For much of 2025, it looked like the right was winning the war against Wake. President Donald Trump took office on a groundswell of enthusiasm, launching a series of executive orders aimed at ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and gender theory in schools.
But in early November, the woke candidates came roaring back in the elections in New York, Virginia and New Jersey. Woke is not dead – it is alive and well in educational institutions, public employee unions and other progressive enclaves. In fact, new data from Politics at Work, a combined data initiative from the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan, shows that the education sector is the most left-leaning segment of workers in America. Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 in K-12 classrooms.
This wouldn’t be a problem if teacher-activists kept their politics separate from their work. But you don’t have to look any further than the proliferation of boys in girls’ sports, Black Lives Matter and pride flags on school walls, and DEI practices to see that too many schools have become incredibly politicized places.
Why is the teaching profession so overwhelmingly left-wing, and why do so many members force their politics on children? The answer can be found on college campuses across the country, where teacher training colleges are indoctrinating their students into progressive ideology.
CRITICS SAY ETHNIC STUDIES K-12 STUDIES TEACH STUDENTS ABOUT CISHETERONORMATIVITY, BLACK PANTHER PARTY
A teacher participates in the Chicago Teachers Union strike rally in downtown Chicago on October 17, 2019. (Photo by Joel Lerner/Xinhua via Getty)
For example, the University of Georgia requires its elementary education majors to take “Examining Sociocultural Perspectives on Diversity.” The first goal of the course is to provide students with an understanding of ‘diversity, equity, inclusivity and social justice in education’. A syllabus shows that this course trains teachers to be foot soldiers of the progressive movement: “We seek to make a difference at the level of practice. This course not only explains discrimination and oppression; it also supports the development of anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, anti-classist, anti-xenophobic, and social justice advocates.”
Columbia University has traditionally been home to one of the most prestigious teacher preparation programs in the country. Lately, students there have been studying “Making Change: Activism, Social Movements, and Education.” This class teaches the wrong lessons: students learn from the examples…the Chicago Teachers Union, the Tucson Unified School District fighting for ethnic studies, BLM in schools, and other progressive movements.
The Chicago Teachers Union and BLM are among the worst possible examples of leadership in education. The former has had some of the worst academic performance in the country and has refused to release a financial audit for five years in a row. The latter seeks to defund police in schools, implement race-based hiring practices, and implement failed “restorative justice” policies that eliminate discipline, allowing schools to descend into chaos.
These misguided colleges are not alone. Prospective teachers at Michigan State University are required to take six classes on “justice and equality.” At the University of Maryland, future high school teachers are learning “a social justice-oriented approach to teaching social studies.” Arizona State University trains future teachers in “Education for Social Transformation” and “Inequality and Diversity in Education.”
“DISCOVERED DOCUMENTS SHOW TOP TEACHERS WHO GUIDANCE GENDER TRANSITIONS AND BASHING CONSERVATIVES: ‘INSALED ASYLUM’
The damage these courses do is not just in what they teach future teachers, but also in what they don’t teach them. Every minute spent injecting radical politics into classrooms is a missed opportunity to guide future teachers in educating the next generation.
The need for teachers who focus on the fundamentals has never been more acute: according to the latest Nation’s Report Card, only 34% of high school students could read proficiently, and only 22% of them rated as proficient in math.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS ADVICE
This is catastrophic for the United States. Any college that truly cares about the future should equip tomorrow’s teachers with the skills to correct it. Unfortunately, our future teachers are wasting their time and tuition on how to engage in feminist pedagogy or how to impose Critical Race Theory (CRT) on children.
As the public turns away from the false promises of radical progressivism, a new report from the Defense of Freedom Institute details how teachers unions remain a bastion of wokeness in America. They routinely advocate for radical gender identity policies that allow boys into girls’ sports and spaces, oppose school choice at every opportunity, and mobilize their teachers to protest enforcement efforts to stop illegal immigration.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Any state that wants to eradicate DEI and CRT from its public schools should closely examine teacher education programs at its state universities. Universities must take an honest look at whether they help teacher candidates become good teachers or whether they train them to convey ideology rather than knowledge and skills.
The needs of students are clear, but teacher training programs produce too many graduates who are unable to meet those needs. The wokeness in schools will only end if colleges stop training teachers to spread this disease.
CLICK HERE TO BY ANGELA MORABITO
