Stop Funding the Opposition: Conservatives Must Cut Ties with TFA

Stop giving money to your adversaries.

This should seem like an obvious rule of politics. But until the Trump administration went after funding for NPR, USAID, and other leftist organizations, conservatives couldn’t seem to stop handing taxpayer dollars to activists determined to undermine their principles.

While Trump has made a significant dent in this foolish habit, conservatives, especially in state governments, continue to fund their political opponents. Case in point? Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits graduates from selective universities to serve as teachers in challenging urban and rural settings.

Teach for America, or TFA, started as a noble endeavor in 1990, providing smart and enthusiastic teachers to schools that struggled to hire quality instructors. But it didn’t take long for TFA to be corrupted by the lure of leftist activism.

As Sohrab Ahmari exposed in a 2017 piece, conservative politicians and philanthropists were attracted to TFA because it undermined teacher union narratives about the need for increased school spending. But they had no idea they were backing leftist radicals.

Following Trump’s election in 2016, TFA issued a statement with 11 demands that focused on immigration policy, protections for LGBTQ youth, and “safe classrooms for Muslim students and teachers.” The organization denounced Trump’s “indisputably hostile and racially charged campaign” and insisted that diversity, equity, and inclusion programs be continued.

In his 2017 exposé, Ahmari argued that TFA had made a strategic blunder, alienating many of its biggest backers, and he predicted that TFA would moderate its radicalism or face harsh consequences.

Unfortunately, neither has proven true. TFA has doubled down on its leftist activism and, other than losing federal support because of Trump, has experienced little punishment.

Just this month, Wendy Kopp—the founder of TFA and now-head of Teach for All, a network that includes TFA and 62 other partner organizations serving countries around the world— issued a statement, “Standing in Solidarity with Palestine.” The statement denounces “devastation and suffering taking place in Gaza as the government of Israel, aided and enabled by my own government, pursues what a growing number of scholars and organizations have named a genocide.”

With resources compiled by partner Teach for Palestine, Kopp calls upon the Teach for All network, including Teach for America, to “take action in support of the children and communities of Palestine, who are among the most oppressed in the world.”

Ignore the grossly false claim that Israel, with U.S. assistance, is conducting a genocide that involves mass starvation and focus on what is not mentioned in Kopp’s statement.

She does not acknowledge the more than 1,200 people in Israel, including U.S. citizens, slaughtered and raped by Palestinians when they launched their attack on Oct. 7, 2023. She does not mention the hundreds that Hamas took hostage, including more than 20 that they continue to starve and torture, or the role that Hamas plays in the death and suffering that Palestinians have endured.

Kopp is not calling for Teach for America teachers and other affiliates around the world to learn about the complexities of the conflict or to consider different perspectives on the issue—as educators should do. Instead, she envisions the TFA teachers in your children’s classrooms as activists who need to denounce Israel and demand that the U.S. stand in solidarity with Palestinians.  

To see a model of the teacher activism Kopp is calling for, consider Anwar Mohamad Abu Ammash, who heads Teach for Palestine, TFA’s sister organization. On his Facebook page, Ammash praised the Oct. 7 attack shortly after it occurred, declaring, “the men of Gaza have defeated Israel’s security and military arrogance and dragged its prestige through the mud of its fortified positions.”

He continued, “In calculations of criminality, human-rights violations, terrorism, killing, and terrorizing civilians, Israel and the hypocritical international community behind it have excelled! God’s presence remains ever-present, and it has manifested in victory at the beginning of the battle and patience and steadfastness in its middle, and by God’s power, despite America and Israel’s spite, it will manifest in victory and empowerment at its end. Trust in God!” (Note: Translation by Claude AI.)

If you don’t want to see lessons like this taught in a school near you, policymakers in conservative states should stop funding and hosting TFA.

According to TFA’s website, 29% of its budget comes from state and local governments, most of which are controlled by conservatives. Of the 49 local branches TFA operates, 30 are in states Trump carried.

According to a 2024 budget, TFA received almost $55 million in government grants, including money from states Trump won—Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Despite Amhari’s predictions of financial consequences for embracing radicalism, foundations have not shied away from funding TFA.

The Gates Foundation has provided almost $165 million to TFA over the last two decades, including $750,000 in the most recent reported year. The Walton Family Foundation gave TFA more than $28 million since Amhari raised alarms about the political direction of the organization. Both Gates and Walton have also given to the global network of Teach for All that includes Teach for Palestine, Teach for Qatar, and eight other affiliates in Muslim countries among the 63 countries it serves. Interestingly, there is no Teach for Israel in that network.

Conservatives in state governments need to get better at distinguishing friend from foe. TFA isn’t only not the friend of conservatives—it’s actively pushing an ideology that undermines traditional American values.

TFA should no longer receive funding or other accommodations from conservative policymakers. And if foundations don’t wish to be considered hostile to conservatives, they should cease funding radical leftist organizations like TFA and Teach for All.

The post Stop Funding the Opposition: Conservatives Must Cut Ties with TFA appeared first on The Daily Signal.