Education and Teaching is No Longer: It's Social Programming
Teachers today are being placed in just about every role imaginable, except the one they were hired to do: teach. The public school system has become less focused on academics and more focused on what can be described as “Forced Assimilation” into a prescribed social and ideological framework. These priorities have little to do with reading, writing, mathematics, science, or preparing students for academic success. The objective of the state is to politically program children to have a leftist view, when the classroom should be neutral.
Neutrality does not mean avoiding controversial subjects. In fact, students should be exposed to difficult questions, competing perspectives, and controversial ideas. The problem is how those subjects are presented and taught. We have hundreds of instructional exhibits and agendas to see how far we've deviated from education. But we're way beyond that. Everyone knows what the school system is doing at this point.
The concern is that curriculum, lesson plans, and classroom instruction have incorporated a much larger ideological framework—one that can present political perspectives, assumptions, and hypotheses as established facts. What should be an opportunity for students to think critically can instead become an exercise in directing them toward a predetermined conclusion.
Too often, teachers are also bringing their own personal views and lifestyles into the classroom under the banner of “academic freedom.” What is presented and masked as encouraging free thought can become quite the opposite: students are placed in an intellectual box and encouraged or pressured to think like the teacher.
True education should do the opposite. Teach students how to think, not what to think. Give them the information. Let them examine the evidence. Encourage them to question assumptions, compare competing viewpoints, and reach their own conclusions.
There are still good teachers who understand this distinction. They refuse to turn their classrooms into ideological training grounds. They teach without imposing their personal political beliefs or participating in indoctrination. They challenge students to find the answer, examine the evidence, compare and contrast perspectives, and think critically for themselves.
Unfortunately, those teachers have become increasingly difficult to find. We have also observed that teachers who are not part of the teachers' union are often more willing to teach independently of the prevailing institutional program. To those teachers who continue to stand their ground, protect intellectual freedom, and put education before ideology, we commend you.
When classrooms become platforms for social programming rather than places for education, academic achievement suffers. Is it any wonder that proficiency levels remain so disappointing while teachers are burdened with responsibilities that have little to do with instruction?
It is also no surprise that many teachers are leaving. Educators entered the profession to teach children - not to become social workers, political activists, counselors, behavioral specialists, or administrators of an ever-growing list of ideological social programs.
And while many teachers simply want to teach, there are also activists who enter the profession specifically because they support this programming as part of their own perceived social-justice mission. For them, implementing the system's social agenda is not a deviation from education, but the mission. They are paid activists using taxpayer dollars.
The result is a public education system that increasingly asks teachers to do everything except educate. Meanwhile, students are paying the price in lost instructional time, declining academic proficiency, and a diminished focus on the fundamentals of education.
If you are a parent and are concerned about what is being taught, you do have options.
You can opt out your child from lessons that violate your right and religious beliefs:
You can remove your child from the public school system and seek educational alternatives: https://www.delmarvaptc.org/school-choice
If you are a teacher, you can leave the teachers' union, which drives a lot of this ideology. This abusively goes beyond the collective bargaining scope of the union, and they are using your dues for political activism. You have until September 15 to opt out of the union and from being locked into their dues. https://www.optouttoday.com/mesa/
Fellows & Editors
September 14, 2026. Copyright DelmarvaPTC.org
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