Published on Wednesday by the journal , of 850 high schoolers reports that 36 percent say their teachers either 鈥渙ften鈥� or 鈥渁lmost daily鈥� argue that America is a fundamentally racist nation. No less striking, roughly the same proportion of respondents said they frequently heard claims that African Americans are victims of discrimination by racist police officers and an unjust economic system, while whites contribute the most to racism in society. 

At the same time, large numbers of adolescents also absorb comparatively positive views about the United States, with 56 percent saying their teachers regularly discussed the progress made toward racial equality since the 1970s. 

The data offer a somewhat rare student perspective on a question that has roiled education politics for much of the last five years: whether the tenets of critical race theory, a contentious and little-understood academic field that scrutinizes the relationships between race and power, have trickled from university campuses down to K鈥�12 classrooms. In both his 2020 and 2024 campaigns, President Trump warned that students were subjected to ubiquitous anti-American bias in their lessons and pledged to root out CRT from public school curricula.

University of Missouri professor Brian Kisida, the lead author of the polling analysis, said that the student responses made clear that teachings opposed by Trump and his allies had taken root in many schools as 鈥渢he function of a certain progressive politics.鈥�

“I’m sure there are schools where it’s not happening at all,鈥� Kisida said. 鈥淚’m also sure that there are schools where it’s happening quite a bit, and it’s really ingrained in the approach that those schools take.”

While they burned especially hot between the 2020 election and the 2022 midterms, controversies over instruction on race, gender, and sexuality have quieted in recent months, subsumed by the larger disputes that helped power Trump鈥檚 reelection. But in his inauguration address Monday, the president signalled that he has not given up his aim of cleansing education of unpatriotic themes, at 鈥渁n education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves.鈥� The commitment echoed his to defund schools that teach CRT. 

Whether Washington has the authority to meaningfully alter K鈥�12 teaching remains in doubt; curricular choices ultimately rest at the local level, though that a GOP-led Department of Education could penalize school districts for teaching material deemed racially discriminatory. 

Further uncertainty clouds the true prevalence of indoctrination in American school systems. Even if significant minorities of students say they encounter progressive concepts throughout their time in high school, the authors of the report note that they are far from universal. 

Gary Ritter, Kisida鈥檚 co-author and dean of the Saint Louis University School of Education, said he was surprised by the occurrence of apparently ideological programming in high schools, but that he also believed teacher bias was not overwhelming or uniformly left-coded.

“I expected there to be roughly zero of this, and there’s obviously more than zero of it going on,鈥� Ritter said. 鈥淪till, I don’t think it’s a problem.”

鈥業t doesn鈥檛 feel one-sided鈥�

In an interview alongside Kisida, Ritter said he had been relieved by high schoolers鈥� responses to explicit questions about partisan animus and self-censorship.

Specifically, 77 percent of survey respondents said that they were either never or rarely made to feel uncomfortable about disagreeing with their teachers鈥� stated views. Over half of students, by contrast, said their teachers typically encouraged them to share different opinions. While 18 percent said their teachers had spoken negatively about Republicans, slightly more said that they鈥檇 heard Democrats disparaged. 

What鈥檚 more, he added, educators appear to deliver affirming statements about race in America with some frequency. Forty-two percent of students said their teachers cited the United States as 鈥渁 global leader鈥� in securing equal rights for its citizens, exactly the same proportion as said they鈥檇 heard their teachers express support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

鈥淚 wanted to know if these statements were made as much as people said, and if they were one-sided,鈥� said Ritter. 鈥淲e’re hearing various claims, and it doesn’t feel one-sided.”

Some of the messaging tested in the poll veers more toward advocacy than simple observation. Along with the sizable number of teachers who praised Black Lives Matter, considerable numbers argued 鈥渙ften鈥� or 鈥渁lmost daily鈥� that African Americans should receive an advantage in the hiring process (22 percent) or college admissions (21 percent), students reported. Nearly one-in-five respondents said their teachers made frequent calls for reparations to be made for slavery.

But it is a challenge to interpret the exact nature of classroom references to concepts such as institutional racism or white privilege. Majorities of students said they had heard teachers voice two phrases often held in tension with one another: 鈥淏lack lives matter鈥� (64 percent) and 鈥淎ll lives matter鈥� (53 percent). 

Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of education and history at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was necessary to understand whether teachers were inviting open-minded discussion of such ideas or delivering an unsubtle form of propaganda. The wording of one poll question simply asked participants if their teachers had used one of a list of phrases 鈥� including 鈥渁nti-racist,鈥� 鈥渟ystemic oppression,鈥� 鈥渄ecolonization,鈥� and 鈥渢he 1619 Project鈥� 鈥� without specifying whether they were described approvingly, or even properly defined.

鈥淪ome of the kids saying that they heard the phrase 鈥榠nherently racist country鈥� will have heard it in the context of a discussion, and some heard it as part of something resembling indoctrination,鈥� Zimmerman said. 鈥淭he question is the relative proportion of those.”

Thaw in the culture war?

Though the second Trump administration is only getting underway 鈥� the president鈥檚 nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, has yet to undergo a confirmation hearing 鈥� Republicans have loudly announced that they plan to attack what they view as unchecked political interference in K鈥�12 learning.

When preparing his third run for the presidency, Trump himself from any school teaching critical race theory or “gender ideology,” a promise renewed in the conservative Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” policy document. Meanwhile, during Trump’s four years out of office, GOP lawmakers across 18 states passed laws restricting the teaching of what they often call “divisive concepts.” Similar bills have been filed and debated in 25 other legislatures. 

Still, the uproar over equity efforts and identity politics in schools had appeared to be settling over the last year. The prominent parent advocacy group , which has energetically challenged library books and curricular materials it considers divisive, to win school board seats throughout 2023, and the pace of new anti-CRT legislation compared with the early days of the Biden administration. 

More evidence for the apparent thaw came in by the libertarian Cato Institute. According to policy researcher Neal McCluskey’s ongoing tracker of culture war disputes in school districts, 2024 saw the fewest such conflicts since 2020, when COVID-related school closures set off a wave of parental dissatisfaction. The gradual end of online learning, along with the spectacle of the 2024 campaign, may have diverted outrage away from local clashes, McCluskey argued.

Trump’s second term will likely bring a resumption of hostilities. Earlier polling has indicated of instruction on the facts of slavery and discrimination throughout American history, but also widespread skepticism of teaching strategies such as separating students into different identity groups to talk about racial matters. 

In Education Next‘s poll, 14 percent of students 鈥� more than one in eight 鈥� said they had been separated along racial lines for discussions of racism.

Kisida noted that good instruction must 鈥渨alk a tightrope鈥� between candor about the shortcomings of American society and an equally comprehensive accounting of the strides that have been made to overcome them.

“There’s a general idea that parents want their kids to learn a sense of pride and patriotism about the United States,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o there has to be a good balance where we’re able to talk about all of the struggles, but also talk about the successes.鈥�

Dealt a harrowing blow by their loss of Congress and the presidency last November, Democrats may opt to formulate a new line of argument on cultural dust-ups in schools. At , the party spent much of the Biden administration attempting to counter GOP claims of political influence over schools. 

Zimmerman said schools should encourage discussion of thorny issues among older students, while cautioning that educators needed to recognize the line between teaching and preaching.

“It’s false to say that all teachers are telling kids to hate America and that America is racist. But it’s also false to say that none of those ideas have penetrated our schools.”