This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
In this piece, Manhattan Institute fellow Danyela Souza Egorov takes a look at ballooning public education spending and asks: What are we getting for this money? Her answer may surprise you.
***
American K-12 public education spending <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED679904.pdf">reached</a> $1 trillion for the first time in 2024.
But what are students getting for that money?
While <a href="https://edunomicslab.org/roi-over-time/">spending grew</a> by 56% since 2013, reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as “the nation’s report card” — declined. Over the next decade, national student enrollment is <a href="https://bellwether.org/publications/how-student-enrollment-declines-are-affecting-education-budgets/?activeTab=2">projected</a> to decline by 5.5%, around 2.7 million students.
There are some bright spots. According to the Georgetown University Edunomics Lab, students in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia have seen <a href="https://us19.campaign-archive.com/?u=179e2a9db6ce62a03ab6a0a74&amp;id=1262a5adf2">some</a> recent gains, with Mississippi <a href="https://www.progressivepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/PPI_Mississippi-Marathon.pdf">leading</a> in reading improvement.
However, most states with increased education budgets have not improved student outcomes, and some have even experienced declines.
What they have done is hire staff. A lot of staff.
K-12 staff <a href="https://edunomicslab.org/staffing-v-enrollment-trends/">grew</a> from 5.9 million in 2014 to 6.6 million in 2024, even as schools served about 1 million fewer students. This disconnect between spending and enrollment has resulted in situations such as a Chicago school <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/chicagos-empty-ghost-schools-teach-us-about-how-system-failing">with</a> 28 staff members for 27 students.
There’s also a Memphis charter <a href="https://www.tnfirefly.com/news/memphis-shelby-county-school-board-renews-public-charter-school-despite-enrollment-of-just-14-students">school</a> that was renewed despite having only 14 students enrolled — it may have helped that the principal is <a href="https://dailymemphian.com/email/23233/view">married</a> to the Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent, who is responsible for charter renewal — and 112 New York City schools projected to enroll <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-public-schools-enrollment-zohran-mamdani">fewer</a> than 150 students, effectively creating micro schools and raising per-pupil spending to <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/08/30/us-news/nyc-doe-projected-to-spend-over-42k-per-student-this-school-year-the-most-in-the-country/">approximately</a> $42,000.
But while lots of states are snatching up staff, they’re not all spending money the same way. Take the four largest states — Florida, Texas, California, and New York — which collectively educate 34% of American students.
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The red states are expanding school choice. Florida dedicates nearly 12% of its budget to school choice programs, <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/2026-edchoice-spending-share-rankings">more</a> than any other state. Currently, 53% of Florida students attend a school of their choice rather than the one assigned to them by the government based on their home address. Texas recently passed a bill <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/national-school-choice-week-republican-states">allocating</a> $1 billion to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts, now the largest first-year education savings account program in the country, with over 274,000 students <a href="https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20260402-texas-comptrollers-office-releases-comprehensive-overview-of-texas-education-freedom-account-applications-1775142014682#:~:text=%E2%80%9CTexas%20didn't%20just%20meet,showed%20up%20in%20record%20numbers.%E2%80%9D">applying</a> in its first year.
Meanwhile, California and New York are moving to limit school choice for families. California previously saw rapid charter school growth, with about 80 new schools <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED558484.pdf">opening</a> annually. However, <a href="https://edsource.org/2019/new-era-for-charter-schools-newsom-signs-bill-with-compromises-he-negotiated/618099">a 2019 law</a> that allowed local school boards to deny charter applications <a href="https://laist.com/news/education/buffeted-by-change-california-charter-schools-continue-to-grow-amid-scrutiny">reduced</a> new charter openings from 80 in 2014 to 12 in 2023.
Similarly, New York has imposed limits on school choice. Statewide, charter schools enroll <a href="https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/migrant-influx-helps-curb-new-yorks-k-12-enrollment-decline/#:~:text=Enrollment%20in%20charter%20schools%20grew,Homeschool">about</a> 7% of students, with higher concentrations in major cities like Buffalo (25%) and New York City (16%), where the number of charter schools has been capped.
This gap may widen next year as states decide whether to participate in the Federal Scholarship Tax program, which offers taxpayers a $1,700 dollar-for-dollar federal tax reduction for donations to scholarship-granting organizations.
Participation requires states to opt in, and neither California Governor Gavin Newsom nor New York Governor Kathy Hochul has done so. As two of the top states in federal tax payments, their nonparticipation could result in California losing $3 billion and New York losing $1.5 billion in potential donations from their residents that will benefit low-income kids in the other 27 <a href="https://www.k12dive.com/news/27-states-opting-into-federal-school-choice-program-IRS-Congress/818087/#:~:text=States%20are%20awaiting%20rules%20defining,building%20is%20pictured%20on%20Feb." target="_blank" rel="noopener">states</a> that have already opted in, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YTP9avQpzmXRpQ96zxQ0w60g81A3cdK8/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Democrats for Education Reform. On Tax Day, all four senators from California and New York <a href="https://www.kelly.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/MCG26237.pdf">joined</a> 30 Democrats to propose repealing the program.
Differences in how states allocate the $1 trillion on education resources will continue to influence where families live and how many students can access high-quality education. As David Shor, head of a major Democratic consulting firm, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-david-shor.html">told</a> the New York Times, “education has gone from being basically one of the best issues for Democrats to basically neutral now.”
As red states continue to expand family choice in education spending, Democrats will inevitably face challenges in explaining to voters policies that limit educational options for families.
Danyela Souza Egorov is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Mother hold hand schoolboy walking to bus. Energetic pupils running crossway.

Schools Received More Money Than Ever. Parents Aren’t Seeing The Results.

Charter Schools

Education

Florida

MI x DW

spending

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), never a group to shy away from radical posturing, has officially <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2026/03/12/chicago-teachers-union-plans-to-join-may-1-no-school-no-work-day-of-action-wants-classes-canceled?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=23559714611&amp;gbraid=0AAAAA9e-Tg6UY-KZu4aY-vqEU5Q5EQU0F&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwntHPBhAaEiwA_Xp6Rne5i-_eFc1MaVw8HXTBnMkL6ujFJ6xP1F5YdsN8qKwMcpc80urKABoCOCQQAvD_BwE">declared its intent</a> to abandon the classroom on May 1. In a move that effectively amounts to a one-day strike, the union’s 730-member House of Delegates approved a resolution joining a national movement calling for a day of “no school, no work, and no shopping.”
The CTU isn&#8217;t just asking its members to walk out; it’s demanding that Mayor Brandon Johnson and the school board use state law to excuse students so they can participate in what the union calls “civic action.”
The choice of May 1 is no coincidence. While the date’s origins trace back to the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, it was quickly co-opted by the global far-Left. In 1889, the Second International—a collection of socialist and labor parties—designated it as a day of demonstration. By 1917, it became the premier state holiday of the Soviet Union, complete with Red Square parades featuring tanks and missiles intended to signal the &#8220;proletariat&#8217;s&#8221; triumph over capitalism.
While the United States spent decades trying to distance itself from these connotations—establishing &#8220;Loyalty Day&#8221; and &#8220;Law Day&#8221; on May 1 to counter communist influence—the CTU appears eager to revive the day’s most radical sentiments.
The CTU&#8217;s resolution reads less like an educational mandate and more like a manifesto from a bygone era of class warfare. The union’s demands are explicitly political and heavily flavored with the &#8220;tax the rich&#8221; rhetoric synonymous with communist agitation.
According to the resolution, the CTU intends to:
<ul>
<li data-path-to-node="10,0,0">Target the Wealthy: The union is demanding that the government “tax the rich to support our schools,” echoing the classic Marxist refrain of wealth redistribution.</li>
<li data-path-to-node="10,1,0">Abolish Enforcement: In a direct challenge to federal law, the union is calling for “ICE out of our cities,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.</li>
<li data-path-to-node="10,2,0">Attack &#8220;Authoritarianism&#8221;: The resolution rails against &#8220;MAGA politicians,&#8221; &#8220;billionaire donors,&#8221; and &#8220;corporate interests,&#8221; claiming these groups are &#8220;attempting to cement authoritarian power.&#8221;</li>
</ul>
CTU Vice President Jackson Potter stated, &#8220;Teaching our students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks when the President sends federal agents to occupy our cities &#8230;&#8221; Meanwhile, CTU member Kevin Moore justified the walkout by claiming &#8220;public education is under attack,&#8221; asserting that taking children out of school to participate in political rallies is a way of &#8220;teaching our students how to use their voice.&#8221;
Instead of math and literacy, the CTU wants students to engage in &#8220;age-appropriate&#8221; civic education, which apparently includes &#8220;mass resistance training&#8221; and &#8220;political education,&#8221; according to the union&#8217;s <a href="https://www.ctulocal1.org/posts/mayday-resolution/?link_id=2&amp;can_id=17ebc6e1a278c81ea80307c4c5703485&amp;source=email-ctu-members-vote-to-join-may-1st-no-school-no-work-no-shopping-day-of-civic-action&amp;email_referrer=email_3140500&amp;email_subject=ctu-members-vote-to-join-may-1st-no-school-no-work-no-shopping-day-of-civic-action">resolution</a>. The union is also using the platform to weigh in on foreign policy, writing, &#8220;Trump has illegally declared war on Iran built on lies and deception.&#8221;
Mayor Johnson, a former CTU organizer himself, signaled support for the &#8220;direct action,&#8221; though he vaguely promised to ensure &#8220;no loss of instruction time&#8221;—a difficult feat when the union is actively calling for &#8220;No School.&#8221;
As the CTU pivots from education to overt political activism, it remains to be seen how Chicago parents will react to their children being used as pawns in a movement that shares more DNA with the Soviet Union’s &#8220;Workers&#8217; Day&#8221; than with the American classroom.

OPED-CHICAGO-TEACHERS-WALKOUT-EDITORIAL-TB

‘No School, No Work’ Teacher Strike Takes A Page From Communist May Day

Chicago

Communism

Teachers Unions

U.S.

A male science professor at the University of Oxford is facing criticism from fellow academics for reportedly wearing large “plastic breasts” while teaching.
Matt Rattley, a <a href="https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/people/matt-rattley">lecturer</a> in biochemistry at Oxford’s St. Hilda’s College, went viral this week after a video was <a href="https://x.com/IsntWorkingPod/status/2048503195521909058">posted</a> on X with him talking about imposter syndrome. Rattley, who lists “they/them” pronouns on LinkedIn, has a long, wispy beard and appears to wear prosthetic breasts.
Oxford professor Michael Biggs <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/04/29/why-is-oxford-indulging-a-lecturer-who-wears-his-plastic-breasts-at-work/">told</a> the British magazine Spiked that there is “a strong case that Mr Rattley is creating a degrading and offensive environment, especially for female students, which would constitute sexual harassment.”
Biggs added that adults should not bring “their sexual interests” to work, but that they should be free to do what they want in private.
Rattley has been a non-stipendiary lecturer at St. Hilda&#8217;s since October 2023, according to the college. St. Hilda’s was initially founded as an all women’s college back in 1893. The college did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a video pulled from his LinkedIn that has been viewed over 2.5 million times, Rattley discussed creating a website and the problem of “imposter syndrome.”
“The problem I&#8217;m running up against is some imposter syndrome — classic. Basically, what does it mean to be an expert in something?  Because it&#8217;s really not obvious to me at what point I could describe myself as an expert in something. I have expertise in things,” he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been teaching plenty.  My chemistry is pretty solid, but I think I still have this feeling that declaring myself an expert in something is a little bit uncomfortable.” 
Photos from his social platforms show Rattley frequently wearing dresses and with painted nails.
<div id="attachment_1086991" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1086991" class="size-full wp-image-1086991" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-scaled.png" alt="" width="2560" height="1300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-scaled.png 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-300x152.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-1024x520.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-768x390.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-1536x780.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-2048x1040.png 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />LinkedIn.</div>
Journalist Jo Bartosch <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/04/29/why-is-oxford-indulging-a-lecturer-who-wears-his-plastic-breasts-at-work/">wrote</a> in an article published Wednesday that no one in Rattley’s department has publicly addressed the controversy.
“No one in his male-dominated department has publicly criticised his sexist sartorial choices, and he has been pictured and filmed at professional events looking as though he has wandered in from a stag do,” she wrote.
Bartosch added that the university will not tell Rattley to dress appropriately to work, but will go after critics of transgender ideology. She added that it was insulting to female students and teachers that the university allowed Rattley to wear his fake breasts while teaching.
“Ultimately, a university is not a stage, nor a fetish club,” she wrote. “It is a place of learning, where young people ought to be able to study without being forced to navigate someone else’s exhibitionism.”

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He’s Bald, Bearded, And Has Fake Breasts. He’s Also Teaching Kids At A Prestigious University.

LGBTQ

Oxford University

Social Issues

Transgender

World

For decades, Americans have viewed their primary adversaries as foreign nationals or international terrorist organizations. Yet this perspective has proven dangerously naive. Over the past 60 years, socialist and Marxist ideologies have taken root within our own borders, often hiding in plain sight. This internal threat operates not from distant shores but from within.
Recent events only underscore this concern. The arrest of a would-be assassin at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — reportedly a former “Teacher of the Year” — is deeply disturbing. It raises a critical question: how have individuals entrusted with educating our children become radicalized to such extremes? And more importantly — where is the line when freedom of speech ends and subversion begins?
<h3>Quietly Reshaping Society From the Inside Out</h3>
This enemy is not a shadowy cabal of spies but a network of socialist and Marxist-influenced elites who have methodically gained influence over key pillars of American life: universities, the legal system, media, political parties, and even religious organizations. Operating under the banners of progress, equity, and social justice, they have advanced while many citizens focused on daily responsibilities. The outcome has been a slow erosion of foundational American values and a deliberate division of people along lines of ethnicity, religion, and sexual identity and even splits amongst once close family members. The result is the gradual weakening of the nation’s core institutions and social fabric.
<h3>The Decimation of the Nuclear Family</h3>
One of the most striking impacts appears in the decline of the nuclear family. This trend began prominently in the black community. In the 1960s, roughly 80% of black children lived in two-parent homes. Today, that figure is reversed with 77% of black children born to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/693212/77-black-births-to-single-moms-49-for-hispanic-immigrants/">single mothers</a>. The problem has since spread nationwide. Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/">data</a> show the United States has the highest rate of children living in single-parent households among developed nations — 23% of U.S. children under 18 live in fatherless homes, more than three times the global average.
Marriage rates have also hit historic lows, undermining the stable family structures historically linked to prosperity, child well-being, and social mobility. A prosperous country cannot long thrive without strong families as its foundation.
<h3>Academic Excellence Subverted into a Marxist Trojan Horse</h3>
Nowhere is the transformation more evident than in education. In public schools, social justice curricula emphasizing systemic racism, gender ideology, and equity have often displaced core academics. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores — the Nation’s Report Card — reveal reading and math proficiency at historic lows, with declines affecting students across demographic groups. Resources flow into DEI initiatives and “restorative justice” programs that prioritize emotional outcomes over measurable skills.
The human cost is profound: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/most-us-would-fail-u-s-citizenship-test-survey-finds-n918961">surveys indicate</a> only about 19% of Americans under age 45 can pass the U.S. Citizenship Test, with many unable to name the three branches of government or explain the Bill of Rights. Older Americans pass at much higher rates (around 74% in some studies), underscoring that this reflects educational shifts rather than inherent generational differences. 
Teachers’ unions have sometimes embraced ideological language. During the 2022 Minneapolis strike, a union leader framed the effort as a fight against “the patriarchy” and “capitalism.”
Universities, once centers of free inquiry, now exhibit stark ideological imbalance. Faculty ratios have shifted dramatically, with liberal-to-conservative balances moving from roughly 2:1 in the mid-1990s to far wider margins today — often 10:1 or higher in many studies, with even greater disparities in humanities and education departments. In the national survey, Departments of Education faculty self-identify as Radical, Activist, Socialist or Marxist. This is especially concerning because they instruct the next generation of public-school teachers.
<h3>Propaganda Masquerading as Journalism and Advocacy</h3>
This academic capture influences media, law, and advocacy. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have faced scrutiny, including allegations in legal contexts of questionable practices while labeling mainstream groups. Media outlets often amplify such frameworks, shaping narratives through selective coverage. In politics, socialist ideas have moved from the fringes to mainstream Democratic platforms.
In November 2025, New York City elected Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, as mayor — the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of America’s largest city. His administration prioritizes expansive government and redistribution. Similar dynamics appear in Minnesota: Minneapolis City Council includes self-declared Democratic Socialists of America members advancing related priorities amid ongoing challenges with crime and services. The 2020 unrest in Minneapolis, involving organized elements, accelerated “defund the police” experiments rooted in these ideologies.
<h3>Undermining Service to Citizens</h3>
Elected officials advancing such agendas can weaken state capacity and national cohesion. When civic education falters, informed citizenship declines — an outcome aligned with views that see the Constitution as an outdated instrument of oppression.
Religious institutions have also been affected. Some mainline Protestant and Catholic circles have incorporated critiques of “systemic sin,” shifting emphasis toward social justice over personal redemption. Sermons increasingly echo academic and media talking points on privilege and reparations.
<h3>Pattern Recognition and the Path Forward</h3>
This is not paranoia but observable pattern recognition. Socialist and Marxist influences advanced not through overt revolution but via tenure committees, HR departments, grants, and activist networks. They reframed compassion-based concepts like diversity, inclusion, and equity into tools against dissent.
Evidence surrounds us: politicized campuses stifling debate, advocacy groups facing credibility questions, socialist elected officials, schools prioritizing socialist ideology, unions opposing capitalism, coordinated protests and riots, and churches emphasizing liberal politics.
Americans must awaken to this reality. The adversary lectures from podiums, edits content, drafts laws, grades papers, and serves on councils — seldom wearing foreign uniforms. Reclaiming institutions require vigilance: restoring academic excellence and viewpoint diversity in universities, demanding transparency from nonprofits and unions, electing leaders focused on merit and results, and ensuring schools prioritize fundamentals — reading, writing, history, and civics — over grievance.
The republic was not lost overnight but inch by inch. The time to push back is now. Our children’s future and the nation’s character depend on it.
* * *
Kendall Qualls is an Army veteran, business leader, and the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota. TakeCharge is a national nonprofit organization led by Kendall and Sheila Qualls focused on restoring strong families as the foundation for opportunity, dignity, and upward mobility.

Former President Obama Joins NYC Mayor Mamdani On A Visit To Child Care Center

The Quiet Campaign Weaponizing America’s Youth

DW Opinion

Family Values

Gen Z

Leftists

Legacy Media

Minnesota

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New York City has paid almost $100 million to rent empty preschool classrooms, according to a shocking new report.
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/04/20/us-news/empty-nyc-preschools-cost-taxpayers-nearly-100m-in-rent-alone/">reported</a> Monday that the city has paid $99.3 million over the last five years for rent and utilities on 28 buildings for preschool classrooms acquired through part of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “universal” preschool push. The spending on the empty classrooms has both former officials and NYC residents upset about the Big Apple’s latest use of taxpayer dollars.
“I don’t think it’s corruption. It’s incompetence,” a former city Department of Education official told the Post.
The official added that despite “such a significant need for pre-K seats,” many of the classrooms were empty because they were made available in areas without verifying demand. Meanwhile, other parts of the city have long wait lists for preschool seats.
The Post reported that de Blasio’s push for the“3-K For All” program, which provides full-day early childhood education for 3-year-olds, led to a mad dash for renting buildings that have yet to be used.
De Blasio blamed the empty classrooms on his successor, former Mayor Eric Adams, saying that “during my administration, we never had a problem filling Pre-K and 3-K seats because we did lots of parent-friendly outreach.”
“Sadly, the Adams administration ended those efforts and took a step backwards on early childhood education,” he told the Post.
For his part, Adams said that he “inherited a system with thousands of empty early childhood seats,” and he focused on “stabilizing providers and increasing enrollment, rather than simply expanding capacity.”
Seven of the vacant sites are expected to be opened up in the fall by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“New York City is continuing to invest in and strengthen early care and learning across the city, including expanding access to 3-K and improving access to Pre-K programs for families,&#8221; the New York Department of Education told The Daily Wire. &#8220;NYC Public Schools, in partnership with City Hall, is opening new Pre-K Centers and activating additional early childhood sites in communities where families need more access to programs closer to home.”
One of the empty sites is at Union Turnpike in Queens and has cost the city $10.8 million, according to the report.
“They realized [afterward that] it wasn’t a good location. … If they didn’t think the need was there, why did they pick the site in the first place?” the former Education Department official said.
Nearby business owner Larry Mottola told the Post that it was troubling that the government would waste money on unused buildings.
“They had beautiful classrooms, a stainless steel kitchen [and] there’s a beautiful playground around back,” he said. “It’s bothersome, [that] they would waste that kind of money for four years.”
Another parent said that it was frustrating that the government selected sites where there was no demand.
“It feels like a real misstep that we’re not even utilizing the space that’s being paid for,” said Jessica Setton. &#8220;De Blasio had good intention, terrible execution.&#8221;

Classroom

‘Free’ Daycare? See What A $100M Taxpayer Bill Got Instead

Bill de Blasio

Eric Adams

New York City

New York Post

Zohran Mamdani

This article is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
In this piece, originally published in <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-college-florida-gender-studies-activism">City Journal</a>, Colin Wright argues that faculty at New College of Florida continue to advance activist scholarship in ways that undermine the state’s post-woke reforms.
* * *
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pledged to rein in “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1110842453/florida-gov-desantis-is-doing-battle-against-woke-public-schools">woke indoctrination</a>” in public education, he wasn’t bluffing. Over the last several years, he and the legislature have pursued an aggressive legal and governance strategy to push far-left ideology out of taxpayer-funded institutions. The justification is straightforward: the people have the right to demand that public universities not become subsidized activist factories.
Laws can close academic departments and impose subject-area bans on paper, but campuses are still run day-to-day by faculty and administrators who may not be interested in what voters want. When progressive activists dominate a university, they will inevitably try to circumvent the law.
Such efforts appear to be happening at New College today. Though the Gender Studies department was shut down at the Sarasota school, and Florida law forbids the use of state and federal funds to “promote or engage in political or social activism,” faculty continue to oversee work promoting activist pseudoscience, treat opposition to explicit content in K-12 libraries as equivalent to Nazism, and celebrate “queer bibliographies” and “resistance” to elected officials.
Consider a 2025 undergraduate thesis covering the “Evolution of Gender” in drama and fashion.
Nova Myhill, a professor of English and Theater, Dance &amp; Performance Studies at New College, sponsored the thesis, which explicitly lists “Gender Studies” as its “Area of Concentration.”
At a glance, the thesis appears to be a broad, benign survey of gender-expression conventions through fashion in the context of theater. But it quickly advances to extreme activist views of sex and biology. The opening section, titled “Our Idea of Sex,” portrays sex in humans not as “concrete” or “permanent” but as something “closer to being reflections of societal preconceptions than anything based only on ‘biology.’” It claims that the idea that humans have two sexes became widespread only “around the mid-1700s” due to “changing values of what was important within identity, class and gender beginning to take the utmost importance when using clothing as a symbol or sign of identity.” It even asserts that “there was a time when we conceived of the human race as only ‘one-sex’,” and that our “re-envisioning of the sexes” during the Enlightenment into two categories — male and female — actually “led to the differentiation and specific designation of reproductive organs; the penis, testicles, ovaries, and uterus.”
If this were the only undergraduate thesis at New College promoting such radical activist views, it might be dismissed. It is not.
In January 2026, the college approved and archived an undergraduate thesis in the Division of Humanities that engaged in political activism and covered Gender Queer and Fun Home — books the sexually explicit content of which has prompted parents to oppose their inclusion in school libraries. Myhill also sponsored this thesis and is thanked effusively in the acknowledgements.
Oddly, this thesis includes two abstracts. The first, more formal one describes an exploration of “book censorship, theft, and destruction,” framed as actions “employed to specifically target queer, trans, Jewish, and other marginalized communities,” and ends by describing the authors’ “queer works” as “an act of cultural legacy, heritage transmission, and resistance.” The second reads like a direct taunt of DeSantis and New College’s policy reforms:
<blockquote>This thesis is about queers, trans people, gender, Nazis, book burning, moral panics, censorship, Magnus Hirshfeld, pornography . . . queer bibliography, the Phantasma, classroom libraries, Ron DeSantis, what it’s like to be erased, and also how people fight back . . . so why not read it already?</blockquote>
This isn’t “academic” in any meaningful sense, but rather activist writing designed to indoctrinate, recruit, and promote activism.
In one section, the thesis classifies Gender Queer as essential reading and mocks DeSantis for displaying redacted pages from the book during his November 2023 debate with California Governor Gavin Newsom. It frames Florida’s higher education reforms as part of an “anti-gender movement” with “chilling reach.”
The thesis also compares Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Christopher F. Rufo’s rhetoric to the “paranoia and persecution of McCarthyism in the 1950s” and claims that he helped incite a “reactive moral panic” like the one behind Nazi-era book purges in 1930s Germany. It compares <a href="https://x.com/christopherrufo/status/1824307070839165333">Rufo’s tweet</a> about abolishing the college’s Gender Studies program to a “long and fiery radio address” delivered by “Joseph Goebbels.” Again, such comparisons are not objective scholarship but political activism.
Other recent theses at New College also veer in an activist direction, including a 2025 thesis on “Queer Resistance and the Fight for Change in Morocco,” a 2026 thesis on “Why Queer People Like Horror Films,” and another in 2025 titled “Who Holds the Mic?: Exploring Image, Control, and Identity in Queer.”
Of course, Florida’s higher-ed reforms don’t ban students from discussing controversial topics in class or engaging in activism in their free time. State leaders intended them to prevent public institutions from using public funds to “promote, support, or maintain” programs or activities that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “promote or engage in political or social activism.”
The work required to shepherd student theses entails faculty time and labor, institutional oversight, and curriculum funded by and developed under the authority of the university. It strains credulity to present as legitimate scholarship works that push false, ideologically charged views of biology or that describe themselves as works of “resistance.” A process that produces such works appears to flout Florida law’s intent to prevent state and federal funds from being used to “promote or engage in political or social activism.”
None of this is to say that shutting down New College’s gender-studies department was in vain. The volume of activist “scholarship” produced at the institution has declined markedly, and that’s a true achievement.
Nonetheless, Florida’s academic reforms are not self-enforcing. As always, personnel is policy. True believers on the faculty will look for workarounds. If nobody is paying attention, abolished departments will soon reappear inside more traditional ones — in this case, the departments of English and Theater, Dance &amp; Performance Studies.
Institutional responsibility lies with the faculty and administrators who decide which scholarship to approve, endorse, or reward. New College’s trustees and the state legislature can pass resolutions and rewrite statutes, but they cannot monitor every thesis committee or syllabus. 
That requires constant vigilance, because the pattern is predictable: abolish the department, then watch its ideology migrate to the English department, the history department, or the library.
If New College wants to fulfill its evolution into a post-woke institution, its guardians should not approve scholarship that treats its vital reforms as analogous to a second Holocaust. Leaders should hold faculty accountable when they use university resources to resurrect discarded programs and pursue activism under new names.
* * *
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/person/colin-wright">Colin Wright</a> is an evolutionary biologist and Manhattan Institute Fellow.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis engages with New College of Florida

At New College of Florida, Gender Studies Quietly Continues

College

Gender

gender ideology

Leftism

Manhattan Institute

Ron DeSantis

School Board

Woke Culture

In recent years, sharp-eyed parents and investigative reporters have exposed the racial resentment and antisemitism prevalent in DEI. But as public opinion and policymaking turn against this racial discrimination in disguise, a large association of private schools continues to push the radical agenda.
If the biased activity at these elite schools remains unchecked, legal advocates and policymakers will be fighting the same civil rights battles with the next generation of college students.
Today’s battles are certainly yielding good fruit. Lawsuits exposing segregation in schools under DEI’s banner have prompted state and federal lawmakers to reinforce civil rights laws. These laws have helped snuff out mandated “affinity groups” (where participants are separated by race, ethnicity, and/or sex), illegal hiring quotas, and doctrinaire DEI statements required by so-called diversity staff in K-12 schools and universities.
Curiously, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), a K-12 private school association, is not moved by the lawsuits and new legislation — nor by DEI’s racial preferences. Later this month, on <a href="https://www.nais.org/events/nais-meetup-for-dei-practitioners-8">April 29</a>, NAIS will even hold a “meetup” for DEI staff working at the association’s institutions.
NAIS is a membership organization for private schools. The group holds conferences and posts job openings for its member institutions on its website and otherwise provides resources on what NAIS deems as best practices.
Some of the “practices,” though, are little more than exercises in segregation. Member schools tout race-based <a href="https://www.merion-mercy.com/about/blog-posts/single-blog/~board/blog/post/what-is-an-affinity-group-and-why-do-they-matter">affinity groups</a> on their <a href="https://www.tescharlotte.org/diversity/affinity-groups.cfm">websites</a>, and NAIS advertises diversity staff positions at its member schools via its <a href="https://careers.nais.org/jobs?keywords=diversity&amp;place=">job bank</a>.
Institutions infused with DEI crowd out competing opinions and create radical echo chambers of a biased orthodoxy. Small wonder that NAIS had to issue an apology in 2024 when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/15/nyregion/antisemitism-conference-private-schools.html">speakers</a> at one of the association’s DEI events “characterized Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and the establishment of the state of Israel as a racist project.”
The American Jewish Committee and Prizmah, an organization for Jewish day schools, were among the groups that wrote to NAIS, saying, “The pervasiveness of this rhetoric and the absence of any alternate perspectives created an atmosphere that was hostile for many Jewish students and faculty members in attendance.”
In 2025, NAIS <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/12/us-news/private-school-group-axes-dei-events-over-political-landscape/">canceled</a> its “People of Color Conference,&#8221; but resources on its website suggest DEI remains a priority. NAIS simply <a href="https://www.nais.org/events/gather">renamed</a> the conference, now calling it the “Gather: A Convening for Renewal and Growth, Belonging, and Impact.” This title sounds benign, but NAIS specifically describes the event as a reinvention of its People of Color meeting. The conference will feature more “affinity group work,” as well as sessions on “inclusion and belonging,” a new title for “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
NAIS remains out of step with civil rights laws. The U.S. Department of Education has been ferreting out racial discrimination in K-12 schools across the country. In February, the agency announced it is investigating Portland public schools because the district operates a racially <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigation-portland-public-schools">segregated</a> academic program.
The federal agency has opened similar cases over the last year. In 2025, the Education Department canceled some $600 million in grants to schools for teacher training because the grant applications contained racial preferences, some in the form of DEI initiatives.
State lawmakers in Arkansas, Ohio, and Kentucky <a href="https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/education/dei-a-state-legislation-tracker/">adopted</a> prohibitions on DEI in 2025, following earlier legislative activity in Florida, Idaho, and Texas. Today, there are nearly two dozen states with such legislation.
NAIS member schools are preparing the next generation of college students, likely students at elite universities. Faculty and staff at schools like Harvard and Columbia have been among the worst violators of civil rights, allowing antisemitism to persist. DEI offices on these campuses and others have done nothing to stop such activity. Just last month, the Education Department opened yet <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-opens-two-new-probes-harvard-university-continued-discrimination-campus">another</a> investigation into Harvard for racial discrimination.
Independent schools are private institutions, but that does not exempt them from all civil rights laws nor does it excuse antisemitism. Racial discrimination should be exposed to withering scrutiny in public schools, universities, and yes, even private schools.
* * *
Jonathan Butcher is Acting Director of the Center for Education at The Heritage Foundation.

Trump Administration Freezes Federal Funding To Harvard And Threatens School’s Tax-Exempt Status

Elite Schools Insist It’s About ‘Belonging’ — Critics Say It’s Discrimination All Over Again

antisemitism

BIPOC

Civil Rights

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Harvard

Heritage Foundation

Ivy League

Private Schools

The University of Southern California is backtracking on a policy intended to exclude men from using parts of an on-campus gym under a student-government-led program designed to make female and &#8220;non-binary&#8221; students feel more comfortable.
On April 6, the Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment (SAGE) launched a &#8220;new inclusive workout space&#8221; where &#8220;women and non-binary students can exercise with a sense of ease,&#8221; <a href="https://dailytrojan.com/2026/04/07/lyon-gym/">the Daily Trojan reported</a>.
SAGE says it is &#8220;responsible for <a href="https://engage.usc.edu/sage/home/">advocating feminist issues</a> on campus&#8221; and describes itself as a programming assembly &#8220;committed to uplifting all voices oppressed by the patriarchy,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sageusc/">group&#8217;s Instagram page</a>.
The program, held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., is offered in partnership with the Lyon Recreation Center, an 80,000-square-foot facility serving as &#8220;the main hub for USC Recreational Sports department operations,&#8221; <a href="https://recsports.usc.edu/rec-facilities-page/main-facilities/lyon/">according to the university</a>.
The group is using the Robinson Room — a &#8220;<a href="https://recsports.usc.edu/rec-facilities-page/main-facilities/lyon/">studio-style area</a>&#8221; used for various workout activities, including dance, Pilates, and yoga — as a safe haven from &#8220;male-dominated fitness spaces.&#8221;
Jana Alnajjar, a USC sophomore and SAGE’s advocacy liaison, said the idea came from hearing women and &#8220;non-binary&#8221; students &#8220;experience a common sense of discomfort in the gym.&#8221;
“I’ve heard from multiple women and non-binary students’ perspectives who want to be involved within different workout spaces, but don’t really feel comfortable being at the gym,” Alnajjar told the Daily Trojan. “Whether that means they’re getting approached regularly or people look them up and down. Over time, that discomfort leads them to stop trying to go to the gym altogether.”
Alnajjar added that the approval process involved “a lot of back and forth” because the room is supposed to support women and &#8220;non-binary&#8221; student groups, but remain open to all under university policy.
“This program is sponsored by USC’s undergraduate student government and is open to all students consistent with university policy,” USC said in a statement to The Daily Wire.
On Wednesday, SAGE appeared to backtrack on the program&#8217;s intended exclusion of males, saying &#8220;inclusion is a foundational value of this initiative.&#8221;
&#8220;SAGE hosts a small workout space weekly to foster access and confidence in fitness settings, including but not limited to women and non-binary students,&#8221; <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DW5gq3TFGPQ/?img_index=2">the group said in an Instagram post</a>. &#8220;We believe that every student deserves to feel comfortable and confident in fitness spaces, and we are proud to play a part in cultivating that environment at USC.&#8221;
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the Campus of the University of Southern California

College Students Try To Ban Men To Protect ‘Non-Binary’ Gym-Goers In The Name Of Inclusivity

University of Southern California

The day my five-year-old son came home from school proudly announcing he had learned to download apps on what he called &#8220;my iPad,&#8221; I felt two things: the instinct of a father sensing something was off, and the reflex of a physician recognizing a familiar problem. It wasn’t his excitement that gave me pause. It was the word &#8220;my.” After a few weeks of school, he was personally identifying with a device before he was developmentally ready to contextualize his relationship to it.
As an emergency physician, I evaluate interventions the same way every time, by weighing the evidence of benefit against the risk of harm. When the data is unclear, I fall back on medicine&#8217;s oldest principle — primum non nocere. First, do no harm. I never imagined I would be applying that framework to my son&#8217;s pre-K classroom.
The echoes of COVID remain familiar: an expert class prescribing an untested solution, dismissing the concerns of the people it serves. The pandemic increased reliance on technology in education but also exposed the priorities of America’s elites. When the public sought explanations, officials issued mandates. Conformity to dogma ruled the day, and any criticism was swiftly labeled misinformation. The cost was staggering. A generation’s trust in institutions was spent in just about two years. At the core of it all was a simple belief — that experts know best.
I am watching a similar phenomenon take place in our children’s classrooms. Every day our kids go to school, we are extending an act of trust — placing them in the school’s care, expecting that parents and teachers will work together in the children’s best interests. Increasingly, the educators’ posture has shifted to something more insular: we know best, and we’ll take it from here.
The deeper irony is that on this specific question, the evidence is not on the educators’ side.
In January, neuroscientist Jared Horvath testified before a Senate subcommittee about the impact of screen time and classroom technology on kids. And in his book, “The Digital Delusion,” he notes that the impact of classroom interventions is measured using a metric called &#8220;effect size.&#8221; The threshold for meaningful impact is +0.40. Teacher-led direct instruction averages approximately +0.56 — the gold standard. Broad educational technology interventions average around +0.29 — well below the impact threshold. For context, the negative effect of bullying is -0.28. OECD countries noted an almost two-letter-grade drop on standardized testing for students who used computers “very frequently.&#8221; The MIT-based Poverty Research Center, after examining 126 studies, found that programs expanding computer access &#8220;do not improve K-12 grades and test scores.&#8221;
Many schools claim that children need early digital exposure to succeed in the modern world. But this isn&#8217;t supported by evidence, nor does it pass the common-sense test. Digital skills can be acquired in minutes to hours, and they are not what predict deep learning or professional success.
What makes this particularly corrosive is what the apps are doing to learning itself. Early childhood is the most sensitive period for attention, executive function, and self-regulation — precisely the capacities most at risk. Research consistently shows stronger comprehension and retention on paper versus screens. Horvath notes that learning requires productive struggle. The friction of sitting with a hard problem, resisting distraction, and building toward mastery is not a flaw in education; it is the process. Apps are engineered to eliminate this friction. The result is what researchers call the &#8220;illusion of mastery.&#8221; Students feel they are learning, but the depth is not there.
COVID accelerated this without resolving it. The academic consequences were severe, and so were the mental health ones — anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal spiked across age groups and have not fully recovered. We poured energy into getting children back into classrooms, then handed them the same devices back.
Worse still, many educators don&#8217;t realize that much of the &#8220;evidence&#8221; backing these programs traces back to the for-profit education tech sector that created this ecosystem. These companies have cultivated academic voices to carry their message into schools, funding research through channels educators rarely scrutinize. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley&#8217;s founders have largely kept their own children off these devices. When Peter Thiel revealed as much at a recent summit, it elicited audible gasps. Educators who believe they are following the science are, in many cases, following a sales pitch.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro recently signed legislation mandating cursive handwriting in classrooms, explicitly to keep kids off tablets, while 10 states across the political spectrum are considering legislation to reduce screen time or restrict device programs in some way. This is no longer a fringe position.
As a father, I feel this differently than I do as a physician. Parents are watching in real time as young children develop a compulsive relationship with devices — fidgeting for the next stimulus, the next dopamine surge from apps designed to engage. Boys are particularly susceptible to these reward structures — the variable reinforcement, the next level, the next hit. The gaming addiction literature has documented it for years. We are now introducing that architecture to boys in pre-K through a school-issued device they are taught to think of as their own.
And yet the response from most schools has been silence, or worse, reassurance. Parents notice concerning changes in their children, review the data, bring their concerns to administrators, and are met with polished explanations that best practices are being followed. Parental concern is treated as a feature of the process, proof almost that the school is doing something bold.
Educators dismiss those concerns at their own peril. The trust parents extend to schools is not unconditional, and it is fraying. At a minimum, parents should have the right to opt their children out of individual device programs, and schools should provide information to parents on the potential harms. Regular efficacy assessments should accompany all device programs. No responsible physician would deny a patient the ability to decline an unproven intervention. Schools should extend a similar respect.
The larger obligation falls on the system itself. The education establishment should not be mandating device programs without a far stronger evidence base. When physicians, researchers, and parents all raise the same alarm, the appropriate response is curiosity or caution, not defensiveness. Before mandating a new intervention, demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the harms. If you can&#8217;t, don&#8217;t. Primum non nocere.
***
Dr. Benjamin Chacko is an Emergency Medicine Physician and the father of two sons.

Father Knows Best

Father Knows Best? Not When it Comes to Screens in the Classroom

K-12

Parents rights

Technology

Eissa Hashemi has never denounced his mother — a spokesperson for the Iranian regime&#8217;s propaganda machine — but still he&#8217;s living large in Los Angeles, lecturing American students in his field: psychology.
<a href="https://nypost.com/2026/04/06/us-news/son-of-irans-twisted-pr-chief-found-living-life-of-luxury-in-la-and-hes-teaching-superrich-california-kids/?utm_campaign=capost&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social">Hashemi</a>, 43, has been living in the United States since 2010 and is an adjunct associate professor at The Chicago School in Los Angeles, the New York Post reported — but has recently faced criticism and calls for deportation as critics say that he has never publicly condemned his mother&#8217;s role in the oppressive Iranian revolutionary government.
Hashemi is the son of former Iranian Vice President for Women and Family Affairs <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/ex-spokeswoman-hostage-takers-says-us-misreads-iran">Masoumeh Ebtekar</a> — better known as &#8220;Screaming Mary&#8221; to Americans who were alive when militants attacked the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Ebtekar was a 19-year-old college student when she joined the revolutionaries in storming the embassy — and because she herself had been raised in Philadelphia, she quickly became their spokesperson when their embassy raid escalated to a hostage crisis that went on for more than a year.
She was the voice heard around the world after violent revolutionaries took 52 American hostages — and proceeded to hold them for 444 days — giving interviews in English and spinning the regime&#8217;s propaganda throughout. She often toured the embassy where the hostages were being held, pushing them to give more positive comments about their time in captivity.
She has, in the time since, claimed that the United States is to blame for diplomatic rifts between Washington and Tehran — and has defended her own role in the revolution.
Hashemi, for his part, is just one of a number of Iranians who were born into political prominence in the regime, but who have since chosen to live in the United States. He is also one of several children of the regime who have risen to prominent positions in academia, and have gone on to educate American children.
Several of those who have been connected to regime officials have already had their <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/family-members-of-slain-iranian-general-arrested-u-s-legal-status-revoked">legal status</a> in the United States revoked — and a number have already begun petitioning for Hashemi to receive similar treatment. Several protests calling for just that took place in January outside The Chicago School and other facilities with which he has been associated.

Iranian Vice-President Masoumeh Ebtekar

His Mother Raised Him On Iran’s Regime Propaganda. Now He’s Teaching Your Kids.

His Mother Raised Him On Iran's Regime Propaganda. Now He's Teaching Your Kids.

Global Politics

Iran

Military

Politics

Students in New Mexico will learn more about the January 6 Capitol riot and climate change than the moon landing.
New Mexico high school <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/High-School-United-States-History.docx.pdf">history guidelines</a> contain over a dozen references to the January 6 riot while only mentioning the moon landing once. The guidelines, part of the New Mexico Instructional Scope for History, are largely focused on racial and gender grievances and encourage teachers to promote Democratic politicians and lament how the richest men in the United States today are “mostly white.&#8221;
“The freedom of those in America and Ukraine after the 2021 Capital [sic] Insurrection and Russian invasion of Ukraine are two events that reveal the rights and safety of women, immigrants, children, and the LGBTQ community are at risk,” an example discussion in the guidance reads. 
Teachers are also instructed to show footage from NBC showing “Americans armed with weapons and military-type gear storming the Capital, breaking glass, defacing sacred art, political statues and podiums on and in our Capital [sic] building in Washington, DC.”
The purpose of the footage is to “disprove some of the beliefs that it was not violent or a threat to our democracy.”
The repeated misspelling of &#8220;Capitol&#8221; in the January 6 section is one of several errors in the guidelines. In another section, teachers are encouraged to list Democratic politicians from racial and sexual minorities, including &#8220;VP [Kamala] Harris, Transportation Secretary [Pete] Buttigieg, Interior Secretary [Deb] Haaland and Supreme Court Justice Brown.&#8221;
The last example appears to be a reference to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Rhyen Staley, the director of research at Defending Education, said the documents were an example of politics being pushed in the classroom.
“These state level documents expose a troubling pattern by education activists of pushing leftwing political and social biases into K-12 classrooms as established ‘facts,'&#8221; Staley told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Students and families deserve an education that values a politically neutral approach to weighing different sides of issues, not political indoctrination.&#8221;
The <a href="https://web.ped.nm.gov/bureaus/curriculum-instruction/new-mexico-instructional-scope-nmis/">New Mexico Instructional Scope</a> is an “educator influenced tool designed to provide guidance and support to assure that all students in New Mexico have access to content at their grade level combined with the use of impactful instructional strategies.”
The history guidelines reveal a heavy focus on left-wing activism and grievance politics.
Teachers are suggested to ask students why the United States still struggles “with the idea of racial equality,” discuss the pros and cons of reparations, and assess “who is responsible for the socio-economic disparities in early U.S. immigration to today.”
In contrast, the moon landing and the space race are each only mentioned once
The guidance also suggests that states like Georgia and Florida have implemented laws that are similar to voting restrictions on black people during the Jim Crow era. Teachers are recommended to provide “Current suppression of voting rights” in examples of Georgia, Texas, Florida, and New Mexico.
“How does the current suppression of voting rights compare to the suppression of voting rights during and immediately following the Reconstruction Era?” a question for students said. 
Another suggested discussion is whether there are “more opportunities for minorities today in the business realm.”
“Absolutely there is more opportunity today than there was back then, but that doesn’t mean that things are totally equal. Even though there are lots of Black owned businesses, the richest men in the country are still mostly white,” a suggested student response to the question said. 
Other guidance included in the history materials is for students to be encouraged to “join a program already in existence and help spread their message to prevent global warming” or write to their representative about climate change. 
Students should be able to define LGBTQ (“Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, queer or questioning”) and PFLAG (“Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays”).
“How do historically underrepresented groups such as women of color, LGBTQ and Indigenous people offerse [SIC] diverse views of society,” teachers should ask students, according to the guidance. 
Similar politically focused guidance is found in materials for instruction on <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/High-School-World-History-NMIS.pdf">world history</a> and <a href="https://web.ped.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/High-School-Ethnic-Cultural-and-Identity.docx.pdf">ethnic studies</a>. 
In the guidance for world history, “equity” is defined as the principle “that all citizens have had different opportunities and experiences, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
The world history guidance also contains guidance recommending that students “create their own posters that show their actions on climate change” after watching a climate alarmist documentary from former Vice President Al Gore. 
The ethnic, cultural, and identity guidance discusses left-wing groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter, and the Human Rights Campaign.  
“How do advocacy at the local, community, national and global levels work together to achieve change over time?” a supporting question asks. 
It also introduces students to the concept of “gender identity,” which it defines as ”identification with, or sense of belonging to, a particular group based on gender, such as cisgender, transgender, agender, bigender.”
New Mexico, a solidly blue state, has previously come <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-mexico-government-survey-asks-middle-and-high-school-students-if-they-are-two-spirit?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=New+Mexico+Government+Survey+Asks+Middle+And+High+School+Students+If+They+Are+‘Two-Spirit’">under scrutiny</a> for asking high school students whether they identify as “two-spirit” or transgender through its Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey.

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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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We’ve seen the same headlines over and over: Gen Z isn’t <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/aug/comment-generation-z-love-crisis">dating</a>, or <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/05/17/gen-z-less-likely-get-drivers-license/73678202007/">driving</a>, or <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/13/lifestyle/gen-zs-breakup-with-alcohol-is-happening-much-earlier-than-past-generations/">drinking</a>, or <a href="https://www.silouhealth.com/blogs/blogs-silouhealth/the-friendship-recession-why-gen-z-is-lonelier-than-ever">making friends</a>, with record numbers of young people today <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/17/why-many-young-adults-in-the-us-are-still-living-with-their-parents.html">living with their parents</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/opinion/gen-z-work.html">refusing to build careers</a> well into adulthood. These statistics paint a grim picture of my generation, but beyond our specific cohort, they point to an overall culture of dependency that is antithetical to the free citizenry our democracy relies on — a culture that was built by the failure of our institutions, and especially our schools. 
As veteran teacher Paula Edwards (not her real name) told IW Features in a recent <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/the-hidden-crisis-in-new-mexicos-classrooms/">documentary</a>, “If we don’t have a literate society, we really don’t have a free society.” She recounted the abysmal classroom environment in the New Mexico public schools she has worked in, from deteriorating academic and behavioral standards to ideological indoctrination.
Edwards reached her breaking point and transitioned from teaching to coaching after a second-grade student who was not potty-trained allegedly began smearing feces on his peers when he was angry and wanted to skip his lessons. In this single anecdote alone we can identify several failures: of the state not to assess the child’s home environment, of the school to allow a child who was not potty-trained to be in a general class, and of the school not to remove him from the classroom, give him the environment he actually needs, and protect other children from being traumatized by his behaviors. It’s not the child’s responsibility to train himself in basic functions; it’s the duty of adults, who either failed him or, in the case of teachers like Edwards, were not allowed to give him the help he needed.
This is perhaps an extreme (albeit not rare) case, yet such bad outcomes as this arise precisely because of an educational philosophy that has prevailed in schools for decades, even in less difficult situations than this student’s. Generations of students have been coddled to their own detriment, being given passing grades they do not deserve and free rein to act out and hurt themselves and others in the name of “compassion.” 
Of course, there is no compassion at all in enabling students’ worst behaviors. The behavioral anarchy that has come to dominate far too many schools around the country and make teaching an impossible profession has its origins in Obama-era policies that essentially considered any form of discipline as a potential form of discrimination. While those were revoked federally during the first Trump administration, many states still have unviable policies that make disciplining students impossible and that encourage the sort of conduct that has led to educators like Edwards fleeing the teaching profession.
The Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports system, which was formally enacted by New Mexico in the last decade, after being introduced by the federal government in the 1990s, forces teachers and administrators to ignore negative behavior and reward positive behavior through prizes and tokens, which amount to “bribery,” as Edwards puts it. These gamified incentives inevitably disappear in the adult world, and yet the responsibilities of adult life remain. So then what? Students who have never acquired the discipline to succeed in school are naturally going to struggle with adult life, rendered incompetent and unable to participate fully in society as adults.
Sometimes, this type of dependency is not just passively but actively encouraged by the school system. In a particularly horrifying anecdote, Edwards told IW Features how the Bureau of Indian Education schools teach Native American children how to fill out welfare applications. Instead of teaching them to read with evidence-based methods and enabling students to lift themselves out of poverty when they grow up, Edwards said, these schools teach students a different lesson: “Be dependent for the rest of your life.”
It doesn’t have to be this way, and it shouldn’t. We have the status quo we have because we choose to tolerate it. We spend billions of dollars on education as a country as it stands, and there is nothing stopping us from redirecting that money from failed progressive endeavors to student behavior reforms and evidence-based instructional methods that actually work. As Edwards advocated, “Get your indoctrination out of the classroom and get us back to the basics. School is for getting our kids to read and write and do math.”
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Neeraja Deshpande is an Independent Women policy analyst and senior IW Features contributor.

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