The House Education and Workforce Committee said it reviewed hundreds of pages of records, including teachers’ social media posts, and questioned Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. at a hearing in September. Its report said some district employees promote antisemitism and that curriculum presents radical political ideas to students, including children in second grade.

Committee Chair Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, said the investigation found material that he characterized as teaching students to hate Israel and support radical political causes. The report said some social studies content “legitimize[s] radical groups that incite antisemitism,” citing, among other examples, a world history unit on resistance movements that lists the Great March of Return as a possible subject for students to honor. The committee described the march as a Hamas campaign that involved deadly clashes.

The report also criticized second-grade lessons on environmental justice and global bias, injustice and privilege; a high school economics unit’s discussion of wealth inequality in the United States; and a book for third graders that introduces the pronouns “ey/em” and “ze/zir.” Those examples are the committee’s interpretation of district materials, not findings of a formal curriculum adjudication.

District spokesperson Monique Braxton said Philadelphia officials had cooperated extensively with the inquiry but objected to what she called the report’s “blatantly partisan framing,” released days before Election Day. The report, she said, “distorts and mischaracterizes our record.” She added that the district takes antisemitic harassment and discrimination seriously and also does not tolerate Islamophobia, racism or discrimination against other groups.

School Board President Reginald Streater also disputed the findings. He said the district has taken significant steps under Watlington to address antisemitism and other forms of hate and voiced support for the superintendent’s work.

During his September testimony, Watlington said he disagreed with comparing Zionists to white supremacists, but added that deciding what people may say is not his role unless speech violates applicable rules or rights. He told the committee that teachers should not promote personal or political viewpoints in class and that the district’s goal is “to teach children how to think and not what to think.” He defended the social studies curriculum as a way to address complex histories—including those of Israel and Palestine—in an age-appropriate manner without imposing educators’ political biases.

Watlington said the district is standardizing its social studies curriculum, as it has done in English, math and science, and will stop allowing individual staff members to write district social studies curricula. He said he assigned new Chief Academic Officer Michael Farrell, who started July 1, to review the materials. The committee suggested the changes followed public pressure; Watlington said they were part of the district’s broader curriculum review.

The superintendent also said he directed human resources staff to review some employees’ personal social media posts for possible violations of harassment and discrimination policies.

The investigation was ordered last fall after reports of harassment against Jewish students in Philadelphia, Berkeley, Calif., and elsewhere. The committee has examined allegations involving multiple school systems since 2023; Wednesday’s report addressed Philadelphia, Berkeley Unified School District and the National Education Association, a teachers’ union.

Philadelphia’s school system serves about 200,000 students in traditional public and charter schools. In 2024, the district reached a voluntary settlement with the U.S. Department of Education over claims of antisemitism, agreeing to improve record-keeping and provide staff and students with training on anti-discrimination policies. The committee’s findings add a federal political dispute over curriculum to the district’s continuing work on discrimination, student safety and consistent classroom standards.