Today is May Day, and we begin hot with nationwide protests in our schools. This shouldn’t come as a surprise — the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of political events. From the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, there is no shortage of political controversy. What is May Day, you might ask? For months, teachers’ unions and high-profile left-wing nonprofits have geared up for mass mobilizations and boycotts to honor the socialist holy day and to flex their political power. Part of the preparation efforts include training and organizing children to engage in school walkouts and protests. While left-wing activism is not new itself, what is relatively new is the degree to which the education system has been corrupted to engineer new generations to activists. These May Day protests are a feature, a byproduct really, of an education system steeped in radical ideologies designed to mobilize far-left activism and a “political revolution.” Nor are these protests the end. They are an opening act for what the professional agitators and activists intend to be an ongoing affair leading up to the 2028 elections. K-12 schools are strategic collateral damage. This pattern is visible in the series of student walkouts since January, many of which focused on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Less visible to the public, however, is the role of the teachers’ unions and nonprofit allies in these protests. For American children, the learning experience is a constant barrage of heavily lopsided political messaging meant to train the youngest kids to see the world through a warped oppressor-oppressed framing and to engage in action or activism to stop the perceived “injustice.” Whether through state standards and guidance, such as New Mexico Public Education Department’s Social Studies “Instructional Scope” or ethnic studies courses, students are being conditioned to be political actors from the earliest ages. For example, a free lesson produced by the University of Minnesota’s “Ethnic Studies Initiative” teaches sixth-grade students about the Black Lives Matter movement through the creation of “protest art.” The middle school students are then required to produce their own social justice protest art. Such indoctrination is not only reserved for ethnic studies. It has permeated into our school system through Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programming. SEL is no less a political tool than ethnic studies. In 2019, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) mainstreamed “transformative” SEL, which integrates anti-racism and activism into its framework. Second Step, a popular SEL company that utilizes CASEL’s platform, went further and aligned its curriculum with Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards, focusing specifically on action and activism. Learning for Justice is a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). As students, teachers’ unions, and left-wing activist organizations take to the streets this May Day to champion policies and an ideology that the majority of Americans reject, the public needs to understand that this is the starting gun, not the finish line. Left-wing actors desperately want a “political revolution” and have no problem using other people’s children to achieve their goals. They have no issue turning the K-12 education system into a far-left activist pipeline. What we’re seeing now is just the beginning. * * * Rhyen Staley is a researcher for Defending Education. He holds a master’s degree in elementary education and has over a decade of classroom experience in both public and private schools. He has over 25 years of coaching experience from junior high to Division I.