CA School District Pays High Schoolers $1,400 Each to Become Activists 

California high schoolers in one school district are awarded $1,400 each to learn how to become social justice warriors and participate in leftist activism, according to documents obtained by The Free Press. 

Long Beach Unified School District used almost $2 million in taxpayer money to pay Californians for Justice (CFJ) to conduct training in equity and leadership for students and educators. Furthermore, the arrangement included payments totaling over $20,000 to 13 parents for their involvement in the organization’s programs.

According to its website, CFJ is a “statewide youth-powered organization fighting to improve the lives of communities of color, immigrant, low-income, LGBTQ and other marginalized communities.”

Since December 2019, the Long Beach Unified School District has compensated approximately 78 students with nearly $100,000 for their involvement in a program organized by Californians for Justice. A student featured in a video on the group’s social media mentioned the stipend to encourage others to join CFJ. The current agreement with the organization is set to continue until June 2024. 

In 2021, CFJ conducted three student-led sessions on professional development in the district’s high schools for $25,000. During these sessions, students were instructed to educate their own teachers on topics like implicit bias and anti-black racism. These sessions replaced conventional teacher training, and the district has agreed for CFJ to host 15 more sessions in the 2023–2024 academic year.

“Taxpayer funds should never be used to train political activists, especially in education, where young minds are vulnerable to manipulation. These children are simply being used as ideological pawns,” said CFC Vice President Greg Burt. 

The Free Press interviewed four teachers about CFJ’s tactic to pay students to advance a radical progressive ideology. The teachers called it a “horrible propaganda strategy and said they were “shocked and horrified at such a fact.” 

One teacher, named Jay Goldfischer, said, “One of the reasons that they were hired is to help our students find their voice and be able to express it…But in reality, CFJ is not helping students find their own voices. It’s giving them a scripted voice that’s not their own.”

“They’re teaching them parroting,” he continued, “which is the exact opposite of how you empower children.”

Goldfischer also mentioned that CFJ is not an “inclusive” organization, as it claims to be, noting its response to the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. In an Instagram post following the attacks, CFJ claimed that Israel was guilty of “ethnic cleansing and apartheid orchestrated by white supremacist settler colonialism bent on the goal of wiping out the indigenous Palestinian population.” 

“My concern is becoming a reality already,” said another teacher. “This partnership is solidifying misinformation in young kids. That’s something that they’re going to hold on to forever, because they learned it at school.” 

Training students to promote a scripted version of reality, rather than fostering independent thought and critical analysis, contradicts real education. Active endorsement of a particular political ideology undermines parents’ rights and severely oversteps the boundaries of public education’s role. To make matters worse, these children are being indoctrinated at the expense of taxpayers, many of whom would disagree with this initiative.

The good news is that we’ve seen school districts change course multiple times when parents make their voices heard. Now is the time to do just that. Thankfully, parents also have the opportunity to speak out with their vote this year.