The School District of Philadelphia’s social studies curriculum contains no mention of Israel, a Palestinian state, or even the broader Middle East, but this hasn’t stopped a cohort of local educational professionals from inserting the topic into classrooms anyway.
In June, the Free Press obtained a copy of Philadelphia’s history and social studies curriculum. While the document contained reams of left-wing content, such as an assignment asking students to “replace” the national anthem after “critically examining race and racism,” mentions of the Palestinian conflict were conspicuously absent.
A dedicated group of local educators, however, who have expressed the occasional necessity to teach Palestinian issues “under the radar,” have successfully integrated large amounts of pro-Palestinian material, sometimes with radical streaks, into individual classrooms.
Two primary local organizations have been responsible for this: the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and its subgroup, Philly Educators for Palestine. The groups claim to have over 200 members encompassing students, educators, parents, and “community stakeholders.”
Core members of these groups include teachers Hannah Gann, Dana Carter, Keziah Ridgeway, Nick Bernardini, Blair Downie, Shaw MacQueen, Adam Sanchez, Nick Palazzolo, and Kristin Luebbert, as well as Ismael Jimenez, who serves as the director of social studies curriculum for the School District of Philadelphia.
While it may seem odd that the groups list the director of Philadelphia’s social studies curriculum as a member despite the curriculum not mentioning a Palestinian state, materials promoted by the group’s members provide important context.
Ridgeway, who was suspended from her post after allegedly threatening Jewish parents, cohosted a seminar instructing teachers on how to cover Palestinian issues in their classrooms. One resource cited during the event and provided to attendees afterwards, dubbed “Preparing to Teach Palestine: A Toolkit,” advised educators to employ a variety of strategies to evade detection when teaching a pro-Palestinian curriculum. Keeping Palestinian material out of the curriculum, while incorporating it off-the-books, could serve this end.
Indeed, the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and Philly Educators for Palestine have been quite active in seeking to insert pro-Palestinian messaging into local classrooms.
Philly Educators for Palestine released a list of demands after Hamas’s terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling for the district to “unequivocally condemn” Israel for perpetrating “genocide,” “facilitate the honest, critical pursuit of history” with regards to Palestinians, and train teachers to provide instruction on Palestinian issues, among other things. The organization rallied its members to advocate these demands at school board meetings, disrupted said meetings, and recruited students to assist in its efforts.
While these demands may not have been met to the satisfaction of activists, educators affiliated with Philly Educators for Palestine and the Racial Justice Organizing Committee have successfully embedded pro-Palestinian ideas into the School District of Philadelphia. Examples range from erasing Israel from maps of the Middle East to district-sanctioned events where teachers are fed pro-Palestine talking points, as the Washington Examiner previously reported.
The Racial Justice Organizing Committee, meanwhile, hosted over two dozen Philadelphia area kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers at an “educator for Palestine” teacher training event in January 2024, where attendees minimized Hamas’s terrorist attacks, stated their desire to mobilize students for political purposes, and criticized neutrality as an artifact of “white supremacy.” The organization has also distributed a list of resources to aligned educators, including materials from groups that have openly praised Palestinian terrorist organizations.
“Philly Educators for Palestine, and its parent organization, Racial Justice Organizing Committee, is a perfect illustration of activists misusing their role as public school educators to push a political agenda,” Mika Hackner, director of research at the North American Values Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “Most concerning is that members of Philly Educators for Palestine work for Rethinking Schools, a progressive left publisher and advocacy organization. Under the guise of ‘teach-ins’ or ‘book clubs,’ Philly Educators for Palestine members use their position as educators in the district to promote and push Rethinking Schools materials, like ‘Teaching Palestine,’ into classrooms.”
Teaching Palestine is a curriculum jointly developed by Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project, two left-wing educational nonprofit organizations that provides a “full-throated defense of Palestinian humanity centering Palestinian lives, uplifting and celebrating Palestinians’ struggle for justice.”
Teaching Palestine is explicitly anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian in its contents.
Gann, Palazzolo, Ridgeway, and Sanchez, all members of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, have written lessons for Teaching Palestine.
NONPROFIT NETWORK PUSHES PRO-PALESTINIAN LESSONS INTO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Philadelphia’s school district faced a Department of Education investigation, which found in late 2024 that it failed to comply with federal laws by not adequately responding to complaints of antisemitic harassment. A spokesperson for the district previously told the Washington Examiner that the district entered into a voluntary agreement following the investigation to improve its commitment to anti-discrimination.
The School District of Philadelphia did not respond to a request for comment.
