K-12 Is Getting More Woke, Not Less
With the recent Executive Order aimed at shutting down the Department of Education—an institution long accused of promoting and funding radical ideologies in the classroom—it’s tempting to think that politicized classrooms are on their way out. Some commentators have even declared that America has finally crossed the threshold of “peak woke.”
Woke-critical liberal writer Thomas Chatterton Williams declared, “We are now officially living in the post-woke era. I believe it ended just after October 7, 2023. But since November 6, 2024, it’s not up for debate.” We’ve been assured that “woke” is dead.
Recognizing how unpopular identity politics has become with the electorate, several mainstream Democrats—such as Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, James Carville, Pete Buttigieg, and even California Governor Gavin Newsom—have publicly distanced themselves from the ideology, hoping their party will follow suit.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are reportedly on the decline. Yet, despite numerous corporations, from John Deere to Walmart, shuttering their DEI offices, many K-12 school systems are doubling down on radical forms of DEI and explicitly anti-American curricula.
Activist educators, sensing—rightly—that larger society is turning against them and that their time for social engineering is running out, are doing everything in their power to institutionalize subversive pedagogies. While change is happening across much of society, the situation in K-12 education is worsening.
We cannot declare this radical ideology dead until our children are safe and receiving an education that prepares them for the future.
To put pressure on school systems, President Trump issued an executive order on January 29, 2024, titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” The order seeks to bar “federal funds from institutions that teach Critical Race Theory (CRT) or gender ideology” and aims to prevent the indoctrination of “children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.”
While this is an exciting and potentially game-changing development, it is far from a done deal. There are numerous administrative and legal hurdles it must overcome before taking effect. Nevertheless, the order is crucial because it signals the executive branch’s direction and may encourage states and school systems to re-evaluate their own practices.
Teachers’ unions, especially, are resisting. The National Education Association, which has championed some of the most extreme DEI forms, has filed a lawsuit challenging the directive. The union claims that withholding funds from schools with DEI programs “stifles free speech, threatens educators, and harms students.” It seems lost on the country’s largest teachers’ union that K-12 DEI programs, including those the union supports, often trample the free speech of both teachers and students.
After being called out in an embarrassing public hearing in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Teachers Association vowed to remove blatantly antisemitic content from their website. One meme depicted a dollar bill folded into the shape of a Jewish star, mocking U.S. aid to Israel. However, according to Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism, 95% of the problematic material remains.
Ideologically captured unions push this extremism, and so do radical consultancies. For example, “Woke Kindergarten,” led by activist Akiea Gross—an alumna of Columbia University’s Teachers College—has openly stated, “I believe Israel has no right to exist. I believe the United States has no right to exist.”
In one instance, Glassbrook Elementary, supported by the Hayward Unified School District in California, contracted with “Woke Kindergarten” for a three-year deal, spending $250,000 in federal funds. At the time, only 16% of students at Glassbrook were reading at grade level. After the contract ended, that number dropped to just 12%. When a teacher raised concerns about the training, he was placed on leave.
When U.S. K-12 schools invest valuable time and resources into politicizing the classroom with radical DEI initiatives and ideological Ethnic Studies curricula, actual educational outcomes suffer. According to the most recent Nation’s Report Card, reading scores for U.S. students in grades four and eight have declined since 2019. Sixty-nine percent of fourth and seventy percent of eighth graders perform below the proficient level.
These results are disastrous for the country and should serve as a wake-up call for Americans to take education seriously. Now that the political winds are shifting away from radical ideologies, it’s time for educators, parents, legislators, and citizens to push back against indoctrination and ensure that our children are receiving an education that prepares them for the future.
