Many parents assume the battles over “woke” education are largely settled — that whatever excesses defined the last few years have been corrected and that schools have moved on.

Recently uncovered internal curriculum guidance from Maryland’s largest school district suggests otherwise.

Eighth-grade students were shown graphic, politically charged material about Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a geography lesson.

The documents reveal that Montgomery County Public Schools encourage teachers to center lessons on white supremacy, racial and gender identity, and the need for students to engage in “resistance to and liberation from” existing social structures. These guidelines were discussed at a recent PTA meeting and outline what the district calls the “Characteristics of Anti-Bias/Antiracist Curriculum.”

Teachers are instructed to emphasize themes of injustice, racism, oppression, implicit bias, and inequity across subject areas — an approach that reframes education not simply as the transmission of knowledge, but as a moral project aimed at reshaping how students understand society and their place within it.

Left alone, this might have remained a quiet local issue — noticed by a handful of parents, discussed briefly, and eventually absorbed into the bureaucratic background noise of a large school system. Instead, the documents became public.

That’s because of Defending Education, a national grassroots nonprofit that helps parents and communities understand what is being taught in schools — and advises them on coordinating a local response when academic instruction drifts into political or ideological advocacy.

Founded in 2021 by free speech advocate Nicole Neily, Defending Education operates according to a model of indirect activism, emphasizing transparency, documentation, and resources over directives. Parents, Defending Education argues, know their schools better than any national group ever could. What they often lack is access to internal materials, legal context, and a sense of whether what they’re seeing is isolated — or part of a broader pattern.

As the organization puts it in its Empower resources:

Knowledge is power. If you walk into a meeting confident that you know what you’re talking about, you’ll be more effective.

That principle underlies most of Defending Education’s work: Collect primary documents, explain what they mean in plain language, and allow families to decide for themselves how — and whether — to act.

Why the Montgomery County case matters

According to Defending Education, the Montgomery County guidance reflects a broader trend: Controversial frameworks are often introduced not as standalone courses, but as values meant to permeate instruction across subjects, grade levels, and disciplines.

In a press release, Paul Runko, senior director of strategic initiatives at Defending Education, said the language in the MCPS materials should concern parents who were told such frameworks were not entering K-12 classrooms:

This internal guidance from Montgomery County Public Schools looks and sounds a lot like Critical Race Theory, despite repeated assurances to parents nationwide that CRT is not in K-12 schools.

Lessons framed around “resistance to and liberation from white supremacy” — and that ask students to “challenge the current social order” — risk dividing students and indoctrinating them into far-left ideology rather than upholding the American ideal that individuals are judged by their character and achievements, not the color of their skin.

Not an isolated case

The Montgomery County documents are not an anomaly. They are one of many examples Defending Education has uncovered across the country in recent months, spanning classroom instruction, curriculum design, and civil rights enforcement.

Recent cases include:

• Minnesota (Hermantown Middle School):
  Eighth-grade students were shown graphic, politically charged material about Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a geography lesson, including claims of people being “dragged, beaten, tased, and shot.” The lesson asked students to consider whether ICE had “gone too far” and tied immigration enforcement to President Trump’s campaign promises. School officials defended the material as aligned with state standards.
• Portland, Oregon:
  The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Portland Public Schools following a Title VI complaint filed by Defending Education. The complaint alleges millions in taxpayer dollars were diverted to race-exclusive programs associated with the district’s Center for Black Student Excellence, potentially violating federal civil rights law.

RELATED: 'Whites ... need not apply': Trump DOJ sues Minneapolis Public Schools for alleged racial discrimination

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Across these cases, Defending Education functions less as a protest group and more as an institutional clearinghouse. Its work includes:

• Collecting internal documents and guidance through parent tips and public-records requests;
• Publishing primary materials so parents can judge content for themselves;
• Explaining education law, civil rights rules, and parental rights in accessible language; and
• Providing tools for local engagement with school boards and administrators.

In practice, Defending Education operates as a kind of relay between local parents and a national platform. It gathers tips from families, obtains internal materials through public-records requests, and publishes primary documents so parents can see exactly what schools are saying and doing — often in their own words.

The organization then provides legal and policy context around those materials, helping families understand whether what they’re seeing is routine, questionable, or potentially unlawful.

How to get involved

Parents can explore Defending Education’s Empower resources to understand basic education law, parental rights, and common curriculum frameworks; follow the organization’s reporting to see whether local concerns mirror national trends; or submit tips and documents when something doesn’t seem to align with what schools have publicly promised.

Some parents go further — connecting with others in their district, attending school board meetings more prepared than before, or using Defending Education’s materials to frame questions in ways administrators are more likely to answer. Others simply want reassurance that they’re not imagining patterns that feel hard to name. In either case, the organization’s premise is the same: You know your school best — but you shouldn’t have to navigate it blind.