One “benefit” of the Covid-19 lockdowns was the public’s exposure to what is, or isn’t, going on in our schools. In just a few short years, the public has seen the outsize and pernicious influence of public-sector unions — nowhere more dramatically than in our schools.
The damage is nearly incalculable, and the money unions have to spend on such injury is enormous.
Unions take dollars in “dues money” from hard-working teachers and use it to finance a slew of politically driven efforts that have nothing to do with educating the nation’s children — many that actually harm them. Hard-left activist “teachers” are empowered to indoctrinate children in communist-style propaganda, while good teachers presenting a solid education are subverted.
And it shows: Large numbers of America’s children now loathe American values, and test results for reading and math reveal about half the nation’s kids fail to perform at grade level.
Worse, the unions are doubling down.
The National Education Association’s (NEA’s) annual financial report for fiscal year 2022-2023 reveals their troubling agenda. Tens of millions of dollars were apportioned back to each state’s union halls and to the political agendas of those who deplore American values. Additional millions were used to waylay successful charter schools and the desperate families flocking to them to escape dangerous, politicized, and failing government schools.
Millions more dollars financed efforts to sexualize children, provide abortions, and impose transgender ideology onto our children with boys in girls’ sports and locker rooms — all without the knowledge or permission of parents. The unions subsidize suffocating taxes, open borders, and socialized health care too.
That a known left-wing organization would spend millions on leftist causes is not surprising, but NEA claims to be a union, labeling itself “the largest democratic deliberative body in the world,” and it takes money from many members who flatly oppose the union’s political spending.
Mishandling teacher dues is not democratic, nor should it be legal. NEA’s deceitful claim to be ostensibly committed to “educating” all children and democratically representing teachers is a lie. Their spending speaks louder than their empty words.
Following the Money
Let’s take a look at some of the supposedly “progressive” and “just” organizations receiving big dollars from NEA.
Moveon.org Civic Action, a longtime campaigner against so-called MAGA Republicans and former President Donald Trump, received $110,000. It says, among other things, that it stands with Black Lives Matter. Since BLM stated, “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” shouldn’t all teachers be shielding kids from BLM?
The National Action Network House of Justice backs criminal justice reform, voting rights, and fair housing. For that, the network received $100,000. Taking principled positions on those issues sounds great until you realize that the party championing these issues is made up of Marxist socialists hell-bent on destroying our liberties.
That party uses the criminal justice system to persecute its political foes, changes voting rules for its benefit, and pushes for “fair housing” because it means a huge payoff for union partners who rake in the cash building those $800,000 units to house the homeless.
Another NEA beneficiary, the Progressive State Leaders Committee, which promotes leftist public policies closely tied to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, received $225,000.
Maybe your child will get a meaningful rendition of the Democratic Attorneys General Association’s top priorities in civics class. If schools bother with civics classes anymore, that is.
Pushing Transgenderism
What your child will get is a steady dose of woke-style racism, class warfare, sexual grooming for the youngest children, efforts to persuade children they were born in the “wrong body,” and unisex restrooms where lascivious young males can victimize unwilling females with no compunction or, sadly, accountability.
Maybe one of the taller boys can declare himself a girl and play center for your daughter’s basketball team, and your daughter can watch games from the bench.
This isn’t hyperbole. The evidence of this communist-style seizure of our kids is overwhelming, and NEA is funding the nightmare. NEA gave The Trevor Project $100,000. The group claims to offer online resources to help LGBT children, but the truth is that through this resource, little children are led directly to strangers online. Sam Brinton, the former Biden administration employee who stole women’s luggage to access women’s clothing, is the poster child for The Trevor Project.
In California, Shirley Nash Weber, one of the most powerful union-funded politicians in the legislature, was appointed secretary of state, her reward for spearheading passage of the absurdly titled Healthy Youth Act that brought sexualization of little children into kindergarten.
Oh sure, everyone has heard about the huge pensions of public-sector employees and salaries far more than what similar jobs earn in the private sector. A lot of lawmakers in most states have worked very hard for these union perks and have netted electoral help from unions in exchange.
But have we considered the enormous cost to children?
Teachers Must Refuse Dues
Teachers who are tired of funding union principles they find abhorrent can withhold dues money and pay unions nothing. True, teachers will be demonized and stigmatized for rejecting unions, but they’ll be making a moral decision and will no longer be complicit in the devastation of our kids and country.
We hope virtuous teachers will join the thousands of teachers who have already been empowered to reject union subjugation. Teachers can be freed, they merely need to muster up the courage to take a stand.
