Watchdog group warns Pittsburgh high school course recruits students into political activism

As the school year kicks off, education is under the microscope, with parents and organizations scrutinizing curricula. Now, the North American Values Institute (NAVI), a nonpartisan education watchdog, is sounding the alarm over Pittsburgh Public Schools' (PPS) new ethnic studies course for high school seniors. The organization claims that rather than focusing on teaching students history, the course appears to be a how-to guide for political activism.

"I have a simple philosophy: Teach kids about revolutions, don't recruit them to be in one," NAVI Pennsylvania Director Steve Rosenberg told Fox News Digital.

Referring to PPS documents that NAVI obtained through right-to-know requests, Rosenberg expressed concerns over how the school was planning to approach the course topic and the lack of counterarguments in provided class materials. NAVI sent the documents to Fox News Digital.

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When asked to confirm if the documents were in fact accurate and current, Dr. Ann Fillmore, executive director K-12 Literacy, Humanities and Library Services for Pittsburgh Public Schools, said in a statement, "We provided the organization unit overview — not full curriculum. Some of the documents included, are individual course syllabi created by teachers."

Fillmore also noted that some of the individual teacher syllabi were specifically for a College in High School (CHS) dual-enrollment course affiliated with LaRoche University, rather than curriculum written by the district. 

"In addition, the CHS [College in High School] course syllabus are [sic] included and that course is not created through Pittsburgh Public Schools C&I [Office of Curriculum & Instruction]," Fillmore said, adding that the district's unit overviews have been revised for the 2026–2027 school year.

According to district documents, the course is divided into five units:

Each unit is set to be taught over the course of several weeks. The first two units of the course lay the foundational groundwork, focusing on identity formation, cultural heritage and historical migration. NAVI's concerns are primarily focused on the latter half of the course, starting with Unit 3.

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In Unit 3, students are asked to explore how systems of power are built and how they can "challenge, resist and restructure" those systems in order to make them "equitable for all." The learning outcomes for Unit 3 include explaining "how systems of power give privilege to specific groups of people," discussions on how those systems "develop inequities," and examining "strategies of marginalized communities and groups to shift power dynamics within societies and articulate visions of alternative social systems."

Meanwhile, in Unit 4, students are asked to explore the limiting factors of systems of power, such as how they can impact access to opportunities and resources and how people make "choices about their lives." The learning outcomes include having students "develop and propose strategies to advocate for change within social systems that create inequitable outcomes for different ethnic groups."

"Those are very different from just learning about what people have gone through and [their] journey through this country," Rosenberg said of the third and fourth units.

In Unit 5, students are instructed to take what they have learned and put it into action. The learning objectives state that students are to "develop an action plan, including a clear problem, goal, and steps" and to "develop and communicate solutions to community issues relating to race and diversity." The students are instructed to work on their plan with others within the school or the community.

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In the statement provided to Fox News Digital, Fillmore refuted NAVI's characterization of the course, calling it "inaccurate" and emphasizing that the curriculum is designed to teach civic reasoning, not political activism.

"We don’t train students — it is disrespectful to what the education institution is — we want them to develop their own original ideas, understandings of history, and solutions to problems, based on the principles of inquiry-based learning and National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework," Fillmore's statement read.

Addressing units 3 and 4, Fillmore said that they are grounded in the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) C3 Framework and are meant to "promote engaged and active citizenship by helping students identify community issues, investigate them through research, evaluate potential responses, and consider how communities work together to address challenges."

NAVI's concerns go beyond the debate over political activism, with the group objecting to how the course addresses Jewish identity and antisemitism. Unit 1 of the CHS syllabus includes readings on Whiteness and privilege, as well as Eric Goldstein's "The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity." Rosenberg argued that filtering Jewish identity through theories of privilege misrepresents the Jewish experience.

"There is no counter reading to that, that would show that Jews have been one of the two most oppressed people probably in the history of this country, in every country that the Jews have ever been, kicked out everywhere they've ever been," Rosenberg told Fox News Digital. "So, just to show because this one person that wrote this book or the teacher that's teaching this curriculum thinks that Jews are the oppressor is not OK. They can have that opinion, but show a second, a counter narrative, so that you can take the material to the students, read both, and then make their own determination."

However, Fillmore rejected the claim, saying that the course does not characterize specific groups as "oppressor" or "oppressed."

"Ethnic Studies intentionally avoids reducing individuals or groups to simplistic categories such as 'oppressor' and 'oppressed' because history, identity, and lived experiences are far more complex," Fillmore said.

"Jewish history, culture, resilience, and contributions are embedded throughout the curriculum. Students learn about the long-standing presence and experiences of Jewish Americans, including the challenges they have faced and the ways Jewish communities have preserved identity, culture, and collective memory across generations," Fillmore added, noting Pittsburgh's local connection with antisemitism after the 2018 attack at the Tree of Life synagogue.

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Fillmore also disagreed with NAVI's concerns about the curriculum not presenting counter narratives, saying that it "does not reflect how the course is designed or taught." She noted that a "core principle of the course is inquiry-based learning" and that teachers pull from several sources, including primary and secondary sources, oral histories, literature and more when facilitating discussions.

For Rosenberg and NAVI, the central concern about how the schools will handle the course remains, particularly when it comes to the perspectives included in the class. He argues that students may not feel comfortable raising counterpoints of view.

"If the teacher who's standing up in front of the room is telling you this is the way it is, it is very hard for young people to have a counter-narrative, to have any kind of other opinion, because they're afraid they're going to not get a good grade, or they are going to be bias against them from other people," Rosenberg told Fox News Digital.

Rosenberg is urging parents to be thorough and go through course materials. He said parents need "to know how to ask the right questions" when it comes to what their children are hearing in the classroom.