WATCH: Critics say political protests interfere with education

By Esther Wickham
The Center Square

As student walkouts and protests tied to immigration enforcement increase nationwide, education experts are raising concerns about declining civics proficiency among K-12 students and the growing role of political activism in schools.

School walkouts and protests increased from 58 incidents nationally in 2022 to 401 in 2026, according to a protest tracker by Defending Education. At the same time, more than 70% of K-12 students remain below proficiency in math and reading.

In 2022, the average civics score for eighth-grade students was 2 points lower than in 2018.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 22% of eighth-grade students nationwide scored at or above the proficient level in civics.

The NAEP civics assessment measures students’ understanding of democratic citizenship, government and American constitutional democracy.

“If they’re not proficient in civics, and obviously they’re not being taught by their teachers basic civics, then how are they going to understand the complexities of issues such as immigration, illegal immigration, apprehension of criminal, illegal aliens and how that impacts the community?” said Lance Izumi, senior director of the Center for Education at the Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute.

Izumi told The Center Square that students should be taught foundational civics before engaging in political activism.

“The unions are a political machine,” Izumi said. “Children are simply props for them to be used to make their political and ideological points and to try and pressure politicians to change policy, not for the betterment of children, not to make kids any more proficient in civics, but to simply push a left-wing political agenda.”

Many large and influential teacher unions have been a part of organizing activist training programs within school districts.

The National Education Association has provided $1.7 million in funding to a May Day 2026 training toolkit that includes anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement messaging, The Center Square previously reported.

In an exclusive interview with The Center Square, Ryan Walters, CEO of Teachers Freedom Alliance, said teacher unions have contributed to increased student walkouts and immigration-related protests in schools.

The unions are “using the children to push [their] political message during an election year … to cause chaos for their political gain,” Walters said.

There is bipartisan agreement that you don’t interrupt the school day for a political cause, he noted.

Walters also argued that some teachers are becoming frustrated with their union dues funding political causes.

Walters said students should be encouraged to study history and government through primary sources rather than political activism.

Walters added that over the past few years, public school curricula have become left-wing and that activates students to engage in political protests.

“What you don’t do is not teach them any of the history, not teach them the facts,” Walters said. “We need to understand history and our government, the way it functions, why it was designed that way and students can come to their own conclusion. Our goal is to educate children so that they can do what they want to with that knowledge. Not to direct them on how to be an activist.”

The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll found 58% of voters support limits on activism during school hours, and 39% say schools should focus strictly on academics and avoid activism altogether during the school day.

Mika Hackner, research director at the North American Values Institute, said political activism in schools undermines public trust in educators.

“There are many thousands of excellent teachers in this country who take their profession seriously and who know it is the job of teachers to guide students on how to think and not on what to think,” Hackner told The Center Square. “The political indoctrination embraced by the teachers’ unions does a disservice to those teachers and to public trust in the profession.”

The Center Square reached out to multiple school districts and student groups for comment regarding the protests, but did not receive responses. The Center Square also contacted several teacher unions across the country and did not receive responses.