Who wants their sixth-grade kid’s teacher to put up pro-life posters in the classroom? To tell their students that Reagan was the nation’s greatest president? To teach that we should close our borders altogether?

If you don’t want these right-wing views taught as truth in your kid’s classroom, then you shouldn’t want their left-wing counterparts either. A teacher’s politics do not belong in the classroom.

But our classrooms have become politicized. And politicized classrooms are bad for children, and our nation.

Children need to learn that contested issues — like abortion, immigration, and other social hot topics — are controversial because they’re complex, and people understandably make different arguments and hold different viewpoints. Each side thinks it is right, though reasonable minds can differ. That means teachers should not be teaching their view as the right view, demonizing the other side, and oversimplifying facts to skew the topic.

When they do, they are misusing their position of authority — either intentionally or not — to recruit students into their own political tribe.

Well-meaning teachers often think they’re the good guys. They think they’re just doing right by their students to teach them the “right” view and skewing the arguments in favor of the teacher’s preference.

But politically biased classrooms deny students the ability to think for themselves.

When educators promote one worldview, often they are encouraged by a teaching framework that has come to dominate our institutions — teachers’ unions, education schools, professional development — which holds that the K-12 classroom must be used for left-wing social justice. This view has become so normalized that it barely registers with busy teachers — it just is the way it is.

But there are different views on social justice and what will make the world a better place. Students deserve classrooms free of bias so that they can develop the ability to weigh evidence, evaluate claims, and learn to constructively disagree with their peers. A true learning environment depends upon this kind of open inquiry.

And with an alarming number of students who now think that political violence is sometimes acceptable, our future depends on students learning civil disagreement.

So what can we do to depoliticize our classrooms?

I argue, for one thing, that state rules that govern teachers are also encouraging activism in the classroom. For example, licensing rules require teachers to incorporate “culturally relevant education” — which, despite its benign-sounding name, seeks not just to engage, but to activate teachers for left-wing social and political change. Even if you agree with this worldview, classrooms are not the place to push politics onto children.

States should roll back these rules that embed one worldview. They should also require teacher training on how to teach controversial issues responsibly: with multiple perspectives, evidence, and constructive disagreement. Just as states make other competencies a requirement for a teaching license, they should tie new and ongoing licenses to learning how to keep classrooms unbiased.

This, I argue, is one important policy solution for our hyper-polarized times.

Read my full argument here in City Journal. (It also appeared in The Washington Post, Daily Wire, NY Post, RealClearEducation, and RealClearPolitics.)

And let me know what you think.

We should urge state lawmakers to turn their attention to teacher preparation and work to reform requirements around program accreditation, teacher licensure, and professional development. The problem is daunting, and it will take time to counter. State leaders have the power to restore education to its civic purpose. Let’s make sure they remember.

Read more in the Boston Herald here: Trying to keep politics out of classrooms.

Originally published in Jewish Journal, September 16, 2025. I’m reposting here for readers who may have missed it.

As a child of a Holocaust survivor, I know the power of symbols. For me, the Israeli flag represents hope, resilience and the story of our ancient people who continue to thrive in the face of hatred and violence. At a time when antisemitism is rising in America, seeing the shield of David feels reassuring, even protective. I know many Jewish families feel the same way.

But does that mean that schools should display the Israeli flag as a sign of welcome and reassurance for Jewish students? As an educator who cares deeply about creating healthy and truly inclusive learning environments for all students, I believe the answer is, firmly, no. No flags, other than the American flag, should appear in classrooms. Schools must stay neutral, both because it’s good for America and because neutrality will ultimately protect our own kids from indoctrination by bad actors in the schools.

Recently, the Beverly Hills school board faced controversy after it moved to support Jewish students with a resolution called Combating Antisemitism through Education, Awareness, Remembrance and Support, which included the decision to “display the Jewish Israeli flag at each school and facility” to “signify support for the Jewish community.” In response, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent out a call to action to followers to urge the board to remove the flag because it stands for genocide of the Palestinian people. Under pressure, the board unanimously rescinded the resolution, citing “threats and disruptions” and clarified that it would not be flying the Israeli flag outside on a flagpole. It then adopted a new resolution: a neutral policy allowing only official flags — the U.S., California, city, district and school site flags — while prohibiting all others.

We should broadly condemn CAIR’s despicable and patently false claims of Israeli genocide and other rhetoric designed to end the display of the flag. At the same time, we should also welcome the board’s resolution of neutrality. This principle of neutrality serves students better than a learning environment in a constant battle over competing symbols and political doctrines.

Neutrality, however, should not stop at the flagpole. Inside classrooms, flags tied to political messages, including the flags of other nations, should be displayed only for educational purposes — for example, in a language or social studies classroom when the topic of discussion is that country. Beyond that, political symbols have no place on classroom walls or in the schoolhouse.

Any display of a political flag in a school risks dividing the very students it aims to unite and undermines the very purpose of education. When teachers display political symbols, they send a message — intentionally or not — that a side has been chosen. That kind of signaling can chill open inquiry and discourse. Schools should be laboratories of ideas — places where students wrestle with complexity and experiment with competing viewpoints. Students who see a political symbol on the wall — such as a raised fist or a confederate flag — may hesitate to speak freely. They may censor themselves out of fear that their perspective runs against the prevailing view. That is the opposite of what education should cultivate in our students.

Despite a school’s good intentions to create an inclusive space, symbols meant to affirm or welcome one identity group can signal exclusion to others. The Israeli flag, for example, represents identity, resilience and connection to history. But it is also the flag of a sovereign nation, bound up in political controversy and international conflicts. A similar tension exists with other symbols, such as the rainbow flag. To some, it communicates acceptance and safety; to others, it signals that the school has taken a stance on ongoing cultural battles. When classrooms endorse symbols with political weight, they inevitably create an in-group and an out-group. Consistent neutrality is the only way to preserve an open and truly inclusive environment.

If not flags, what should decorate the walls and halls of our classrooms? When I was teaching, I thought carefully about this issue. I wanted my students — diverse in background, identity and opinion — to see messages that were inspiring, unifying, and thought-provoking. Children spend hours staring at posters on classroom walls, absorbing their messages and internalizing what they see every day. That is why I filled my room with posters to spark both thought and courage: “I am stronger than fear” (Malala Yousafzai); “If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it” (Toni Morrison); “Nothing will work unless you do” (Maya Angelou). These kinds of universal messages seep in. They remind students of what they need to succeed — resilience, imagination and hard work.

At a personal level, I love seeing the Israeli flag wherever and whenever it appears. It’s chicken soup for my Jewish soul. But schools cannot be governed by the feelings they generate in some people. We need to insist on neutrality, even when we have strong preferences for advancing our own identity, viewpoint or cause. Because if we open the door for our perspectives to be highlighted in one school setting, that opens the door to radical activists who want their political views and symbols to be put up in bright lights. We can’t fight in favor of displaying the Israeli flag in one classroom and fight against displaying the Palestinian flag in another. And given the demographics, we will surely end up with more of the latter than the former.

The United States flag represents our shared civic community. It stands for pluralism, individual liberty and opportunity for all. It reminds us that, despite our differences, we are bound by shared democratic values and institutions. That is the kind of message that schools across our nation must get behind.

For many years as a child, I went with my father to synagogue on Saturday mornings. I can still smell the wool suits and hear the melancholy melodies that give way to the one, awaited refrain — Shema, Yisrael, Adonai, Elohenu, Adonai, Echad -Hear O Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One — sung in a major key.

This refrain is the central tenet of our monotheistic faith, my birthright, my Judaism. I associate it with relief from a long boring service, with celebration, and with joy.

I was raised in a secular American Reform Jewish family. We had Passover and Rosh Hashanah, but no real fasting on Yom Kippur, and no decorating a sukkah on Sukkot. This suited my parents, and since I looked to them as to how to be in the world, and I was not a rebellious child, it suited me.

I never struggled with doubts that I was a bad Jew, as in not Jewish enough, maybe because my parents seemed so confident that they were good-enough Jews. My father is a Holocaust survivor, born in the Carpathian Mountains while his parents were in hiding; my mother’s ancestors arrived in America as part of the influx of Russian Jews at the end of the 19th century. My grandmother bought me a little Star of David with my birthstone when I was in third grade. I wore it often and with pride; I recall my secular mother’s surprise that I wanted to wear it at all.

Years later, when I met my non-Jewish husband, my parents could see what a good man he was (and still is), and approved enthusiastically. We are an American family. In the beginning, my husband and I cobbled together a plan for our interfaith marriage, some of which we stuck to and some of which we didn’t. What united us was our shared values and outlook on religion, education and family.

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Now that I’m in mid-life and my children are grown and forging their own way, I have been feeling a need to return to the sanctuary. Last month, I found an open house at a local synagogue in our new town. When I told my husband of my desire to go, he hopped out of his seat to put on his temple clothes. He’s a team player. He was ready.

So there we were, sitting and standing in an unfamiliar sanctuary that felt entirely familiar. I was reading along in the English and trying to remember the Hebrew. At some point, the visceral memories of wool and music came back to me, along with the memory of the adults in the room. And that’s when it hit me.

When I was a child, the adults in the sanctuary were as much a part of the service as the rabbi, the Torah, and the lit menorah on the wall. This is what people do, I learned. They go to synagogue on Saturday mornings. They say the prayers. They rise for the Mourner’s Kaddish or sit if their fathers tell them to sit (like mine did). They nosh afterward, and wish each other Gut Shabbes. Then they go home and ride bikes or rake leaves or go apple picking. I remember it well; it was ordinary and wonderful.

Last week, when I looked around the sanctuary, I noticed a few kids, some fidgeting, some babbling, some paying attention. And I realized that I am one of the adults —  in the half-aware eyes of the kids —  who is showing them how to be in this world. Maybe to them, I seem like I have never left, like I’ve always been here, like I will be here forever. But none of that is true.

Of course, no adults simply exist in the sanctuary. We choose to be there. We are not dragged there; no one forces us to go.

Attending services is a choice. I chose to be in that room, as the adults of my childhood chose to be in that earlier room. Did those adults know that they were part of creating Jewish culture for me? What’s clear to me now is that I have the choice to create a culture for the children in that room — a culture of being Jewish, a culture that shows them, this is how we do things.

As an adult, I’ve had to renegotiate my relationship with Jewish customs and beliefs many times. I have wrestled with faith, and just as much, wrestled with the traditions to follow, and how, and how to convey this all to my children. I have not wrestled as much with Jewish values. These have come naturally to me — education, family, respect, justice, equality, independence, curiosity, freedom.

In my 50s now, I want to do what I failed to do mindfully with my own young children. I want to try again. I want to show up, to enjoy the smells and sounds and the memory of boredom, and then bagels after. I want to sing the Shema for the children, with joy, with relief, and with optimism.

This is how you build a culture for generations. You become the culture. You become as mundane and expected as the walls of a sanctuary, breathing life into ancient words, a small miracle.

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