreign Influence and Anti-Israel Bias in K-12 Classrooms
School districts using earlier versions of the social studies textbooks likely didn't realize the ideological shift when the Choices program rolled out its updates. As a result, educators across the nation may have unwittingly pushed anti-American, anti-Israel propaganda onto their students.
Fortunately, in June 2025, just a few months after the ISGAP report, Brown University abruptly ended the Choices Program citing "financial challenges."
CCP Infiltration
As if Qatari influence weren't bad enough, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also holds sway over American classrooms. Confucius Classrooms—backed by the Chinese government—allow the CCP to infiltrate American education institutions. These programs "staff classrooms, provide curriculum, and require teachers to sign contracts ensuring they do not damage the national interest of China." These Confucius Classrooms are part of an underlying strategy of China's President Xi Jinping to "exert strength and reclaim what belongs to China" through his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The BRI is the cornerstone of Xi's foreign policy and the CCP's mechanism to upset the global economy. Airforce Lt. Col. Daniel Lindley wrote about the BRI, saying one of goals is for China to "gain greater capacity to affect regional actors' political trajectories in a growing CCP sphere of influence centered on China's values." What better way to push values than through children's education programs?
Confucius Classroom material and contracts were found in districts across the nation. In 2023, Defending Education found these "Little Red Classrooms" in 143 districts—including near 20 military bases. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHS), one of the most elite public schools in the nation located in Fairfax, Virginia, accepted millions of dollars from this CCP-linked group.
Defending Education requested the IRS conduct an investigation into the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Partnership Fund, Inc., related to its business arrangements with foreign entities and its non-profit status. Evidence obtained by Defending Education revealed TJHS's relationship with an organization with "deep ties to the CCP" to set up similar schools in China that were ultimately run by the Chinese government.
The negative public exposure of the CCP's Confucius Classrooms caused most programs in the United States to close—but that didn't stop the CCP. They just used a familiar tactic—rebranding. The CCP now calls them the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC). CLEC programs can be found around the world—Brazil, England, Russia, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Mexico and more. It's not known how many of these CCP-linked programs remain in the U.S., but parents and public officials must remain vigilant so they don't make a return to America's education system.
Fortunately, one Republican Congressman is seeking solutions. The PROTECT Our Kids Act, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Hern OK-R, would prohibit federal dollars from going to any elementary or secondary school that receives support or funding from the CCP. The Act passed in the House in Dec. 2025 but remains in the Senate education committee.
These are just a few examples of how American public-school students have been subjected to foreign influence and remain vulnerable to educational warfare aimed at undermining the nation.
Foreign influences and extremist ideology infiltrate classrooms unnoticed and only retreat when they are forced into the light. That's not enough. Parents and taxpayers must demand transparency in curriculum adoption and hold school boards and lawmakers accountable. This dangerous educational warfare undermines our national sovereignty and must be eliminated.
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