New Report Reveals Eye-Popping New Figures of Foreign Influence in K-12 Schools * The Gateway Pundit * by Margaret Flavin

Open the Books, a nonprofit government-transparency organization, reported on a disturbing new report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

The report exposes the depth and breadth of foreign actors influencing American public education and the soft influence operations that begin in grade school and permeate America’s K-12 classrooms.

The report focuses on three specific foreign entities: Qatar, China, and the Islamic Development Bank, which includes member states such as Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

FDD notes, “There are few guardrails to prevent foreign funding or influence from shaping K-12 education. Whereas federal law requires institutions of higher education to report foreign gifts or contracts whose value exceeds $250,000, there is no comparable requirement for primary or secondary schools. At the state level, there are nascent efforts to require transparency, but lawmakers have not moved to block foreign funding or influence.”

Open the Books has been examining Qatar’s financial ties for years.

Last year, Open the Books filed public records requests with two hundred K-12 school districts in search of influence by Qatar through its affiliated nonprofit Qatar Foundation International.

As a pilot study, they found QFI had a sophisticated soft influence operation, what they coined “cradle to graduation” programming; and they had stringent reporting requirements to measure efficacy and reallocate funds when they weren’t getting optimal results.

Those results were published in The Federalist here.

• Georgia: During a QFI-funded 2024 workshop at Georgia State University, aimed at both college and K-12 Arabic teachers, attendees discussed how to protect themselves from parental criticism when introducing social justice lessons in their classrooms. One participant described how she teaches at a Christian school, and if she wants “to broach a topic that I am nervous about,” she “will talk to [the school’s] Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion coordinator first,” who can act as a “buffer” with parents.
• Illinois: Per the report, “Fadi Abughoush teaches Arabic at Chicago’s Lindblom Math and Science Academy high school, which received a $154,109 grant from QFI for the 2025-2026 academic year to support Arabic instruction. Most of the funding covers the salary and benefits of the position of an unnamed Arabic teacher. Abughoush is also very active in the QFI-funded Chicago Arabic Teachers Council.”
  • In 2024, QFI honored Abughoush with its Teacher Excellence Award. His Instagram posts from that period show his consistent support for Hamas.^”
  • “…Another post features a cartoon with the title ‘Kosher,’ in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eats the flesh of Palestinian children while U.S. President Joe Biden pours him a glass of blood.” It’s a clear example of the material used as a precursor for antisemitism and violent attacks.
  • The same teacher posted his class’s annual visit to a local Chicago-area mosque on Facebook in the spring of 2024. The Mosque Foundation is “run by Sheikh Jamal Said, who has discussed his support for Muslim Brotherhood members. Along with photos of the excursion, Abughoush thanked QFI ‘for always supporting us making these beautiful field trips.’ Said is an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 DOJ case against the Holy Land Foundation.”

Read FDD’s full report here.