For all the talk about “supporting public education,” teachers’ unions have made one thing painfully clear: they’re in this for themselves. Whether it’s the NEA, AFT, or their state-level affiliates, union bosses consistently put their power, money, and political influence above the needs of students or even rank-and-file teachers.
While parents scrambled to navigate lockdowns, learning loss, and cratering test scores, union leaders were focused on negotiating remote work perks, promoting activist agendas, and fighting any effort to hold them accountable.
Students get left behind
Academic performance has been in free fall, but you won’t hear a word about that from union spokespeople. Instead, they’re laser-focused on pronoun policies, bathroom access, and embedding DEI ideology in every corner of the curriculum.
Math scores are the lowest in decades. Reading proficiency is collapsing. But rather than course-correct, unions double down — labeling parents as extremists and portraying curriculum transparency as a threat. The message is simple: your input is not welcome, and their priorities are non-negotiable.
COVID exposed everything
If there was ever a moment that revealed what unions really care about, it was the COVID school closures. They weren’t advocating for kids — they were leveraging the chaos to demand more money and less accountability.
Union leaders resisted reopening long after the science said it was safe. They pushed for school board veto power, equity czars, and sweeping political concessions in return for doing the bare minimum. It wasn’t about protecting health — it was about flexing muscle and reminding everyone who runs the system.
Teachers are pawns in the game
Rank-and-file teachers aren’t the ones calling the shots. Most just want to do their jobs and support their students. But they’re trapped in a system that automatically deducts dues from their paychecks and uses that money to back political causes they may not agree with.
Legislation like Idaho’s HB98 and Oklahoma’s SB62 aim to fix that by ending taxpayer-enabled union dues collection. If unions are so valuable, let them earn it the old-fashioned way — by convincing teachers to voluntarily support them. That’s the free market. And the unions are terrified of it.
Follow the money
Why are unions fighting so hard to maintain forced dues collection? Because it bankrolls everything. Over 90% of the NEA’s political contributions go to Democrats. That’s not representing teachers — that’s funding an agenda.
They’re not neutral. They’re not nonpartisan. They are the political engine behind the left’s control of public education. Every dollar withheld from their machine is a blow to their influence. And they know it.
It’s time to pull the plug
Unions have had a free ride for too long — collecting dues off the backs of taxpayers while working against the very values most Americans hold. Enough. It’s time to get serious about cutting them off.
Let the unions pay their own bills. Let teachers decide for themselves. And most of all, let classrooms be places of learning, not political battlegrounds.
