Emails Show Education Department Assembled Parent Advisory Council with Left-Aligned Groups, Critics Say

Newly released internal emails and documents reveal how the U.S. Department of Education (ED) under President Joe Biden attempted in 2022 to assemble a National Parents and Families Engagement Council that critics say was populated primarily by teachers’ unions and left-leaning advocacy organizations. The council was presented publicly as a “partnership between parents and families, educators, district leaders, and entire school communities to support student success,” but documents obtained and published by Defending Education and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation portray a selection process that favored ideologically aligned groups.

A recruitment document circulated by the department to prospective members described the council as “an opportunity to listen, learn and engage families” and said it would “seek to ensure parents’ voices play a critical role in how their children are recovering from the pandemic academically, socially and emotionally.” Organization leaders were asked both to provide feedback on the department’s outline for the council and to appoint parent representatives to participate.

Despite the stated goal of elevating parental voices, the roster of invited and participating organizations included several large special-interest groups and advocacy networks with clear policy priorities. Among those named in the records were the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Action Network, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), PFLAG, and Unidos, a Latino advocacy group. Defending Education noted that “not a single right-of-center or conservative parent group was invited” to take part.

Responses from the invited groups, included in the released emails, show many encouraged the department to make the council explicitly more “inclusive” and to ensure geographic, demographic, linguistic and immigrant diversity. The National Association for Family, School and Community Engagement urged ED to “Clearly articulate how the Council membership will provide diverse, representative voices of families: The Department can specify that the Council will be composed of diverse members that will represent geographic and demographic diversity.” That message suggested council recruitment consider gender (including fatherhood), race and ethnicity, linguistic and immigrant background, political diversity, suburban/urban/rural representation, and families with disabilities.

Other groups pressed ED on similar themes. The United Parent Leaders Action Network wrote that council membership should “be diverse, representative of the many experiences of families in education systems, and ensure space for families that are not often at education decision making tables (including Black and Brown parents, immigrants, families whose primary language is not English etc.).” The National Parent-Teacher Association asked whether the department would provide “translation/interpretation support” for representatives; Girls Inc. suggested the council examine issues including “disciplinary equity,” the use of “police in schools,” and “access for girls and other underrepresented groups to meaningful opportunities to pursue all career paths.” One organization also argued the term “parents” was not sufficiently inclusive and suggested replacing or supplementing it with “caregiver,” a change ED later appears to have made.

The emails also show that AFT, having accepted an invitation to join, recommended additional organizations for inclusion, such as Red Wine and Blue. The reporting states AFT paid Red Wine and Blue more than $1 million between 2015 and 2025 and that AFT also directly funded several participating groups, including National Action Network and Unidos.

In a subsequent clarification to invited organizations, ED specified that the council was “not a Federal Advisory Committee and therefore, does not have access to information and advice on a broad range of issues affecting federal policies and programs.” Nevertheless, legal challenges swiftly followed. Defending Education, America First Legal, and Fight for Schools and Families filed suits alleging the council violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires advisory committees to be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented” and mandates certain transparency and recordkeeping requirements.

Critics characterized the council as partisan and an effort to foster what they described as an ideologically driven agenda. Ian Prior, senior advisor at America First Legal, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that “The Biden Administration weaponized the Department of Justice and FBI to target parents speaking at school board meetings in favor of opening schools and against DEI and transgender policies,” and called the council a “phony ‘National Parents and Families Council’ stocked with leftist allies to promote a radical, anti-parent agenda.” Defending Education president Nicole Neily said in the reporting that the documents show the administration “hand-picked a set of allies and yes-men to create a Potemkin village to feign that they cared about the opinions of parents and families,” and added, “Clearly, this council was nothing more than a smokescreen meant to distract from their NSBA scandal when Attorney General Merrick Garland deployed the FBI against American citizens using their First Amendment rights.”

Following the litigation, the council was disbanded less than six months after its formation. Defending Education continued legal efforts in 2025 to obtain additional documents relating to the council after asserting the education department had ignored several Freedom of Information Act requests; the documents cited in this reporting were released only after a lawsuit. The controversy underscores ongoing disputes over how federal agencies engage with outside organizations on education policy, the role of parents and grassroots groups in shaping school policy, and the legal constraints imposed by FACA on advisory panels.

The documents and reactions captured in the released emails add to broader debates about transparency and political balance in federal advisory processes. Supporters of the council’s aims might argue for the importance of engaging historically marginalized families and communities in recovery from the pandemic, while critics contend that the council’s composition and selection process reflected partisan preferences and violated statutory requirements intended to ensure balanced public input.