American kids just posted the worst reading scores in a generation.
Meanwhile, the unions running those classrooms had other plans for your money.
A new watchdog report just revealed exactly where those millions actually went.
NEA Spent More Dues Money on Politics Than on Representing Its Own Members
According to a new report from the North American Values Institute, the National Education Association spent at least $547 million on political activities and advocacy between 2016 and 2025.
That includes $458.9 million officially reported as political activity and lobbying – and another $88.2 million directed to left-wing advocacy groups.
The NEA spent more dues money on political operations than on actually representing its members – and in 2021, it wasn't close.
Nearly 400,000 members left the NEA since its peak in 2009, and the union responded by raising dues on those who remain.
The NEA also built a shadow money network designed to make the trail impossible to follow, routing $80.2 million through three political intermediaries – the State Engagement Fund, Strategic Victory Fund, and State Victory Fund LLC – so that dues-paying teachers have no way to track where their money goes.
The American Federation of Teachers wasn't any better.
The AFT reported $383.2 million in political activity and lobbying over the same decade – and directed $123.35 million to outside political organizations, including $45.7 million to four national partisan political committees and millions more to flip state supreme court races in Wisconsin.
AFT president Randi Weingarten personally collects more than $500,000 a year from that operation.
Together, America's two largest teachers unions spent more than $930 million turning schools into Democrat political operations.
NEA Sent $30 Million to a Global Federation That Includes a PLO-Linked Teachers Union
Teachers paid union dues to the NEA – and the NEA sent $30.1 million to Education International, a global teachers federation whose members include the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, an arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Defending Education President Nicole Neily had a name for it.
"Educators are victims of a bait-and-switch," Neily said. "Instead of their dues going to advocate for increased pay or improved working environments, they're being spent advancing a hard-left political agenda."
Now that money flows to organizations with direct ties to Palestinian terrorism.
A Senate committee investigation found a "distinct and serious concern" about how the NEA treats its Jewish members.
Ryan Walters, CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, was direct: "It's very clear that teachers unions seek to destroy our country by turning our students against it."
Meanwhile, state and local affiliates spent more than $135.8 million specifically fighting school choice – the one reform that would actually let parents escape failing union-controlled schools.
That's the design, not the bug.
In blue states like California, teachers are forced to pay dues – deducted directly from taxpayer-funded paychecks – to unions they never chose, funding causes they never endorsed.
The 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision overturned forced union dues for government workers but blue states have spent every day since undermining the ruling.
California teacher Todd Loeffler spent 25 years watching $1,200 of his annual salary flow into an organization that called itself a teachers union but spent its money like a left-wing super PAC.
"Knowing that our union dues were primarily going to Democratic candidates, it was very difficult," Loeffler said.
In a single recent filing year, the NEA directed $29.2 million to liberal organizations and $51,922 to Republicans – about 1.5 percent of its total political donations to candidates.
Trump's school choice push is the one thing that actually breaks this machine – when parents can move their kids, unions lose their captive membership base and the dues that fund their political operations.
The children were never the point – this has always been about money, power, and keeping the left's most reliable fundraising machine running on the backs of teachers who never got a vote.
Sources:
- North American Values Institute, "Teachers Union Political Spending Report," NAVI, October 2026.
- Joshua Klein, "Report: Top Teachers' Unions Dumped $900M into Political Activism," Breitbart, October 28, 2026.
- "Watchdog Report Exposes Teachers Union Political Machine Funneling $1 Billion to Liberal Causes," Fox News Digital, 2026.
- "Union Watchdog Claims Prominent Teachers Unions Spent Millions on Politics Instead of Representing Members," Washington Examiner, 2026.
- Daniel Lippman, "Teachers Unions for Palestine," City Journal, 2024.
- Sharon Ceresnie Sorkin, "While Teachers Unions Push Politics, Reading Scores Hit Historic Lows," Washington Examiner, 2026.
- "National Education Association Sees Teacher Exodus as Political Spending Balloons," Illinois Policy Institute, December 2024.
- "'Serious Concern' About Jew-Hatred in Largest US Labor Union, Senate Panel Finds," Jewish News Syndicate, 2026.
