We need to get Qatar out of American classrooms

American classrooms - where children learn to read, think critically, and become engaged citizens - should be free from foreign influence. Yet they are not. Over the past decade, Qatar’s educational arm, Qatar Foundation International (QFI), has quietly embedded itself in US K–12 schools under the banner of cultural exchange and Arabic language instruction, while avoiding the transparency required of foreign actors. This is not benign enrichment. It is a foreign influence network that threatens the integrity of American education - and it must be removed.

The financial scale is staggering. QFI distributed more than $30.6 million to American K–12 schools between 2009 and 2017, with additional funds afterward - and, as the report notes, “the true total is likely considerably higher.” These grants flowed into districts across the country, from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, often in cash-strapped areas where foreign funding can be particularly seductive.

But the influence is not cultural; it is ideological. Many schools thought they were adopting harmless language programs and had no idea what they were actually importing. One of the most revealing examples is QFI’s long-standing partnership with Brown University’s Choices Program, a curriculum used in more than 8,000 schools. According to the Jewish Onliner report, QFI-funded workshops and teacher training coincided with subtle but significant shifts in the curriculum’s Middle East content, including the removal of the Balfour Declaration, the mislabelling of Israel’s capital as Tel Aviv, the downplaying of the Abraham Accords, and the softening of descriptions of Islamist terror groups. None of these changes were disclosed to the schools using the materials.

This is not education. It is indoctrination via omission and narrative manipulation. When foreign governments embed their preferred framing into classroom materials, we compromise the independence of American civic education and undermine public trust.

We do not need to accept this. My organization, the North American Values Institute (NAVI), works exclusively to combat extremism and antisemitism in K-12 schools. When the QFI–Choices connection came to light, we immediately contacted state departments of education and school districts, urging them to remove the curriculum. As a result, six state departments of education have now taken action to eliminate or suspend the Qatari-backed program. Many administrators were initially defensive, believing they had acted responsibly. But once confronted with the materials and the lack of transparency behind them, their embarrassment quickly turned into corrective action.

Another area of concern is teacher training programs that send US educators on fully funded trips to Qatar. Some participants return espousing narratives that delegitimize Israel, including claims that the country is committing “genocide” - rhetoric that then finds its way into classrooms. Whether this stems from ignorance or intent, it has no place in taxpayer-funded instruction. Principals and district leaders often admit privately that they are uncomfortable with these programs, but only end them once the issue is forced into the open. That dynamic tells us everything we need to know.

Congress has begun to acknowledge the threat. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) has warned that foreign governments are using “seemingly benign cultural programs to target students and indoctrinate our children,” and noted that his committee has passed bills to curb foreign interference in K-12 schools and strengthen transparency. This is common sense. Parents deserve to know who funds the lessons their children are taught and what agendas those materials serve.

To protect American classrooms, we must act on three fronts:

Legislatively: Congress should expand foreign agent reporting requirements to explicitly cover K-12 curriculum partnerships, teacher training, and educational funding.

Administratively: States must enforce strict transparency rules for instructional materials, professional development, and all outside funding streams.

Locally: School boards and parents must demand full disclosure of foreign partnerships and insist on independent review of curriculum content.

American schools should teach critical thinking, open inquiry, and civic literacy - not foreign political narratives disguised as cultural enrichment. Qatar and QFI should have no place in our public classrooms. If we care about our children’s education and the future of this republic, it is time to remove this foreign influence from our schools once and for all.