A congressional investigation has revealed that Philadelphia public schools used social studies materials asking students to “honor” a resistance movement tied to Hamas and to identify the United States and Israel as terrorist states, according to a new majority staff report from the House Education and Workforce Committee.
The report grew out of complaints from Philadelphia parents who noticed troubling material in their children’s social studies lessons and tried to obtain the full curriculum from the district. When they could not get it, they turned to the North American Values Institute (NAVI), an advocacy organization that also struggled to gain access. A teacher eventually shared the curriculum with NAVI on condition of anonymity, citing fear of repercussions for disclosing public school instructional materials.
Among the findings cited in the report, a world history assignment asked students to honor a resistance movement, with the Great March of Return listed as one option. That campaign, a series of demonstrations along the Gaza-Israel border, was supported by the designated terrorist organization Hamas and involved violent confrontation. A separate exercise asked students to identify the United States and Israel as terrorist states.
District’s response
Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington told investigators the curriculum did not indoctrinate students. He also said he was unaware that the materials included content from the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, a group led by district employees described in the report as highly ideological.
The district told investigators it will stop having its own teachers and administrators write social studies curricula and will instead standardize instruction with help from national experts. It also said it has placed Ismael Jimenez, the district’s social studies curriculum director, in termination proceedings. Jimenez had celebrated the Oct. 7 massacres, according to the report.
A broader transparency fight
NAVI, the organization that helped surface the Philadelphia materials, argues parents should not need the help of Congress or an anonymous teacher to see what their children are being taught. The group is pushing for school districts nationally to publish curriculum guides, reading lists, assignments and supplementary resources on searchable websites, along with the names of outside organizations providing content and the officials who approved it.
The Philadelphia case follows a pattern of similar congressional and watchdog inquiries into school curricula elsewhere, including a House committee probe into Chicago Public Schools over withholding information from parents and a watchdog group’s warning about a Pittsburgh high school course accused of recruiting students into political activism.
