Last week, a Fairfax County mother said her twin 14-year-old sons were each encouraged by two public school civics teachers to urge their parents to vote in favor of the state’s partisan gerrymandering referendum. According to the mother, the teachers used similar talking points, including urging a “yes” vote to make Virginia’s maps “as fair as they can be” and to “stop [President] Donald Trump at all costs.”
Those teachers are likely satisfied with their efforts to disenfranchise Virginia’s conservative and independent voters. The measure ultimately passed by a 51.5% to 48.5% margin. In Fairfax County, 69.5% of voters voted “yes,” in favor of liberally colonizing their southern neighbors. For now, the matter is in court, where multiple lawsuits are challenging the referendum as unconstitutional and unlawful.
Some families might have been shocked to hear that their public school teachers were behaving in such a blatantly partisan manner. Those of us in Fairfax County, however, are used to it. And the problem of inappropriate politicization in classrooms is likely to get worse with the Democratic Party controlling both the General Assembly and the governor’s office.
In fact, state Democrats already have introduced three new laws to bolster activist teachers’ efforts to indoctrinate public school students in leftist ideology. Beginning in academic year 2026-2027, for example, HB182 will permit students to substitute African American History courses for the World History I course or the World Geography course to satisfy history and social studies graduation requirements.
Virginia’s General Assembly further passed HB614, a bill that would permanently embed “inclusive history,” including racial and LGBT topics, in children’s classrooms across the state. The bill is likely to become law after Gov. Abigail Spanberger added a procedural amendment specifying that Virginia Board of Education shall “review and, if necessary, update or supplement such Standards of Learning and Curriculum Framework to ensure the inclusion of quality, accurate, and complete instruction on the contributions and roles of all peoples included in the history and social science Standards of Learning and Curriculum Framework.”
State legislators also passed HB333, which forbids teachers from framing any actions associated with the events that occurred on January 6, 2021 as a peaceful protest, or suggesting that there was election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The bill is clearly an effort to limit certain conservative perspectives in classroom discussions of recent political events.
Gov. Spanberger wrote that she approved of the general purpose of HB333, but she returned it without her signature, and requested the consideration of an amendment. Her amendment states, “The Board of Education shall…consider whether it would be necessary to include in such Standards of Learning and Curriculum Framework additional instructional emphasis on recent, twenty-first century history and current events, including the events on or related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol.”
All of this comes even as students are failing Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOL) tests at alarming rates. The table below details public school students’ performance on the state’s standardized tests. Note that 34% of students, and 46% of economically disadvantaged students, failed their History SOL in 2025.
Failure Rate of Virginia SOLs 2024-2025
| Subject | Overall Failure Rate | Failure Rate Econ Disadvantaged |
| English Reading | 26% | 39% |
| English Writing | 24% | 38% |
| Math | 28% | 41% |
| Science | 29% | 43% |
| History | 34% | 46% |
With a third of students, and nearly half of low-income students, failing to grasp basic history at their grade level, the legislative focus should be on improving students’ academic outcomes. Instead, it appears that Democratic legislators are committed to ensuring children leave high school with the “correct” opinions.
Here again, Virginia’s leftist leadership follows California’s dysfunctional example. Standardized testing shows Virginia’s students do not comprehend basic historical facts, but under this proposed legislation, state leaders will likely mandate a lesson on Harvey Milk, a former member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, who, by the way, sexually abused minor boys. Likewise, even though one-third of Virginia’s students lack basic historical knowledge, lawmakers apparently think that’s fine as long as they can be specialists in African American history.
Ultimately, Virginia’s education system faces a clear priority question. With so many students, including nearly half of economically disadvantaged students, failing to meet basic academic standards, the focus should be on strengthening foundational knowledge and improving academic outcomes. Instead, recent legislative efforts shift attention toward politically charged content and curriculum debates that do nothing to address declining proficiency.
These concerns have been amplified by activist teachers’ attempts to manipulate students’ opinions on contentious elections, further raising questions about where the line is drawn between civic education and political advocacy in the classroom.
The role of public schools is to educate students in essential knowledge and critical thinking skills, not to indoctrinate children into any political ideology. It is a shame that Virginia’s Democrats have decided otherwise.
