While teachers beg for donations to cover basic school supplies, the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions doled out over $43.5 million to Democratic PACS and liberal advocacy groups during the 2024 election cycle, according to a Defending Education report that referenced mostly union disclosures to the Department of Labor.
Teachers’ unions fund communist groups and propaganda
The watchdog group noted that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) funneled $43,524,123 to these political entities between mid-2022 and mid-2024.
No one should be shocked in the least that the massive amount of money paid to these groups went toward gun control measures, racial “equity,” and gender transitions for minors, as well as abortion access, according to the New York Post.
The media outlet pointed out that “Union dues can’t be forwarded to political campaigns, though voluntary contributions can be made toward action funds that are supported by members.”
The NEA, which was caught up in the parent censoring scandal under the Biden administration, pushes political activism as long as it isn’t “outrageous and offensive.” However, union bosses make that call, and they seem to have a very lax definition of exactly what that is.
Politics over kids
Vice President and Legal Fellow at Defending Education, Sarah Parshall Perry, asserts that the report “sheds much-needed light on exactly what the NEA and the AFT prioritize — and it isn’t America’s schoolkids.”
“Teachers unions don’t educate kids,” Perry contended in her statement. “They seemingly exist for no other reason than to spend money, complain about parental involvement in their children’s education, and advance left-wing causes wholly unrelated to improving educational outcomes in American schools.”
“It is clear that the teachers’ unions’ priorities are advancing far-left politics and radical social justice issues, not the education of children,” Defending Ed researcher Rhyen Staley told Fox News. “This is a slap in the face to families and teachers who want to focus on helping students improve their reading and math skills. It is time that Congress acts to stop this obscene redistribution of public monies to advance left-wing identity politics.”
Funneling money to Marxists
From the New York Post:
The contributions included $9.3 million from both AFT and NEA to the left-wing For Our Future Action Fund PAC, which operated primarily in 2024 battleground states.
Another $1.6 million was also funneled from AFT to the Democrat-supporting House Majority PAC, $1.25 million to the similar Senate Majority PAC, and $250,000 to Future Forward, the primary super PAC backing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ White House campaign last year.
[…]Another $500,000 went to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a nonprofit managed by the dark money network Arabella Advisors and sometimes portrayed as the left’s answer to the right-of-center Koch network.
President Trump on Wednesday called for liberal billionaire George Soros and his son Alex to face racketeering charges for their affiliation with dark money organizations — including Sixteen Thirty — that contributed more than $20 million to groups funding protests against this month’s DC crime crackdown.
That also included the Soros-tied Tides Foundation and the New Venture Fund. They gave large amounts to the Democratic Governors Association, as well as the Democrats’ House Majority PAC and Senate Majority PAC. The unions also donated to the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, which is also connected to Soros.
Additionally, the NEA gave $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a transgender youth organization that has been accused of pushing their pre-teen children toward gender transitions.
Teachers’ union heads are deeply mired in leftist politics
AFT President Randi Weingarten was blasted for banging the drum to keep schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was also a huge supporter of Biden, but has now left the Democratic Party, which probably just wasn’t leftist enough for her tastes.
Both unions advised the Biden administration and health officials to keep schools closed in the Spring of 2021, according to emails and records that were obtained by watchdog groups and congressional investigations in 2023.
Weingarten was also nailed by scientific authors for misrepresenting studies that showed it was perfectly safe for children to return to school when testifying about COVID to Congress. It wasn’t until early 2022 that Biden gave his blessing for 95% of public schools to fully reopen.
“It’s long been the case that teachers’ unions have been hyper-political and given 99% of their donations to Democrats,” Erika Sanzi, Defending Education’s Director of Outreach, claimed. “What this report reveals is that they are also giving massive amounts of money to far-left organizations and causes that fight against academic excellence and inject harmful ideology into everything they touch. Students and school staff deserve to be shielded from these entities.”
Appeasing the radical base
A whopping 38% of the NEA’s budget is going toward political advocacy, Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe told Fox News.
“You’d think in light of the decline in union membership in recent years, that they’d start providing value to members that outweighs the cost of membership,” Withe remarked. “Instead, they are appeasing the radical base of union members by advocating for men in women’s sports, transitioning minors, antisemitism, and other radical ideological stances.”
He went on to comment that the findings were the “tip of the iceberg,” considering that “there are thousands of statewide and city and county teachers unions that are mostly funding the same causes.”
AFT shoveled over $2.6 million to Democratic candidates in 2020, according to OpenSecrets. The NEA gave over $2.4 million to Democrats during that same year.
The unions have been experiencing a severe decline in membership over this political nonsense, and the fact that the Supreme Court struck down mandatory union dues to fund their leftist agenda. Union members don’t want their dues used this way.
The unions just don’t know when to quit digging their Marxist hole. They are being exposed for their leftist affiliations that are anti-American and certainly don’t have our children’s best interests in mind.
