Editorial: Teachers mocking Kirk murder reveal moral failings in education

Boston Herald, Boston Herald on Sep 15, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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The assassination of Charlie Kirk is a watershed moment for America.

Beyond the horror that a person was assassinated while debating ideas with a campus crowd, the aftermath reveals the rot that’s set in to public discourse and institutions.

According to reports, at least a dozen faculty and staff, from school board officials to classroom teachers, posted insensitive content about Kirk’s murder.

How insensitive? New York Rep. Elise Stefanik called out a previously unreported Beekmantown Central School math teacher who she said cheered Kirk’s death on Facebook by writing, “At least he died happy… surrounded by white folk!”

“Alongside this, the faculty member included a photo of Charlie Kirk with the pronouns ‘was/were’, showing a complete absence of moral character,” Stefanik wrote in a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday, the New York Post reported.

She went on to condemn a Naples Central School teacher who cheered “Good riddance to bad garbage” — and compared Kirk to a Nazi chief.

A biology teacher from Pasadena, Texas wrote on social media, “1 down. Now get the rest of these fools.”

A Framingham elementary school teacher sang, “God bless America” in an online video — before a breaking into a news report on Kirk’s assassination.

“These are not isolated missteps. They reflect a broader, deeply troubling trend of radical ideology festering unchecked in our education system,” Stefanik wrote.

Parents have pushed back against policies promoted by teachers for years. NPR reported in 2021 about protestors disrupting school board meetings around the country. They were against mask policies, vaccine mandates, sex education, removing police from schools and more.

They were deemed the enemy, and the National School Boards Association asked President Biden to step in. Attorney General Merrick Garland then directed the FBI to help.

Overreach doesn’t count if liberal leaders are doing it.

Teachers’ repugnant responses to the assassination of a man with whom they did not agree speaks volumes about the caliber of too many educators in our schools.

If one good thing can come out of this, it would be a renewed push for school choice. Parents deserve to have their children taught by people who don’t relish the murder of someone with an opposing political view. They deserve to question what their children are learning, or better yet, have the ability to leave a school for one more aligned with their expectations of what a quality education should be.

Former President Biden took great pains to try and forgive student loans for college students, even though the cost to future taxpayers would be enormous and economically stunting. Those on the left who decry the cost of school vouchers for parents seeking the best education for their children have no leg to stand on in this debate.

A future in which more children have access to a quality education can only reap dividends for the country. And as we’ve seen this week, quality instruction is about more than proficiency in the curriculum.