CLICK TO READ THE REPORT
Top 10 Takeaways
1. In 2023 DoDEA told Congress it would dismantle its Diversity Equity and Inclusion department, only to secretly create a DEI Steering Committee and move DEI professionals into less public roles at the agency.
2. DoDEA has resisted attempts to gain information via Freedom of Information Act request about the DEI Steering Committee and other agency activities. Requests are often returned heavily redacted and appeals take months to a year or longer to process.
3. Along with paid content, staffers have been found to use and advocate for a variety of troubling free resources that push radical ideologies in the classroom. Because the content is available online at no cost from organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, it is impossible to trace with spending data.
4. “Social Emotional Learning” classroom practices are collecting sensitive information from students daily—and it is not at all clear how or how securely this data is stored. The agency plans on making SEL a priority over the next few years.
5. Both children and staff are subjected to DEI struggle sessions. DoDEA staffers were presented with a book called Coaching for Equity, which rebukes capitalism, “patriarchy,” traditions like Thanksgiving, and America’s existence as a country.
6. DoDEA staffers affirmed using changing academic standards at the agency as a Trojan Horse
7. Unlike counterparts at the State Department, military families cannot access funds for school choice to exit DoDEA school systems while abroad, a policy that must change to give servicemembers full educational freedom for their families.
8. Federal grant spending at DoDEA has roughly tripled since 2020, from $20 to over $70 million annually. Since 2022 $5.2 million in grants was allocated to address learning loss in affiliated schools during the pandemic.
9. A FOIA request revealed salary spending in FY 2022 was $1.3 billion, but individual salaries remain a mystery, as DoDEA does not disclose this data, unlike nearly every other federal agency.
10. Contract spending has stayed at about $300 million per year since 2017. Millions of dollars have been found to go to purveyors of DEI-related content used in the classroom.