Controversial teacher training targets parental authority as oppression, education expert warns

Teacher training programs across the country are adopting radical new educational theories to undermine parental authority and drive a wedge between parents and children, PragerU CEO Marissa Streit warned in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Streit is raising concerns over the rapid spread of "ethnic studies" curriculum, which she says is being implemented or endorsed in more than 22 states across the nation. She specifically cited the controversial term "adultism," saying it paints standard parental boundaries as a form of oppression.

While the term "adultism" historically originated in sociology to describe age discrimination against children, Streit argued it has found new life in radical training materials and is being used to portray standard parenting rules on clothing, relationships or major medical decisions as a form of "fascism" or tyranny.

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PragerU CEO Marissa Streit holds up a teacher training book she says promotes concepts from ethnic studies. (Fox News Digital)

Streit displayed a teacher training manual titled, "Lessons In Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators," which she says promotes anti-capitalism, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and the rejection of adult authority.

The textbook's publisher, AK Press, says the book is "designed for educators, parents, and young people, this toolkit shines a light on innovative abolitionist projects, particularly in Pre-K–12 learning contexts."

However, Streit argues that ethnic studies modules simply repackage concepts like DEI, social-emotional learning, and Critical Race Theory, that have received negative attention, to promote many of their same anti-capitalist and Marxist ideals.

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PragerU CEO Marissa Streit warned of curriculum attacking parental authority in public schools. (iStock)

"[Ethnic studies] teaches the teacher to tell the student that the term adultism is a negative thing," Streit told Fox News Digital. "When an adult is behaving like an adult by telling their child that the child should not dress a certain way or have sex at an early age or even request sex or gender changes ... the parent is engaging in adultism." 

She quoted a passage from the text, which allegedly says, "Adultism teaches us that adults have the power and the right to decide what young people's boundaries should be."

According to a June report by the San Francisco Chronicle, ethnic studies workshops at local schools have drawn "significant controversy" for promoting the idea of adultism as a form of oppression.

"Due to systemic power dynamics inherently the relationship between students and educators is an oppressive one," the Chronicle cited from one of the alleged training presentations that circulated on social media.

Streit also tied the push against "adultism" to ongoing legal and political battles over parental notification policies. High-profile disputes across the nation — some reaching the U.S. Supreme Court — have centered on whether schools can conceal a student's gender transition or preferred name and pronouns from their parents.

Streit noted that the largest teachers' unions in the country have opposed parental notification policies. She cited a recent resolution passed by the American Federation of Teachers which says the AFT will protect students from "forced outing," which cites President Donald Trump's executive order affirming biological gender.

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AFT union boss Rhonda "Randi" Weingarten speaks from a podium. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Getty Images)

According to Streit, dismantling parental authority is just one piece of a broader political strategy aligned with the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

"The ultimate goal is the DSA platform, and that is to radically transform America," Streit said. She pointed to DSA officials who have publicly stated they want to dismantle major American institutions, like the U.S. Senate, and radically change the presidency and U.S. Constitution as we know it.

To achieve that goal, Streit argued, activists must first break down trust in U.S. institutions and the bonds between families and individuals and their community.

"They have to break the bond between a child and the parent. They have to break the bond between a parent and the community," Streit said. "By creating an entire chaotic environment, you create an environment of collective grievance where the individual feels helpless and hopeless ... then a new form of government comes out and says, 'Well, you can't trust anybody else, so therefore put your trust in us.' And that is always what socialists have done."

She warned that this ideology is mirrored in other examples of teacher training materials that promote dismantling ICE and law enforcement.

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"Abolish ICE" has been a popular slogan among progressive activists. (Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

"And so, imagine you're training these teachers and the teachers are taking this to America's classrooms. Within a few years, you have radical Marxists graduating from our schools, believing that America should be dismantled from within. And once they dismantle America from within, they'll come in with new political power, as we've seen in Cuba and Venezuela and other places around the world," she added.

Other conservative education activists, including the group Defending Education, are also warning about divisive DEI ideologies still being implemented into district model policies and teacher training materials, despite the Trump administration's actions to eradicate DEI in public institutions. A recent report by Defending Education allegedly found DEI principles were being implemented into teachers' unions' policies on artificial intelligence.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the Democratic Socialists of America, the American Federation of Teachers and AK Press, the publisher of Lessons in Liberation, for comment but did not immediately receive responses.