THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF INDOCTRINATION
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) are nonprofit organizations established by Congress to advance America’s STEM capabilities. In recent years, however, NASEM has moved from an objective entity to a political organization using taxpayer dollars to push biased K-12 curriculum which indoctrinates students.
FUNDING TO PROMOTE LEFT-WING ACTIVISM
As parents and taxpayers, we deserve accountability, transparency, and objectivity from organizations that we fund, and teach our children.
In addition to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, NASEM receives donations from advocacy groups and private foundations, including groups like Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, the U.S. Energy Foundation, and the Nature Conservancy, all of which are agenda-driven. The Hewlett and Moore foundations, which support the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience, and Adaptation, the umbrella group behind many climate-related lawsuits, are also donors to the Academy of Sciences.
Source: Firebreak
In addition to receiving funds from groups with blatant left-wing agendas, NASEM has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups like EcoRise and Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation, which promote educational curriculums advancing a specific climate agenda. NASEM also awarded Birmingham-Southern College $1.25 million to develop a “curriculum focused on environmental justice and climate change.”
Source: ProPublica
Source: ProPublica
Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation promotes curriculum on “Civic Science and Environmental Justice” and suggests lessons on “Data Collection- Air Quality and Environmental Justice,” “Innovation- Electric vs. Diesel” for School Buses, and “Collaboration & Action- Community Action,” which promotes youth advocacy for climate policies.
Similarly, EcoRise promotes curriculum on “Sustainable Intelligence” and “Introduction to Environmental Justice.” The environmental justice lessons are for elementary, middle, and high school students and allow them to “explore environmental justice (EJ) history and concepts. By learning from leaders and events that helped form the EJ movement, students discover how they can help dismantle and counteract damage caused by systemic racism.”
Source: EcoRise
Source: EcoRise
Source: EcoRise
PROMOTION OF RADICAL TRANSGENDER IDEOLOGY
NASEM supports policies that prioritize radical gender ideology for children. NASEM provides workshops, content, and resources echoing statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that support medical transgender interventions for children.
Source: National Academies
Source: FOX News
In 2022, NASEM hosted a workshop focused on LGBTQ+ kids titled, “Reducing Inequalities Between Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Adolescents and Cisgender, Heterosexual Adolescents.” This workshop focused on “the inequalities facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth” and how to fix them.
Source: National Academies
Part of the workshop focuses on “LGBTQ youth of color” and discusses how “LGBTQ youth of color” face additional barriers and how to “support them,” including suggesting schools validate children’s gender identity when parents refuse, and make sex education “more inclusive” such as normalizing asexuality and building systems that support “marginalized people”
Source: National Academies
Source: National Academies
Source: National Academies
Source: National Academies
Jason Rafferty, lead author of the policy statement and a member of the AAP Section on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health and Wellness, echoed statements in support of transgender interventions for children citing policies from the pediatrics section.
Source: National Academies
K-12 INDOCTRINATION
NASEM uses tax dollars to fund curriculums that attempt to indoctrinate children with political agendas in the classroom. In 2025, NASEM published a 434-page report titled “Equity in K-12 STEM Education: Framing Decisions for the Future.” According to the report, “STEM learning opportunities are unevenly distributed, and the experiences an individual has in STEM education are likely to vary tremendously based on their race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, gender, and a myriad of other factors.
Source: National Academies
The report also suggests that educators at all levels of education have a responsibility to advance “equity” goals through both policy and practice. Making sweeping claims about the U.S. education system, the report states, “From its inception, the American educational system has functioned to maintain social stratification and access to power and privilege, even while some individuals and communities have leveraged education to access opportunity.”
Source: National Academies
The report outlines five equity frames as a guide to help decisions: 1. Reducing Gaps Between Groups, 2. Expanding Opportunity and Access, 3. Embracing Heterogeneity in STEM Classroom, 4. Learning and Using STEM to Promote Justice, 5. Envisioning Sustainable Futures Through STEM.
Source: National Academies
In NASEM’s Next Generation Science Standards they recommend science content for K–12 lesson plans which includes students’ understanding of how “human activities” impact Earth’s “other systems.”
Source: National Academies
In 2023, NASEM hosted a virtual panel on climate conversations in schools to discuss “the variety of approaches employed by schools – ranging from energy efficiency retrofits to zero-emission buses to supply chain management – as well as the programs that can help schools meet the up-front resource needs often associated with these efforts.”
Source: YouTube
NASEM is currently in the process of conducting a consensus/advisory activity called Education for Thriving in a Changing Climate that will explore science learning in K-12, post-secondary, and “informal” settings.
Source: National Academies
CALLS FOR ACTION:
Recently, there have been calls for NASEM to have their federal funding revoked given their prioritization of a political agenda, including more than a dozen attorneys general calling for NASEM to remove politically charged language from their materials. It is imperative for parents that organizations, such as NASEM, that provide curriculum or suggested standards for classrooms across America, remain objective and focus on core competencies rather than political activism. Parents and students deserve educational opportunities free from activism, focused on teaching how to think, rather than what to think.
TIPS FOR PARENTS
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Thanks for reading the latest edition of the American Parents Coalition’s The Lookout. If you have a troubling story to share about a school, doctor, company, or other institution working to usurp parents’ rights, please let us know by emailing us at outreach@americanparentscoalition.org.
