皮特·赫格斯推动重塑全球国防部学校内幕

Inside Pete Hegseth’s push to remake the Defense Department’s schools around the world

2026-09-29T09:00:29.274Z / CNN

At a time when US children are struggling with core subjects like reading and math, students from one school system have consistently scored higher than the national average on federally mandated tests.

Yet the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA – the Pentagon-run school system that educates some 66,000 children of US troops around the world – is being overhauled under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

A few weeks before students returned to classrooms this fall, a directive came down reminding school administrators they must ensure that hundreds of books the Defense Department banned remain out of the classroom and off library shelves.

Many of the prohibited titles explore race, sexism and LGBTQ+ issues, including the popular “Heartstopper” graphic novel series and “Feminist AF: A Guide to Crushing Girlhood.”

Some staff then received a memo warning that “all physical copies must be removed from student access and placed in a secure location,” according to a source who shared it with CNN. There would be“100% compliance required” and the Pentagon would “monitor compliance,” it said.

It was one of the latest salvos in a push to fulfill a wish list of conservative education priorities at DoDEA, even as a lawsuit over the banned books plays out in federal court.

The Pentagon has rushed to build a new curriculum around “classical education” – a movement that calls for elevating the Western canon and is promoted by Hegseth, Trump allies and conservative education groups – and to broaden “school choice,” another conservative education goal on the right, for military families.

Critics argue the Hegseth-led Pentagon is using the school system as a testing ground for controversial education approaches as part of its ongoing culture war, and have raised concerns about censorship and placing limits on what children can learn.

“The beauty of the history of DoDEA is that we provide a quality education to the children of the men and women who serve our nation,” said Tom Brady, who was director of DoDEA from 2014 to 2024.

“It didn’t matter who was the president or the administration,” he said. “So, I’m very distressed to learn, to think that they’re using DoDEA as a test bed for whatever the current administration thinks it is.”

Yet there are signs of more changes to come, sparking further uncertainty.

Starting in January, teachers must read two novels from a “Director’s Reading List” with their class, according to a memo from DoDEA officials sent to schools earlier this month. The memo, obtained by CNN, alerted staff that they are to follow lesson plans about the books provided by DoDEA headquarters in Washington. In a highly unusual move, teachers were told they cannot modify or supplement them, according to a source familiar with the matter.

“Teachers know change is coming, but they don’t know what, how, or when. At the end of the day, they just want to be the best for their students, but it’s hard to know how to do that with so many unknowns,” the person said.

A Pentagon official said the school system “remains committed to providing all of its military-connected students with the best possible education and opportunities,”describing the new emphasis on classical and civics education as an “expansion” of the curriculum that would reinforce “critical thinking and communication skills.”

DoDEA operates around 160 schools serving students from pre-K through high school across about a dozen countries and multiple states and territories.

Despite its history of high academic performance, figures on the right say that the system has become too “woke” and complain that its curriculum espouses left-leaning ideology. They also contend its administration cuts parents out of their children’s education – a complaint they level against much of the US education system.

Under Hegseth, allies have been installed to address these concerns, with some replacing career federal employees that had been at the agency for years.

Ret. Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, a controversial former Fox News contributor and former public school administrator, oversees the school system in his role as under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. In that position, he has dismissed DoDEA’s high test scores as unreliable and criticized the school district as too bureaucratic.

Tiffany Hoben, a school-choice and classical education advocate, became the system’s education officer earlier this year. Hegseth described Paul Craft, a former public school official who replaced a career administrator as DoDEA director, as the “right leader” to reorient Pentagon schools “towards patriotic values and classical learning.”

And Amy Haywood, one of DoDEA’s most prominent critics, is a senior education adviser in Tata’s office. A conservative education activist and Navy spouse, she has claimed the schools have been corrupted by progressive beliefs and has called for more parental involvement and homeschooling stipends for military families.

In a statement to CNN, Haywood said: “I know firsthand the vital importance of transparent curricula, robust parental rights, and measurable academic excellence.” She also said she was “proud to support reforms that restore accountability, expand educational choice, and ensure our Service members’ children receive an education worthy of their parents’ sacrifice.”

In June, school system officials unveiled an ambitious set of priorities to reshape DoDEA’s curriculum, including a blueprint for how it will implement classical education throughout its schools.

One of the first steps to be enacted was offering a new online class this fall on the history of the West promoted as a “new Classical Education course.”

There is an expectation that the course will be expanded to in-person classes over the next year, Craft has said.

However, some education experts argue that Hegseth’s vision of classical education – a long existing tradition – has coopted the idea from centuries-old liberal arts principals to teach views that are exclusionary.

“The classical education movement started out as a way to address how industrial education had taken us away from kids just learning how to read, write, and do math,” said Anika Prather, an assistant professor at Catholic University, who is a proponent of the pedagogy. But the views supported by Hegseth, she says, have turned it into “this Eurocentric educational philosophy that is now being supported by one of the major leaders of our country.”

“They’ve hijacked it,” she said.

The curriculum changes come amid a larger Hegseth-directed push to cut programs or initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, throughout the military, including its public schools.

Events and materials marking Women’s History Month or Black History Month have been prohibited for over a year.

The Trump administration’s efforts to limit transgender rights across government have also extended to the school system. DoDEA students haven’t been allowed to use “visual depictions or written content” that would promote “gender ideology,” such as transgender pride flags or poems or quotes in their yearbook entries, according to court documents.

New standards

In a 2022 book, “Battle for the American Mind,” Hegseth argued that a classical educational movement rooted in Christianity was the only way to give children a “fighting chance to save America.”

He co-wrote the book with David Goodwin, a conservative intellectual who leads an organization that advocates for classical Christian schools.

The book also called for expanded voucher programs to fund families placing their children into these kinds of schools and implementing the Classical Learning Test, a college entrance exam popular among Christian schools.The test is owned by a private company, Classic Learning Initiatives, which says it promotes “traditional education.” Goodwin also serves as an adviser for the test.

Beginning in the 2027 academic year, it will be accepted for admissions at the three major US service academies, which are operated by the Pentagon but are not part of DoDEA.

This month, the admissions office of the US Naval Academy sent information on the CLT to dozens of congressional staffers, including a flyer from the exam’s company comparing the test to the ACT and SAT and a PowerPoint explaining the exam.

One of the documents, reviewed by CNN, says the CL provides “[c]learer distinction among top-performing candidates,” and referred students to an official guide with practice exams that students could purchase for $45. Another document included a quote from Hegseth promoting the test as the “gold standard,” and offered a 50% discount for service academy candidates.

One congressional staffer familiar with the documents said they couldn’t recall any similar recent effort advertising the ACT or SAT. And while they said it could make sense to need more information, the emailed pamphlets and information seemed like more of a promotional effort.

“I have never seen anything this extensive, created by the testing company, and directly distributed by a service academy,” the staffer said.

A US Naval Academy spokesperson told CNN that the institution “treats all accepted standardized tests equally and does not endorse one test over another.”

DoDEA schools also began offering the exam to 11th and 12th graders this year and announced last week that it will give out 100 vouchers to students to take the test for free.

Some critics say the changes are not aimed at improving learning but attempts to promote a specific ideology.

“The changes they’re making, none of it is based on data. It is just basically a philosophical change that the secretary wants to make because it aligns with his way of thinking,” Rep. Gil Cisneros, a Democrat who served as under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness during the Biden administration, told CNN.