Massachusetts
How are Massachusetts schools failing Jewish students through bias? – opinion
As Massachusetts students remain stubbornly behind their pre-pandemic levels in math and reading scores according to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Massachusetts Teachers Association’s recent focus of attention is instructive.
The teachers’ union, also known as the MTA, pushed successfully for a ballot initiative in November that torpedoed a longtime graduation requirement that students pass the state’s MCAS exam. And in December, it released an extensive list of resources it compiled for its members on “Israel and Occupied Palestine.”
Among the so-called pedagogical aids? A poster showing dollar bills folded into a Jewish star and another featuring a keffiyeh-clad, rifle-toting fighter that proclaims, “What was taken by force can only be returned by force.”
The almost 100 resources are an overwhelmingly demonic portrayal of Israel, Zionism, and Jews, even with two links containing those posters ultimately deleted. It speaks to a broken system of oversight, emblematic of similar education issues in other parts of the US.
Jewish and non-Jewish members of the grassroots group Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism had tried repeatedly to have the union remove the material but were rebuffed by MTA board members’ accusations of “censorship.” For many teachers, the entire undertaking is a pernicious diversion from their core classroom struggles.
“I have 15 kids reading six years below grade level, so I don’t know why we’re talking about a country that’s 0.1% of the world population and a 10-hour plane ride away,” one told me.
It took nothing less than a Massachusetts State House hearing held by a recently formed commission on combating antisemitism for the MTA to budge after union president Max Page was grilled about the posters and other materials and after commission co-chair State Sen. John C. Velis referred to them as “a recommendation for educational malpractice.”
That a teachers’ union has the capacity to ply uninformed educators with material bereft of factual accuracy and balance is troublesome, given its powerful platform.
But it is part of a much larger problem acknowledged during that hearing and a subsequent one held last week: Curricular vetting and accountability are virtually nonexistent at the state level. It leaves schoolchildren vulnerable to ideologies subversively inserted locally, and it is not unique to Massachusetts.
Jewish students exposed to high levels of antisemitism
Jewish students “are being bullied at record levels with the positioning of Zionism as an epithet,” said Katherine Craven, chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which governs the state’s education department for K-12.
And the board is hearing anecdotally that children as young as first and second grade are being exposed to antisemitic curricula. However, according to state law, its role is limited to initial teacher certification, bullying, and the state’s curriculum frameworks, which are only standards.
“If you folks at the board, [if] your job is not to provide that oversight, I view that as a really, really big problem,” Velis told her. “Am I missing something?”
“No, you are not,” Craven replied while noting its duties are not “prescriptive,” instead offering districts recommendations and guidelines.
So even as Massachusetts, with its reputation for inclusivity, ranked an astonishing fifth among states in the number of antisemitic incidents in 2023 according to the Anti-Defamation League, the state’s inability to intervene heightens the probability that kids will learn with MTA “curriculum resources,” like “Handala’s Return: A Children’s Story and Workbook.”
Antisemitic ideologies and conspiracy theories
It draws on antisemitic conspiracy theories portraying Jews as predators targeting non-Jewish children, who in this narrative are “having their homes taken by Zionist bullies… always scaring” and “arresting them,” and instructs kids to name what they will chant “at a Palestine protest.”
Nor are there “any kind of approval rights” over professional development at the board or department level, Craven said, describing it as “very locally driven.”
It was a professional-development webinar hosted by the MTA’s Anti-Racism Task Force that raised the alarm after teachers in attendance reported that Zionism was equated with settler colonialism and presentations were replete with antisemitic tropes like the claim that Zionism is a “multi-million dollar, Israeli state-funded propaganda machine.”
Registrants were surveyed about whether they feel supported by their administration “in teaching anti-Zionist narratives about Palestine.” Notably, the MTA, as a Professional Development Provider, furnished certificates of participation for the webinar, which can be used for teacher re-licensure.
Those views on Israel reflect ideologies “deeply embedded” in other MTA initiatives, according to a report by the American Jewish Committee New England.
It noted the union’s recent launch of Revolutionizing Education, a journal the MTA states is “dedicated to advancing education policy and practice in Massachusetts,” to advocate “for transformative practices that dismantle power hierarchies” and “envision education as a tool for liberation.”
It is yet another worrisome development in the union’s laser-focused mission to influence teachers.
Antisemitic and antizionist narratives embedded into curriculums
BECAUSE EDUCATION in America is consigned to “very local control,” ultimately, most classroom resources are designed and developed by teachers with the autonomy to introduce problematic material into the curriculum with little to no oversight, said David Smokler, a former public school teacher and administrator and now the executive director of the K-12 Fairness Center at StandWithUs. When teachers are stretched, they often turn to educational websites that are entirely unvetted.
“It’s a minefield out there in terms of resources,” even if teachers are acting in good faith, said Smokler. The market for such classroom resources is huge, often with little scrutiny over who is funding them.
What’s more, ethnic studies and its more radical relative, liberated ethnic studies, are penetrating teachers’ lessons and professional development in many US districts with scarce oversight of material. With themes of oppression, colonialism, and resistance, ethnic studies educators describe the discipline as “not just curriculum” but a “movement” for “action” to effect “social change.”
But oftentimes, blatantly antisemitic and anti-Zionist narratives are found within these studies, particularly in the liberated model, a link to which is listed among the MTA resources.
Such issues are multiplying throughout the US.“We’re seeing many of our teachers and schools indoctrinating students with materials designed specifically to tailor to left-leaning people so that a lot of the indoctrination can be done invisibly,” Smokler told me.
“It’s designed to attract people who care about social justice. But it’s not just about antisemitism. It’s about liberal Western values in general. Some of the same teachers who are teaching that Israel is a genocidal apartheid state say the same about America. There’s illiberal indoctrination going on now that is pretty shocking.”
A course correction is necessary to protect our children. Massachusetts lawmakers should give their education arm broader mandates to enact meaningful oversight paired with accountability. Ditto for other states grappling with such challenges. Parents, teachers, and taxpayers must regain trust that public education isn’t eroding into a mere platform for indoctrination.
How this legacy is cemented will ripple through future generations of kids as they launch from classrooms to leadership positions, with global consequences.
The writer is an award-winning reporter and the recipient of a journalism fellowship that supported her graduate education at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a former writer for The Boston Globe, reported for the Associated Press and is published in the Wall Street Journal and the National Review.
A Greenfield, Massachusetts family of four were among the five killed when a bus plowed into vehicles on a Virginia highway early Friday morning. A 25-year-old woman from Worcester was also killed in the crash.
It comes as investigators are trying to piece together what happened in the collision that injured dozens more.
There is profound sorrow in the Greenfield community. Heartbroken family members say Dmitri Doncev, 45, his wife Ecterina, 44, their 13-year-old daughter Emily and 7-year-old son Mark all died after a charter bus slammed into their car and others on I-95. The Worcester woman who was killed was in another SUV struck by the bus.
They Doncev family were devoted members of a Russian Baptist Church who were heading to a wedding in South Carolina.
The heartbroken family sent WBZ a statement saying, “Today, words cannot adequately express the pain and sorrow felt by their family, friends, church community, coworkers, classmates, and all who had the privilege of knowing them. Their absence leaves a void that can never be filled, but their memories, their love, and the countless lives they touched will remain forever in our hearts.”
“Though their time with us was far too short, the legacy of kindness, faith, perseverance, and love that they leave behind will continue to inspire all who knew them,” the statement said.
Providence Christian Academy said the children attended the school saying in a statement, “The Doncev family was a cherished part of our school community, and their loss is being felt deeply by our students, families, faculty, and staff.”
Greenfield Mayor Greenfield Mayor Virginia DeSorgher also said in a statement:
“To the families, friends, and neighbors of those we lost: there are no words that can fully ease the weight of this sudden and unimaginable grief. Please know that you are not walking through this dark time alone. The Greenfield community stands with you, mourning alongside you, and we extend our absolute deepest condolences and prayers.”
Investigators say the bus did not slow down in a work zone, hitting several cars in front of it. Passengers on the bus woke up to chaos.
“It was horrible,” said bus passenger Wayne Tobin. “It was just like blood everywhere; it was people holding their head. Their heads were bleeding.”
In all, about 44 people were rushed to area hospitals.
State police identified the bus driver as 48-year-old Jing Dong. He could be facing charges in the crash.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that Dong was an American citizen originally from China who got his commercial driver’s license two years ago in New York.
A bus crashed into vehicles slowing for a work zone on Interstate 95 in Virginia early Friday, killing five people and injuring dozens, including the driver, authorities said.
The crash happened at about 2:35 a.m. on southbound I-95 in Stafford County, near Quantico. All five of the people who died were in vehicles hit by the bus, and 44 people were taken to hospitals, including three in critical condition, police said.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that traffic was slowing southbound for an upcoming work zone,” state police said in a news release. “A bus failed to slow for traffic and struck six vehicles.”
Police said there were “approximately” 34 passengers on the bus.
“We’ve got patients in multiple hospitals. We’ve got the driver at a hospital here,” said Peyton Vogel, a Federal Transit Administration spokesperson who was on the scene. “I’ve got to say, this is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen. Absolutely tragic.”
Four of the fatalities were in one car, which caught fire. State police said the victims were a 45-year-old male, a 44-year-old female, a 13-year-old female and a 7-year-old male, all from Greenfield, Massachusetts. The fifth victim, a 25-year-old female from Worcester, Massachusetts, was in an SUV that was struck by the bus.
Virginia State Police Virginia State Police The aftermath of a deadly bus crash on I-95 in Virginia’s Stafford County on Friday, May 29, 2026.
Reaction to the deadly crash in Massachusetts
The mayor of Greenfield, Virginia Desorgher, issued a statement on the deaths of four city residents in the crash.
Our entire community is shocked and profoundly heartbroken by the tragic news coming out of Virginia. Early this morning, a horrific crash took the lives of five people, and we have received the painful confirmation that four of those individuals were residents of Greenfield.
To the families, friends, and neighbors of those we lost: there are no words that can fully ease the weight of this sudden and unimaginable grief. Please know that you are not walking through this dark time alone. The Greenfield community stands with you, mourning alongside you, and we extend our absolute deepest condolences and prayers.
We are also holding the dozens of others who were injured in this crash in our thoughts, wishing them a full and swift recovery.
The City of Greenfield is fully committed to supporting those affected by this horrible loss. In the coming days and weeks, we will work to ensure that the grieving families have access to the resources, care, and comfort they need. I ask all Greenfield residents to wrap your arms around our neighbors with the compassion, kindness, and unity that defines our community.”
Update on investigation in Virginia
State police identified the bus driver as Jing S. Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York. Charges are pending, authorities said.
Mary Washington Healthcare said it received 19 patients from the crash. It posted online that seven of the patients were taken to its trauma center in Fredericksburg, where four were being discharged and three remained in treatment — one in serious condition and two in critical condition. Twelve were taken to its hospital in Stafford, where they were later discharged in good condition.
The National Transportation Safety Board posted online that it was sending a “go-team” to conduct a safety investigation into the crash and that it would have a spokesperson at the scene.
The southbound lanes had reopened by noon, but traffic was still backed up for a couple of miles, according to a state transportation advisory.
Bus company had satisfactory record
The bus was operated by E&P Travel Inc., based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. A compliance snapshot from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration showed only one injury accident involving the company’s vehicles in the previous two years and listed its safety rating as “satisfactory.”
The company was incorporated Nov. 24, 2023, by Shuo Liu, according to records from the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office. Liu is also listed as the registered agent. The FMCSA site said the company operated four vehicles and had 11 drivers.
While it is too soon to say what caused Friday’s crash, federal authorities have been grappling with interstate passenger bus safety issues for decades.
Following a series of passenger bus crashes in 2008 that killed 41 people, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a Motorcoach Safety Action Plan.
The NTSB investigated 16 fatal motorcoach crashes between June 1998 and January 2008, finding that driver-related problems such as fatigue, medical condition and inattention accounted for 56 percent of the accidents. The agency said driver-related problems were responsible for 60 percent of the fatalities in those crashes.
Among the actions recommended were creation of a pre-employment driver history screening program and a national drug- and alcohol-testing database “to enable motorcoach operators to determine if drivers have a history of violating DOT alcohol or drug rules.”
We’re still on the good side of the forecast today. We’ll see a good supply of sun to start, then the clouds will increase and a few showers will sink down from the north in the afternoon. We still manage to make it near 70. (Yay.)
Tomorrow’s high temperatures, however, comes after midnight tonight — before falling toward Saturday morning. If you think that’s confusing, try explaining the snow that’ll be flying in the higher elevations across New England (with solid accumulation above 4k feet).
Yes, the weather is upside down for late May.
We can blame an intense, compact upper-level pool of cold air that broke loose from a larger pool near the Arctic Circle days ago.
The pattern across North America has dropped it in our laps for a day, with cold, rainy, windy consequences.
Rain, wind and… snow?
This will be a sneaky storm. Early on, there might even be a calm, bright sky (very) early Saturday morning. Then the clouds move in and the wind intensifies from the northeast. Gust will briefly peak at 50+ along the coast (40+ inland).
Rain will mix with snow in northern New England, and perhaps in the highest elevations of southern New Hampshire and central Massachusetts.
This also depends on the intensity of the precipitation. Heavier bursts of rain can drag down colder air aloft, helping the snowflakes make it from cloud base to your home place (if you live above 1k feet).
Ironically, we’re not expecting a deluge from this storm. Most spots keep near a half inch, with higher amounts near an inch in northeast Mass./southern NH.
And then just like that, it’s over. The storm pulls away Saturday evening, the skies clear and we’re back to sun Sunday. Highs recover to near 70 with the slightest chance for a shower late day.
Better chances – and cooler temps – come both Monday and Tuesday.
Will summer ever take hold? We know from past years that June can really struggle. It appears that the start of the month may not live up to expectations. Although we are at least climbing back to the 80s late next week.
Have a good weekend.
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