Today, in the quiet, tree-lined corridors of Cedar Drive Middle School in Colts Neck, a magic trick is scheduled: an attempt to transmute a partisan crusade into a “non-partisan” civics lesson.
The magician-in-chief is none other than the US Secretary of Education herself, Linda McMahon, and her bag of tricks is stuffed with the paraphernalia of groups whose names are synonymous with a particular, and very aggressive, political and religious agenda.
Let’s name them plainly, for precision is the antidote to propaganda.
McMahon arrives not with the simple wisdom of the Constitution, but hand-in-hand with the America 250 Civics Education Coalition—a consortium where the taxpayer-funded Department of Education is yoked to organizations like Moms for Liberty, a book-burning group classified as an extremist hate group for its campaigns against authors and LGBTQ students, and which recently cheered a quote from Adolf Hitler in its newsletter.
It includes Turning Point USA, which vows a “God-centered” education; the anti-abortion Priests for Life; the Heritage Foundation, a think-tank engaged in a “war on LGBTQ+ students”; and PragerU, an advocacy group that masquerades as a university and peddles a sanitized, conservative revision of history into our classrooms.
The Vatican defrocked Frank Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life.
A letter to U.S. bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, said the decision against Pavone was for his “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop.
The Heritage Foundation is the group behind the notorious Project 2025 blueprint for disemboweling the American republic.
The superintendent’s letter calls this event “meaningful” and “non-partisan.”
One must admire the audacity of the claim, if not its connection to reality. It is akin to staging a revival tent meeting in the town square and calling it a neutral seminar on moral philosophy.
The machinery is well-oiled: an eager local school board president performed “early outreach,” a phrase that here means “lobbied for this political assembly,” while the superintendent now assures parents it is merely an enriching experience.
But when the guest list reads like a roster for a conservative political convention, the event itself becomes a flag planted on public ground, claiming it for one ideology.
MaryJane Garibay is registered to vote in the Monmouth County community of Manasquan, and has no political party affiliation, but she is kowtowing to fascism in ways that are making Colts Neck a political flashpoint.
Last week, the Colts Neck School District passed a “Parental Bill of Rights.”
While not altering any policies, it explicitly outlined parental oversight of their children’s education, a move that signals implicit support for the agenda of groups like “Moms for Liberty.”
And what of the children? They are to be the captive audience for this whole-school assembly.
They are the props in the performance.
State Senator Vin Gopal, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, has seen this charade for what it is: “They are full of hypocrisy – talking about ‘indoctrination’ when they are illegally attempting to force these children to sit through a political event rather than getting their education.”
Dozens of parents, he notes, from across the political spectrum, are outraged. Their outrage is the sound of a community recognizing a hostile takeover of its civic space.
“Think of the potential biases of a curriculum developed with the help of Turning Point USA — which has a clear political agenda to register young Republican voters,” said another critic on Facebook. “AFPI supports Louisiana’s law to put the 10 Commandments in schools, and faithfully posts blogs in blind support of Trump’s agenda on its website. Part of that agenda is Trump’s disregard for the Constitution.”
“I was shocked. I immediately, upon reading the notice that went out to families, it claims to be non-partisan. None of the organizations that are supporting this initiative for the federal government are non-partisan,” said Colts Neck resident Alison Denoia.
“We expect it’s going to have political and religious ideology, and when a group like Turning Point USA is leading the charge and is going to be the presenter at this assembly, we have concerns that based on their past history, that this should not be in public schools,” said Michael Gottesman is the founder of the New Jersey Public Education Coalition.
This is not about celebrating 250 years of a complex, striving nation.
This is a touring roadshow of a particular vision for America, one that seeks to shrink the federal role in protecting vulnerable students even as it inflates the influence of groups that traffic in cultural grievance.
McMahon herself, while touring, dismisses concerns about dismantling her own department, speaking of moving education back to the states—a process that experts warn will create chaos for millions of students with disabilities, low-income families, and rural districts, and will scatter to the winds the national data and research that helps us understand if we are succeeding or failing our children.
The petition to cancel this visit is not an attempt to silence a viewpoint. It is a defense of the principle that a public school is a sacredly neutral ground, a workshop for sharpening young minds, not a recruiting station for any political or religious faction.
When the partners in your “civics coalition” have records of seeking to ban books, roll back rights, and promote a singular, faith-based view of history and society, you are not teaching civics. You are conducting a soft coup of the classroom.
So, to the principal, the superintendent, and the board of Colts Neck: you have been handed a live grenade, polished to look like an apple.
The pin is marked “partisanship.”
You have a choice. You can heed the justified alarm of parents and educators across the state and country, who see this for what it is—a forced indoctrination masquerading as patriotism.
Or you can pull the pin and let the explosion of division shatter the trust placed in you. The eyes of New Jersey are upon you. Do not mistake a political rally for an education.
The future of our students and the integrity of their schoolhouse depend on whether Americans have the clarity of vision and take action on it by voting.