Divisive concepts and those who teach them

When children headed back to school this fall, they entered a political battleground. Many of our nation’s institutions are politicized, and K-12 is no exception.But activist educators, who have gained significant influence over our system, treat the K-12 classroom as something altogether different: a vehicle for remaking society according to their social and political agendas.Even our nation’s education leaders are now unapologetic about using education for political purposes. Princess Moss, the new president of the National Education Association, has written a foreword to a new book on activism in teaching, in which she honors “educators who refuse to separate teaching from their fight for justice,” teachers who, in her words, “understand advocacy isn’t extra, it’s essential,” and “organize” to “challenge power.” The war is multifront. Code Pink, the activist organization best known for harassing members of Congress on Capitol Hill, is targeting K-12 teachers. In a recent webinar, presenters instructed teachers to use vague standards such as social-emotional learning as an “open door” for bringing anti-Israel activism into the classroom. And this isn’t just a Code Pink strategy — during a Chicago Teachers Union webinar held with the NEA, a presenter advised teachers to be “savvy” and engage in “fugitive pedagogy” to push their agendas on children out of sight of parents.Most teachers are not radical or even committed activists, but they work within a profession in which political activism is considered good teaching. Education schools embed “critical consciousness” and “liberation” into coursework, while professional-development programs often treat contemporary notions of “equity” as settled practice. Even teachers who disagree with using the classroom for “social justice” are working within a profession shaped by these norms.As a result, ordinary teachers come to see political ideology in the classroom as part of compassionate teaching. Schools often turn to consultants, who reinforce these norms, for their teacher training. Jamilah Pitts, a former teacher and administrator who provides such training, gives us a taste of how she coaches teachers. Writing for Learning for Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s K-12 education program, she describes “teaching as a vehicle for care” and advocates “teaching toward liberation with love.” A sixth grade public school teacher in Colorado, who describes herself as an activist educator, illustrates how normalized this framework has become. She describes her focus on “inclusion” and her “litmus test” to choose lessons based on whether they advance “the goal of creating a classroom focused on justice and equity.”In many states, conservative lawmakers are attempting to restrict politicized content in schools with laws directed at what teachers can’t say in the classroom. These restrictions, commonly known as “divisive-concepts” laws, ban teachers from promoting ideas that should offend basic liberal principles — for example, that one race is morally superior to another. Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, for example, prohibits endorsement of this and other so-called divisive concepts while permitting their discussion when presented objectively. A court recently struck down the law as it applies to higher education, but it remains in force in K-12 public schools.But even where these laws survive constitutional challenge, they are unlikely to produce the kinds of classrooms concerned citizens actually want: classrooms grounded in free expression, where students learn to weigh evidence, debate constructively, and reach their own conclusions.Opponents claim that speech regulations can chill ordinary teaching because they ask teachers to know, in real time, when a lesson has crossed from “objective” discussion into “endorsement.” In New Hampshire, a federal court struck down a version of the law because of this vagueness.The deeper problem is that divisive-concepts laws intervene too late — at the end of the pipeline when teachers are already ready to use their pulpit for activism in the classroom. That is long after teachers have already been trained, licensed, and socialized in the profession.Lawmakers have the ability to intervene much earlier in the process, before teachers have been radicalized. Those who want to protect our liberal democracy have an opportunity to intervene upstream from classrooms by reshaping the professional norms that govern the teaching profession. In practice, that means rewriting state licensing requirements to ensure that teachers know how to teach controversial issues responsibly and foster the skills that students need to sustain our democracy.A veteran history teacher in Michigan committed to these principles put the goal simply: “I want my students to listen in order to understand, not just to respond.” When they disagree, he says, they need to use “evidence and facts” and “with a layer of civility that recognizes the common humanity of the other person talking to them.”This issue is especially critical in light of data showing that an alarming number of young people now believe that political violence is sometimes justified. The 2025 Harvard Youth Poll found that nearly 40% of people aged 18-29 believe political violence can be justified under certain circumstances — a number the researchers called a “five-alarm fire” for the health of democracy. Schools have an obligation to counter this trend by creating environments where students practice the values and norms of a free society, engaging in speech.Thoughtful people are right to be alarmed by this shift, and many are working on good solutions. These include expanding school choice, innovating with new schools, and supporting teacher training programs for classical and liberal arts schools. But these alternatives alone cannot solve the problem. The vast majority of children will continue to attend conventional public schools, and the upstream drivers of activism will continue to shape what teachers understand as a normal part of good teaching.Because the system itself has created a permission structure for classroom activism, the answer is to change that structure.Reshaping teacher training norms through licensure is a front-end solution that can reclaim public education as a cornerstone of our liberal democracy. The classroom is where students should learn how to ask questions, debate competing arguments, and use evidence to support their thinking. They also need to develop tolerance for disagreement, which will help them participate in civil discourse, and media literacy, which will help them navigate misinformation and propaganda.What does this look like in practice? At one Boston school, teachers presenting the topic of policing asked students to examine competing texts, support their claims with evidence, and follow norms such as “talk to each other, not to me”; “take a stand” with evidence; and “be critical, but kind.” Teachers said the goal is to push students “to think beyond a single point of view.” Another teacher describes teaching the issue of immigration at the border by withholding her own political views from students, using private reflection journals and pairing students with differing perspectives so they could challenge one another while respecting the exchange.To be effective, teachers need to develop a specific set of skills: how to distinguish controversial questions from settled ones, how to select materials that fairly represent serious competing views, how to respond to provocative student questions, how to structure discussions to include disagreement, and how to keep their own political preferences from putting a thumb on the scale of student discussion and thought. It would be unworkable to ask teachers to perfectly calibrate “balance” on every subject. The goal instead is to expose students to a range of evidence and competing arguments so that they can form their own conclusions.The problem is that this kind of teacher training is not generally part of teacher preparation or professional development, even though teachers themselves report that they want it.A recent report on the state of civic learning across the country found that “only 13% of districts required professional learning on controversial topics.” In a 2023 survey, funded by the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers, 65% of teachers said they avoid controversial topics because of divisive-concepts laws, even when they are unsure if the restrictions apply to them, because they worry administrators won’t support them if parents complain.But that is all the more reason to help teachers understand how to manage these issues, which is exactly the recommendation made by the report.That uncertainty strengthens the case for giving teachers clear guidance on how to address contentious issues responsibly. The report reached a similar conclusion, recommending that schools provide teachers with the resources and guidance to navigate these discussions.This training is also a matter of professional ethics. Teachers occupy positions of public trust and, like lawyers and doctors, assume heightened obligations. They serve all students and exercise considerable authority over them. Professional responsibility therefore requires restraint: teachers must learn not to misuse their authority to advance their personal politics.Excellent training already exists, particularly in civics and social studies. The Mill Institute and Cato Institute’s Sphere Education Initiatives, for example, train teachers to facilitate disagreement and foster civil discourse. But these voluntary programs mostly reach teachers who already recognize the need.With a systemic problem, the response must also operate at the system level.Licensing requirements are among the most powerful levers states possess because they shape the system. They drive what schools of education teach, which education schools are credentialed, what professional development providers offer, and ultimately what teachers understand as competent professional practice.Unlike divisive-concepts laws, a licensure requirement does not police what teachers say in the classroom. Instead, it shapes what they know how to do before they enter it. It is a slower but more durable approach, because it establishes professional standards that endure regardless of which party is in power or which issue dominates the headlines.This approach also addresses a practical reality: Once the classroom door closes, teachers can say pretty much anything. Laws and administrators can exert only so much control over what happens. That makes building professional norms, especially for new teachers, all the more important.Licensure already shapes the teaching profession. In many states, professional standards incorporate “culturally responsive education,” which often requires teachers to embrace the concept of “systemic oppression” and to “work actively against these systems.” Incorporating these professional standards creates a ripple effect outward to schools of education, professional development providers, advocacy groups, and local school boards.Although it uses the same lever, a controversial-issues competency is fundamentally different from a CRE competency. CRE standards require teachers to embrace and integrate an ideological worldview. By contrast, a controversial-issues standard establishes a professional norm on how teachers handle controversial issues to support student thinking and civic dialogue.The most obvious objection to this requirement is definitional: What counts as a controversial topic? “Controversial issues” are those where there is a genuine, good-faith dispute among serious participants over interpretation, values, causation, or public policy.One clear test is whether the topic is open or settled. Diana Hess, the author of The Political Classroom, explains that “settled issues are questions for which there is broad-based agreement” while open issues “are those that are matters of live controversy.” Open questions, such as immigration, abortion, or Middle East policy, should be treated as controversial because competing views on policy are often based on competing evidence. For these topics, teachers should expose students to multiple perspectives so children can understand contested topics and the arguments and counterarguments involved.THE TEACHERS UNIONS’ ACTIVIST ALLIESBy contrast, matters that are settled, such as the Holocaust and slavery, do not require multiple views. Not all disagreements are legitimate — for example, denying the horrors of slavery or the Holocaust. Teachers should be trained to recognize genuine disputes over interpretation, values, and public policy and to present serious competing arguments fairly where they exist. That distinction is why training matters.Education will remain a battlefield for the foreseeable future, but teachers need help teaching controversial issues now. The fight over politics will not be won with a list of forbidden ideas. We need to rebuild the professional norm that teachers are there to educate, not to mobilize our nation’s children. That work has to begin before a teacher ever enters a classroom. A licensure standard that trains them to teach controversy well would help reduce the political temperature and restore classrooms to their educational purpose. It is a much-needed investment in our teachers, our students, and our nation’s future.Dana Stangel-Plowe, an educator and attorney, is the chief program officer at the North American Values Institute.