US House Probe Finds Antisemitic, Anti-Israel Materials in Schools, Nation’s Largest Teachers’ Union
By The Media Line Staff
A US House Education and Workforce Committee investigation found antisemitic materials and anti-Israel activism in K-12 education, including within programs supported by the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, and in public school curricula, according to a majority staff report released Wednesday.
The Committee launched investigations into the NEA and several major school districts after antisemitic incidents surged following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks against Israel. In 2023 alone, antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools increased by 135 percent, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Its investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia remains ongoing.
In Philadelphia, a world history assignment directed students to “honor” a resistance movement and listed the Great March of Return, described in the report as a Hamas-endorsed campaign, as one option. Another lesson included an exercise asking students to characterize the United States and Israel as terrorists.
After years of complaints, the School District of Philadelphia told the Committee in September 2026 that teachers and administrators would no longer write social studies curricula and that the district would standardize the program with “national experts.” Its social studies curriculum director is undergoing termination proceedings, while the district is reviewing antisemitism complaints dating to July 2024.
Philadelphia Superintendent Dr. Tony Watlington told the Committee that the district’s social studies curriculum “does not indoctrinate students.”
Berkeley investigators found an ethnic studies unit containing a map of the Middle East that labeled Israel as “Palestine.” It also included an “ancestor acknowledgment” of journalist Helen Thomas, who resigned after saying Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Poland and Germany.
The report said the curriculum presented activist professor Edward Said favorably without addressing what the Committee described as his history of antisemitism and included a sympathetic video featuring activist Lara Kiswani, who the report said had called for Israel’s destruction.
Berkeley teachers also told colleagues they were “not at liberty to share the curriculum directly with families” after beginning to teach an “Israel/Palestine” lesson set. The Committee said the lessons downplayed terrorism by avoiding identifying Hamas as a terrorist organization and presenting “from the river to the sea” as potentially “a call for freedom and peace.”
The investigation into the NEA, which represents more than three million public school educators and administrators, examined the union’s own policies, partnerships and financial support for outside educational organizations.
Internal documents showed that the NEA was already avoiding work with the Anti-Defamation League before delegates voted in 2025 to cut ties with the antisemitism watchdog. An internal memorandum said the NEA was not working with the organization because “ADL’s recent actions raise serious concerns.”
Since October 7, 2023, the union has also pledged thousands of dollars to Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project, which the Committee identified as sources of antisemitic K-12 materials. The report said the Zinn Education Project published a statement days after the Hamas attack that sought to explain the violence by pointing to alleged US and Israeli “colonialism.”
A 2026 NEA memo described its work with the Zinn Education Project as “an impactful and effective counter to the MAGA strategies to undermine public education and [the] democracy agenda.”
“Parents send their children to school to learn reading, writing, and math-not to be taught to hate Israel or embrace radical political causes. Yet that’s exactly the kind of material our investigation uncovered. Jewish students deserve to feel safe in their classrooms, and parents deserve to know what their children are being taught. Schools that receive taxpayer dollars must be held accountable when they fail to protect students from antisemitism,” Chairman Walberg said.
The Committee also identified broader political material in school curricula involving environmental justice, privilege, intersectionality, capitalism and colonialism and said its findings would inform consideration of additional legislation addressing antisemitism in K-12 schools.
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