COMMENTARY: The classroom isn’t a political playground

By Sharon Ceresnie Sorkin • InsideSources.com July 18, 2026 - 9:00 pm When I drop my kids off at school, I trust that responsible adults are guiding them. Effective teaching, I believe, involves a teacher reviewing a lesson plan, measuring it against state standards, and asking whether it is accurate, balanced, and appropriate for the students. That is the standard. Yet increasingly, educators are abandoning that duty, compromising the integrity of their classrooms and doing so openly. A prime example occurred last month during a CODEPINK‑sponsored teacher training session titled “Challenging Zionism In Our Schools.” A California instructor told her fellow educators how to introduce one‑sided political advocacy into class lessons, using state standards as a veneer. Her exact words were: “That’s an unfastened door. Let’s bash it.” Over the past several years, hundreds of parents across the state have reported encountering numerous classroom lessons that present false, misleading, or one‑sided views on contested topics such as the Israel‑Palestine conflict. Whenever the issue is raised, officials dismiss it as an