A Republican-led congressional committee has accused the School District of Philadelphia of letting antisemitism and anti-Israel advocacy seep into its classrooms, concluding in a new report that some district employees promote such material and that the system indoctrinates students with radical ideas starting as young as second grade. District leaders are pushing back hard, calling the findings a distorted and partisan take on a school system serving roughly 200,000 students across the ninth-largest school district in the country.
The House Education and Workforce Committee released its report Wednesday after reviewing hundreds of pages of records, including teachers’ social media posts, and interviewing Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. on Capitol Hill in September, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Committee Chairman Tim Walberg said the investigation uncovered material that was never supposed to reach students in the first place. “Not to be taught to hate Israel or embrace radical political causes,” Walberg said, according to Jewish Insider, which reported that the committee found widespread issues with antisemitism and anti-Israel advocacy in both Philadelphia and Berkeley school curricula.
The committee framed its findings as something bigger than scattered classroom slip-ups, describing them instead as what it called systemic patterns of behavior rather than isolated classroom incidents, per the same outlet. Investigators also alleged that Philadelphia educators drew on materials from an effort called Teaching Palestine, which the committee said rationalize terrorist violence and advocate for the destruction of Israel, according to the Jewish Exponent.
Specific Curriculum Complaints Cited in the Report
Among the specific examples cited in the report, the committee found that a world history curriculum includes a resistance-movements unit listing the Great March of Return as an option for students to honor — a campaign the report describes as a Hamas effort marked by deadly clashes. Investigators also said second graders learn about environmental justice and the global impact of bias, injustice, and privilege, while a high school economics unit reportedly presented the U.S. economy as having the world’s most skewed wealth distribution, per the Inquirer’s report. The committee further pointed to a book deemed appropriate for third graders that introduces pronouns such as ey/em and ze/zir.
Watlington has defended the district’s approach to sensitive material, telling investigators he did not consider it appropriate to compare Zionists to white supremacists who cheered public lynchings of Black people. “I strongly disagree” with that kind of language, Watlington said, adding that deciding what speech is permissible is not his role, the Inquirer reported. He said teachers must not promote political or personal perspectives in the classroom and should instead teach students how to think, not what to think.
District Pushes Back on ‘Partisan’ Framing
The School District of Philadelphia says it cooperated extensively with the committee even as it objects to how the findings were characterized. The district rejected what it called the report’s partisan framing and characterization, according to the Inquirer. School board president Reginald Streater said the board disagrees with the committee report’s findings, while the district maintains it takes concerns about antisemitic harassment or discrimination seriously and does not tolerate Islophobia, racism, or discrimination against any ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Watlington has said the district does not believe its social studies curriculum indoctrinates Philadelphia students, and officials point to changes already underway. The district is standardizing its social studies curriculum and will no longer allow staff to personally write district curricula, Watlington has said, describing the move as a continuation of earlier standardization work in English, math, and science. He assigned new Chief Academic Officer Michael Farrell, who took the role on July 1, to review the social studies curriculum from top to bottom.
Watlington also ordered the district’s human resources department to review staff social media posts for possible violations of harassment and discrimination policy. That review reportedly swept up Hannah Gann, a member of a group called Philly Educators for Palestine who had been presenting herself in ways inconsistent with her own account — she later acknowledged she is white and Jewish. Philly Educators for Palestine disbanded after her deception came to light, and a separate group, the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, went on hiatus in the aftermath.
A Federal Resolution Already in Place
The congressional probe lands on top of an existing federal civil rights case. The district entered a corrective action plan with the U.S. Department of Education in December 2024, according to CBS News Philadelphia, after the Office for Civil Rights determined the district had not adequately investigated antisemitism and other harassment despite what it called repeated, extensive notice of such incidents, as reported by the Inquirer. That resolution required annual Title VI training for all administrators, faculty, and staff, along with age-appropriate anti-discrimination programming for students in grades 6 through 12, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The agreement also called for a climate assessment of those same grades once federal officials approved it, and for the district to revise how it documents harassment complaints.
The committee’s records request, sent as part of the broader investigation, sought documentation of curricula, workshops, training, and partnerships tied to Jews, Judaism, Israel, Palestine, Zionism, or antisemitism dating back to October 7, 2023, according to the Jewish Exponent. Investigators also asked for an anonymized chart of antisemitism complaints filed with the district since that date, setting a December 8 deadline for the district to respond, CBS News Philadelphia reported. The district has said it takes all complaints of bullying, harassment, and discrimination seriously, per WHYY.
Philadelphia Is One of Three Districts Under Scrutiny
Philadelphia is not the only district in the committee’s crosshairs. Walberg ordered the broader investigation in 2025 into allegations of antisemitism in Philadelphia, Berkeley Unified School District, and elsewhere, and the committee has pursued similar claims against multiple school districts since 2023. The panel also launched parallel investigations into Berkeley Unified in California and Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, according to Chalkbeat Philadelphia. The committee’s report also covered the National Education Association alongside the Philadelphia and Berkeley findings.
The Anti-Defamation League has separately pursued similar civil rights complaints against other districts, including Berkeley Unified and Santa Ana Unified, the organization said. Whether the Fairfax County investigation has produced its own findings remains unclear, and the full scope of the committee’s underlying report — beyond what has been quoted publicly — has not been independently verified. For now, the dispute in Philadelphia centers on two competing narratives: a congressional committee describing systemic indoctrination, and a school district insisting its curriculum, now under internal review, teaches students how to think rather than what to believe.
