Education’s Dual Mandate

By Mitch Siegler, Founder

Every parent wants the same thing when they send their child to school: a first-rate education.

That begins with fundamentals. By the time they graduate high school, students should be strong readers and writers with a grounding in math, American history, basic science, and critical thinking that will prepare them for success in adulthood.

Beyond teaching foundational skills, education also carries a second mandate that is equally non-negotiable: preparing young people for the responsibilities of American citizenship.

It’s been deeply distressing to witness the nationwide decline in academic performance. Test scores in reading and math have been sliding for years, and far too many students are allowed to graduate from high school despite being functionally illiterate. Many also know little about America’s history or system of government and are unprepared for the responsibilities of American citizenship. They are instead taught that the United States is fundamentally immoral and unjust, and that individuals and communities should be sorted into the categories of oppressors and the oppressed.

I wanted to share one salient example to demonstrate the downward trajectory of our schools.

Princess Moss, the incoming president of the National Education Association – the single largest labor union in the country – endorsed and wrote a foreword to a book published by a caucus of the union called The Badass Teachers Association. The title of the book couldn’t be more explicit: The Critical Importance of Teacher Advocacy: Empowered Educators on the Front Lines. It positions teachers not as instructors of children, but as soldiers in a war.

One of the book’s contributors, Rebecca Rothstein, a Maryland middle school teacher, has written that “capitalism must go” and that “revolutions involve violence.” She has boasted of being “tired after a long day of indoctrinating students.” She posted on TikTok, “Does anyone else feel like…we can skip the math, skip the science, like we'll do that next year. Maybe this year we focus on teaching our youth how to be anti-racist.”

She writes in The Critical Importance of Teacher Advocacy, “My role as an activist and organizer is inseparable from my role as an educator.” That’s alarming from someone who has written “F*CK ISRAEL and f*ck the USA” on her Instagram account.

But it doesn’t faze the NEA, which chose to showcase her voice in its own published material (and Rothstein is only one example of the radical authors featured).

That this book was produced by the NEA and endorsed and contributed to by its incoming president – and that it contains gratuitous profanity – speaks volumes about that union’s priorities, how radical ideas have become mainstream in K-12 education, and the coarsening of our society.

Our nation’s future depends on reclaiming our classrooms from activists who see children not as students to be educated, but as recruits to be mobilized for battle.

Schools need to get back to basics: grounding instruction in truth, not ideology; teaching to and enforcing high standards across subjects; and emphasizing developing young people of good character. That is the tripod on which individual success and national survival rest.

Strong academics without a foundation in civil dialogue, civics, and critical thinking may leave students prepared for a job but not necessarily for life, especially in our dynamic world. A democratic society depends upon citizens who can think critically, distinguish fact from opinion, listen respectfully to different points of view, and exercise their rights. These competencies are especially important in the AI era, when we are positively drowning in information, much of it hateful and often untrue. These skills do not develop on their own; rather, they are cultivated over years of learning, discussion, and practice.

Schools play an important role in that civilizing process. Students learn not only from textbooks and teachers, but also from one another. They learn responsibility by working together, empathy by listening to different experiences, perseverance by overcoming challenges, and maturity by recognizing that thoughtful people can sometimes reach different conclusions.

Parents overwhelmingly agree.

In THINC Foundation's February 2026 nationwide survey of more than 2,200 parents, 90% said teaching civics is important. 91% agreed that students should learn mutual respect and cooperation across differences. 82% agreed that it's important for students to learn how to responsibly participate in the political process. These findings indicate that parents expect schools to do more than impart knowledge. They expect schools to help prepare young people for responsible citizenship.

As THINC continues developing educational resources for schools and families – including our constructive ethnic studies curriculum The American Story: Out of Many, One – we advocate for both purposes of education. We believe every student deserves serious academic training alongside opportunities to develop the habits of mind that strengthen families, communities, and our republic.

This is not an aspirational vision for education. It is the standard to which our schools must be held.