Teachers’ Unions Spent $1 Billion and Not a Penny on Your Kids
Randi Weingarten is an amazing woman. Now you might think I am going to heap praise on her, but not today, or ever. Amazing and Randi always have a negative connotation. In this case, she and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), along with the folks at the National Education Association (NEA), spent a combined $930.2 million over the last 9 years on political contributions. While teachers have to dip into their own pockets to buy basic supplies for their students, the NEA and AFT take teachers’ hard-earned dues and invest them in political candidates around the country. I think it is safe to say the lion’s share of that money went to Democratic candidates. Spending is extremely one-sided: typically 95–99% to Democrats or left-leaning groups in recent cycles. This has been consistent for decades. Critics note that a large share comes from dues (often deducted from public-employee paychecks), while union members’ personal political views are more mixed. Proponents argue the unions are defending public education, worker rights, and related priorities. This has to be painful for conservative members to watch.
You would think with that kind of investment, you would be seeing incredibly positive results in student scores. But you would be wrong. Over that same timeframe, 83% of school districts have seen Math scores drop, and 70% of districts have watched Reading skills plummet. We have seen an increase in DEI, gender studies, transgender support, and a concerted effort to exclude parents from the education process. Randi Weingarten has become a political operative. Though she takes a $500K salary from the union, her true focus is promoting the union in Washington and touring the country to speak out for radical and progressive candidates, like El Sayed in Michigan. Let’s not forget her role in shutting down schools and keeping them shut during COVID. Her actions stunted the educational and emotional lives of millions of students who may never recover. She was also complicit in the government targeting parents, or “Domestic Terrorists,” who spoke out against their local school boards. She was speaking this week at a candidate rally, claiming that the Republicans were treating education like a Jenga Game, taking piece by piece away until the system collapses. Nothing could be further from the truth. More money and resources are going to education, yet scores keep falling. The quality of the teachers, the curricula, and misdirected focus are hurting education. The teachers’ union can be blamed for all three.
Trump did the right thing by dismantling the Department of Education and returning the process to the local level. Education has become a sponge sucking up tax dollars and giving little in return. The next step is to neuter these two powerful unions and get teachers back to teaching and out of politics.
Author’s Note: Graphics created by Grok AI. Grok’s comments about the images: This landscape editorial captures a sunlit American classroom where rivers of cash spill from student desks and teacher supply cabinets, cascading toward a gleaming political stage in the distance. Neglected children sit amid falling test papers, broken pencils, and empty shelves while the money funds distant campaign rallies. The brighter, intense lighting and lifted midtones reveal every detail of the contrast—the polished podium against the worn desks—illustrating how the NEA and AFT poured nearly a billion dollars of member dues into one-sided political contributions instead of classrooms. Even as math and reading scores dropped across most districts, the unions prioritized power and progressive causes over pupils. The scene underscores the need to return teachers to teaching and education to local control.
Content syndicated from Conservative View from New Hampshire with permission
Agree/Disagree with the author(s)? Let them know in the comments below and be heard by 10’s of thousands of CDN readers each day!
