Documents obtained by Defending Education show activist organizations developing classroom curricula and training programs that frame antisemitism, race, and Israel through leftist ideological lenses now reaching public schools.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Activist organizations are developing and disseminating classroom curricula and educator training materials that encourage skepticism toward claims of antisemitism and promote pro-Palestinian ideological frameworks in K–12 schools, according to documents reviewed and reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The materials were created by two pro-Palestinian organizations — the Participatory Action Research Center for Organizing (PARCEO) and Project48 — and were obtained by Defending Education, which shared them exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The documents show that the groups promote curricula that attribute antisemitism primarily to “white nationalism,” urge participants to examine “whiteness” as a harmful construct, and frame opposition to Zionism as part of a broader struggle against colonialism and systemic oppression.
PARCEO describes itself as a research, resource, and education center partnering with organizations focused on causes including racial justice, workers’ rights, immigrant rights, and challenging Islamophobia. Project48 says it was created to center Palestinians in the telling of their history and provides educational materials intended to address what it calls “the ongoing Palestinian struggle against colonial erasure.”
Both organizations have received substantial funding through grants from Soros-linked Open Society Foundations, according to publicly available grant records reviewed by Defending Education.
PARCEO and Project48 collaborated to create what they call the “Palestinian Nakba Curriculum,” using the Arabic term for “catastrophe” to describe the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent territorial conflict. The curriculum is promoted for use in individual lessons, semester-long courses, workshops, and teacher trainings, and covers topics such as settler colonialism, Zionism, refugees, and the “right of return,” according to Project48’s materials.
One session, titled “Nakba in Practice,” instructs participants to “consider the history and material consequences of the Nakba,” including what has been “hidden and erased,” “built over,” or “stolen,” while incorporating discussions of indigeneity and settler colonialism in Palestine. Another session focuses on what the curriculum describes as the “pervasive Zionist narrative,” with materials examining what it calls the “enactment and reality of Zionist colonization in Palestine” and Israel’s “intentionality” in that process.
The final portion of the curriculum centers on what it labels “ongoing resistance in Palestine,” teaching students about social, political, economic, and cultural resistance movements and their connections to global justice campaigns.
PARCEO has also produced a separate program titled the “Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation,” which characterizes antisemitism primarily as a product of white nationalism and situates it alongside other forms of systemic racism and injustice. The curriculum compares anti-Jewish hatred to other forms of oppression and argues that combating antisemitism requires dismantling broader systems of power.
Defending Education documents show that these materials are already being used in educational settings. In 2023, the New York Collective of Radical Educators, a group of current and former public school educators, hosted an event exploring both the Nakba curriculum and the antisemitism framework. More recently, emails obtained by Defending Education indicate that an Oakland Unified School District teacher affiliated with Jewish Voices for Peace helped organize a PARCEO event in October 2025 and invited local school board members to attend. The event was described as addressing what organizers called the “harmful disuse of ‘antisemitism’ to silence discussion” about Gaza and Palestine.
Additional PARCEO materials developed with Jewish Voices for Peace emphasize “white nationalist antisemitic violence” as the primary driver of anti-Jewish hatred in the United States. The materials warn that white supremacist groups may exploit debates over Zionism to sow confusion but maintain that opposition to Zionism is equivalent to criticizing settler colonialism and white supremacy in the United States.
One explainer states that “white nationalist violence has been on the rise,” fueled by conspiracy theories and racist ideologies, and asserts that Jewish safety is inseparable from the safety of other groups. The materials argue that opposing Zionism should be understood as part of a broader anti-racist struggle rather than as antisemitism.
The curricula also include “positionality” training, which asks educators and students to examine their identities in relation to race, class, gender, power, and privilege. Participants are instructed to reflect on moments when they were conscious of their identity and discuss how those experiences shaped their perspectives. PARCEO materials state that such reflection is necessary to avoid perpetuating inequality or “oppressive power structures.”
Supplemental resources recommended in the curriculum include academic papers on the “phenomenology of whiteness,” described as examining whiteness as a “habit,” as well as handbooks for white awareness and anti-racism training.
Defending Education said the documents raise concerns about activist-driven ideological instruction being introduced into K–12 classrooms through teacher training, curriculum partnerships, and extracurricular programming, often without parental awareness or formal district approval.
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