Never Forget Means Teach It
A moment of silence is not a history lesson. You cannot remember what you were never taught. Twenty-five years after 2,977 people were murdered in an attack aimed at this city, New York City does not require a single one of its public schools to teach students what happened, who did it, or why.
NYC does not require a uniform, age-appropriate 9/11 curriculum ensuring that every student learns what happened, why America was attacked, how New Yorkers responded, and why the ideology behind the attacks remains relevant today.
Why this cannot wait
A generation of New York children has grown up with no living memory of September 11. Commemoration still happens, but instruction does not - not in any form that guarantees every student the same factual foundation. A student can enter kindergarten in this city and leave twelfth grade without ever being taught the name al-Qaeda.
On September 3, City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced $1 million for the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, most of it for free field trips for about 20,000 eighth graders, with expanded virtual programming. That investment is an important beginning, but is not a substitute for a curriculum. The Museum already offers free field trips to K-12 schools in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut; the new money reaches more eighth graders, and it requires nothing of the other twelve grades. Twenty thousand field trips do not teach every child, in every grade, in every school, what happened to this city.
On September 4, the Mayor signed Executive Order No. 21, designating September 11 a Citywide Day of Remembrance and Service. It directs a moment of silence and encourages city agencies to hold memorial ceremonies and educational programs. Remembrance and service matter, but they are still not instruction. The Mayor called it a commitment carried forward through action. For a school system, the action is adopting a curriculum.
On September 5, the New York Post reported the shocking lessons that fill the space where a requirement should be. New York City teachers are offered "Teaching Beyond September 11th," a curriculum from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education that gives the attacks a single paragraph, never calls the hijackers terrorists, states that the United States "accused" Osama bin Laden of the plot, and moves on to units on right-wing extremism, Islamophobia, and the surveillance of Muslims. Penn itself describes the material as a supplement focused primarily on the consequences of 9/11. New York City Public Schools told the Post it is one of roughly 40 optional resources available to teachers, not an adopted citywide curriculum. That is precisely the problem: without a required core, history can be selectively taught, distorted, or pushed aside.
There is nothing wrong with teaching students about civil liberties or anti-Muslim hatred. Those subjects are part of the history that followed 9/11. But they are the aftermath, not the lesson.
Students must first learn who attacked America, what al-Qaeda believed, why it targeted our country, what happened at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard Flight 93, and how victims, first responders, and ordinary Americans met an act of extraordinary evil with courage and unity.
A bill to add September 11 to New York's required courses of instruction has been introduced in every legislative session since 2011. It has never passed.
What exists now, and what does not
What New York has
- A state-required moment of silence on September 11, and as of September 4, a mayoral one. Commemoration, not instruction.
- A Grade 11 social studies framework reference to 9/11, the War on Terror, Afghanistan, and the PATRIOT Act. Not a recurring K-12 curriculum, not minimum instructional time, not required lesson content, not teacher training, and not verification that students actually receive the instruction.
- Optional NYC lesson plans developed around 2011 and other vetted resources on WeTeachNYC. Available, not mandatory.
- Free K-12 lesson plans, field trips, and programming from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Available, not mandatory.
- New City Council funding for museum field trips and virtual programs. A start, not a citywide requirement.
What New York does not have
- No uniform, mandatory K-12 9/11 curriculum.
- No required factual core before supplemental "perspectives" are introduced.
- No guaranteed instruction for every student at multiple grade levels.
- No public inventory of every DOE-recommended 9/11 resource and the standards used to approve it.
- No formal, standing role for 9/11 families, survivors, and first responders in reviewing what children are taught.
- No annual public report on which schools taught 9/11, at what grade, for how long, and with what materials.
The Standard: what every New York City student must learn
We are not asking for "a 9/11 curriculum." One worksheet would satisfy that. We are asking for a required factual core, taught at age-appropriate stages, and completed before any supplemental or optional perspective is introduced. The core has seven elements.
- The facts. What happened at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard Flight 93, and the 2,977 people murdered.
- Who did it, and why. Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the Islamist extremist ideology that declared war on the United States, in the attackers' own words.
- The road to 9/11. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the rise of al-Qaeda, the national security failures that preceded the attack, and America's response at home and abroad.
- The distinction. Islam is a religion practiced peacefully by millions of Americans. Islamism is a political ideology that sanctions mass murder. Students learn the difference.
- The response. The victims and their families, the first responders, the rescue and recovery, the thousands who have since died of Ground Zero illnesses, the rebuilding, and the unity that followed.
- The aftermath, in proportion. Civil liberties debates, taught as consequences of the attack, not as substitutes for the identity, beliefs, and responsibility of the attackers.
- The threat today. How terrorists recruit, radicalize, and propagandize, the networks that support them, and why the ideology behind 9/11 still endangers New Yorkers.
Every element is built on primary sources and the testimony of families, survivors, and first responders. Teachers are trained before the requirement takes effect. All approved materials are public, with authors and funders disclosed. Every year, the Department reports which schools taught it, at what grade, for how long, and with what. And the curriculum is written by a formal stakeholder commission: 9/11 families, survivors, first responders, educators, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, counter-extremism experts, reformist Muslim voices, and #EndJewHatred.
The demand
We call on the Mayor and the Schools Chancellor to use the Chancellor's existing authority under Education Law § 2590-h(8), which authorizes citywide "curriculum requirements and frameworks, and mandatory educational objectives," to establish a uniform 9/11 curriculum requirement for New York City Public Schools without waiting for Albany. The Mayor and Chancellor do not need to wait for a new law. They need to decide that the deadliest attack in the city's history is required learning.
We welcome Speaker Menin's museum investment. We now ask City Hall, the Chancellor, the Panel for Educational Policy, and the City Council to finish the job: require an accurate, common factual foundation in every school.
Our asks, within 45 days
First, a written commitment from the Chancellor to promulgate the requirement under § 2590-h(8), built on the Standard above, and implement it in classrooms by September 11, 2027.
Second, publish every 9/11 resource the Department recommends or makes available to teachers, along with the criteria used to approve it, so parents can see what their children may be taught.
Third, a stakeholder commission to write the curriculum, with a public timeline.
Who can implement this
- The Chancellor can establish the requirement now.
- The Mayor can direct that it be done and set a deadline.
- The Panel for Educational Policy can endorse the standards, hold a dedicated public hearing, and require accountability. Next scheduled meeting: Wednesday, September 30, 2026, 6:00 PM, Michael J. Petrides School, 715 Ocean Terrace, Staten Island.
- The City Council can fund the program, hold oversight hearings, and press for implementation. A resolution supporting mandatory 9/11 instruction, Res. 0007-2026, has been pending in committee since January; it references a prior-session Albany bill and should be updated.
- Albany can create a durable statewide mandate. Assemblyman Matt Slater's Firefighter Joseph P. Spor Jr.'s Law would direct the Education Commissioner to establish September 11 instruction; it remains in the Assembly Education Committee. A statewide law would reach schools outside NYCPS. It is not a reason for the city to wait.
- Washington has already spoken. A bipartisan House resolution led by Representatives Andrew Garbarino and Josh Gottheimer calls on all 50 states to include the attacks in their curricula.
Other states already require 9/11 instruction by statute or statewide academic standards. Arizona's statute is a clear model: every public school serving grades 7 through 12 must provide age-appropriate 9/11 instruction in each grade. New York City, the city that suffered the greatest loss, should not ask less of itself than Arizona asks of its schools.
Why #EndJewHatred
In 1998, Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. The Jews came first in the name. They have come first in targeted attacks ever since. A city that does not teach its children who attacked it cannot expect them to recognize the same ideology when it marches through its streets. #EndJewHatred fights antisemitism because it is the leading edge of an extremism that ends with everyone. Teaching 9/11 accurately is part of that fight.
Sign the demand
Petition: Never Forget Means Teach It
To the Mayor of the City of New York, the Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, the Panel for Educational Policy, the Speaker of the City Council, the Chair of the Council Committee on Education, and Members of the City Council:
We, 9/11 families, survivors, first responders, educators, parents, and New Yorkers, call on you to establish a uniform, mandatory, age-appropriate 9/11 curriculum so that every New York City public school student learns what happened on September 11, 2001, why America was attacked, how New Yorkers responded, and why the extremist ideology behind the attacks remains relevant.
A moment of silence is not a history lesson, field trips for some students are not a citywide curriculum, and optional resources that emphasize aftermath over attack are not a factual foundation - they dishonor the memory of 9/11 and the fight for accountability and justice.
We ask you to commit, within 45 days, to convene a stakeholder commission and issue a Chancellor's directive establishing the requirement described on this page.
Send the letter
One click sends the companion email to the Chancellor, the Mayor, Speaker Menin, Council Member Dinowitz, the Panel for Educational Policy, and Members of the City Council. Subject line:
Never Forget Means Teach It: Establish a mandatory NYC 9/11 curriculum
Take action
- Testify on September 30. The Panel for Educational Policy meets at 6:00 PM at the Michael J. Petrides School, 715 Ocean Terrace, Staten Island. Speaker sign-up runs from 5:30 to 6:15 PM, at the door and online. We will help you prepare your two minutes.
- Tell us what you want New York's children to know. If you lost someone on 9/11, survived it, or answered the call, record sixty seconds. Send email
- Join us September 8. Unite Against Terror. 6:00 PM, Manhattan, near the NYC-DSA headquarters at the corner of Essex Street and Straus Square. RSVP at givebutter.com/usanotdsa.
What happens next
- September 8. The campaign, the Standard, and the letter to the Chancellor are announced. The first family, survivor, and first responder signatories are released.
- September 30. Families, first responders, and community members testify at the Panel for Educational Policy and demand a dedicated public hearing on 9/11 instruction.
- October 23. The Chancellor's 45 days run out.
- Throughout. An Education Committee oversight hearing is requested. Every DOE-recommended 9/11 resource is published and kept public.
New York knows the cost of extremism. We should know better.
Twenty-five years later, we still remember.
Never Forget Means Teach It.
Sources
- September 11th Remembrance Day law (S.4166A/A.1801B), signed Sept. 9, 2019: governor.ny.gov
- S2389 (2025-2026), sponsor memo and prior-session history back to 2011: nysenate.gov
- NYC Council, $1 million for the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Sept. 3, 2026: council.nyc.gov
- amNY on existing free Museum field trips for K-12 schools: amny.com
- Executive Order No. 21, Sept. 4, 2026: nyc.gov (PDF); Mayor's statement: nyc.gov
- New York Post, Sept. 5, 2026: nypost.com
- Penn GSE, "Teaching Beyond September 11th": gse.upenn.edu
- N.Y. Education Law § 2590-h, subdivisions 8 and 56: nysenate.gov
- Arizona Revised Statutes § 15-710.02: law.justia.com
- Garbarino-Gottheimer House resolution, Sept. 10, 2025: garbarino.house.gov
- NYC Council Res. 0007-2026: intro.nyc
- Firefighter Joseph P. Spor Jr.'s Law (Slater): theexaminernews.com
- Panel for Educational Policy, Sept. 30, 2026 meeting: schools.nyc.gov