CASEY RYAN: Teachers’ Unions Are A Stain On Education

In recent decades, political activists with an agenda have conquered America’s education system from K-12 schools to universities. They openly tout their goal to indoctrinate the nation’s youth to one day be voters for their causes. At the head of this sinister movement are the teachers’ unions.

Rather than simply support better working conditions or higher wages for educators, teachers’ unions now use their platforms to promote teaching children radical gender ideology, race-based lessons, and other invasive curricula that should alarm any parent. Potentially the worst of any teachers’ union is the National Education Association (NEA). The NEA is the largest teachers’ union with approximately 3 million members.

The NEA is blatantly partisan releasing statement after statement attacking President Donald Trump and his efforts to remove left-wing ideology from America’s education system. In just one statement published in March, the organization attacked the administration’s efforts to enforce federal immigration laws, defended promoting LGBTQ issues in schools, and encouraged teachers to resist Trump and his administration.

The NEA goes so far as to provide teachers with a list of LGBTQ resources that claim providing children with medical procedures to transition to another gender is “life-saving.” The union also promotes the Human Rights Campaign’s “Welcoming Schools” curriculum that integrates gender ideology into every aspect of school life for children.

Before Trump took office, the NEA hosted webinars for teachers on preparing for the next incoming administration. In one of these webinars, NEA President Becky Pringle openly stated that the union’s goal was to transform education “into something it was not designed to be, a racially and socially just and equitable system.” In other words, schools must embrace left-wing ideology.

Another bad actor representing educators is the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The CTU claims to represent nearly 30,000 educators in the Chicago area. In January, the Chicago union provided members with a “Sanctuary Toolkit” that encouraged teachers to resist law enforcement that enforced federal immigration laws and to lock down schools if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers appear.

The CTU is plagued with scandals outside of just promoting left-wing ideology in schools. In 2019, the union failed to participate in a study with the purpose of protecting students from sexual violence. A consultant hired by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) claimed that the organization did not answer calls or emails regarding participation in the study. This was while CPS received hundreds of sexual violence allegations from students.

In 2023, the CTU supported Brandon Johnson’s successful run for mayor of Chicago. Johnson spent years involved with the CTU as an organizer and “legislative coordinator” with the union reciprocating his support. The Chicago union provided Johnson’s campaign with $2.6 million. This is partially funded by the dues that educators pay as members. The average CPS employee pays over $1,400 per year on membership dues.

Unfortunately, the NEA and CTU are not the only examples of teachers’ unions acting maliciously. The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) is just as bad.

The MTA has consistently promoted antisemitism to members without regard to any educators in the state who may be negatively impacted. In 2024, Joe Herosy, who was then a member of the MTA’s board of directors, accused Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid.”

Around the same time, the organization hosted a webinar on the topic that “Zionism is oppressive.” The union also discussed in its 2024 annual meeting the idea to “divest all MTA staff pension funds and other investments from businesses that provide arms or other forms of military assistance to the state of Israel.”

The MTA is hosting an upcoming summer conference in July where left-wing activist Cornel West will be a keynote speaker. The union will be providing workshops for educators at this conference on the topic of “Considering Marxism” as well as promoting racial equity and gender ideology in classrooms.

Teachers’ unions no longer serve the purpose of benefiting teachers, and this has been the case for a while. These unions have now been taken over by left-wing activists who want to control what educators teach in the classroom and what students learn. There is no reason for teachers to remain members.

These unions survive, in part, on the dues that teachers pay them. While there are some teachers who are bad actors, most of them are not. A majority of teachers are honest people who genuinely want to provide the best education for their students.

In order to make America’s education system work once again for students, these teachers must step up and put their foot down. Stop paying the dues for these unions that do not care about you. This is the only way to end the union stranglehold on America’s schools.

Casey Ryan is a writer and investigative reporter at Defending Education.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.