The teachers union spent $1.7 million funding student walkouts – and now we know exactly how they trained the kids.
Defending Education pulled a 36-page manual out of a webinar nobody told parents about.
One section of it has no business in a document written for children.
The School Walkout Manual They Hoped You'd Never See
National Education Association President Becky Pringle spent January recording video endorsements for Sunrise Movement street protests and joining their mass organizing calls — while her union's money was funding something more specific.
The Sunrise Movement is a far-left activist group that calls for a "political revolution" to "structurally change the foundations of this country."
A 36-page document called "Direct Action Training: School Walkouts" was distributed through activist training webinars connected to the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools — a coalition that includes the NEA, the Journey for Justice Alliance, and the Center for Popular Democracy.
It is a tactical operations manual — and Defending Education obtained it.
The guide tells students how to organize protests designed to "interrupt business as usual." It covers recruitment, media strategy, and how to pressure administrators through coordinated disruption.
One section describes a tactic called "class takeover" – walking into a classroom mid-lesson and seizing it for a student-led political training session.
Another section tells students to use a VPN to hide their activity online because "a VPN can make tracking harder."
That section has no business in a document written for children.
Students are also told to refuse questioning from school officials without a parent or lawyer present.
"When large numbers of students leave together," the manual explains, "school leaders are forced to respond."
A siege strategy written for teenagers — funded with the union dues of teachers.
NEA Funding Fueled 334 Anti-ICE School Walkouts in 2026 Alone
Defending Education's K-12 Walkout and Protest Tracker tells the story in four numbers.
There were 21 student protests in all of 2022. Ten in 2023. Thirteen in 2024.
In 2026 alone — five months in — there have been 334.
Walkouts have hit 236 school districts across 48 states and Washington D.C. At least 306 of this year's protests were organized against ICE — against the federal agents enforcing immigration law under a president voters just re-elected.
Defending Education Research Director Rhyen Staley described what is driving this: adults "coming in from the outside and working with minors to train them up to go on the street and agitate."
Children as young as kindergarten age participated in some of these walkouts.
The Soros and Ford Foundation Money Behind the Indoctrination
The manual was produced by the Alliance for Educational Justice, bankrolled through networks connected to the Ford Foundation, George Soros's Open Society Foundations, and the Tides Foundation.
The NEA — through $1.7 million funneled to the Midwest Academy since 2015 — helped finance the "Four Weeks of Power" training series running alongside these materials.
That series called for "ICE Out," pushed "Workers Over Billionaires" as its core message, and treated school walkouts as one tactic inside a broader national political campaign.
Pringle was not a passive bystander. She recorded video endorsements for Sunrise street operations and joined their mass organizing calls. The Sunrise Movement's own executive director — a former member of Students for Justice in Palestine — introduced her on one of those calls by saying there was "no way we're going to be able to stop fascism without organized labor."
Pringle stayed on the call.
"Is it any wonder that we see activist teachers in the classroom when this is what is happening at the top?" Mika Hackner of the North American Values Institute asked Fox News Digital after the recording became public.
This Is What the Dues Buy
The NEA has 3 million members. Most of them are teachers who get up every morning to do their jobs.
Their union president recorded thank-you videos for a group running street protests and joined calls titled "Roadmap to Political Revolution."
Union dues paid for a manual that tells students to evade school oversight and refuse to answer administrators' questions.
And the document those coalition partners wrote makes the agenda explicit: adults are held back by jobs and arrest records. Students are not. That makes students useful in ways adults are not — and these groups know it.
Paul Runko of Defending Education said students are "increasingly being recruited as foot soldiers in the culture war."
The generals are not in Washington. They are recording videos for Sunrise, writing 36-page manuals for teenagers, and billing it all to a teachers union that was supposed to be about education.
Sources:
- Drew Berkemeyer, "Action Backpacks and VPNs: Are Left-Wing Groups Training Your Kid to Be a Political Activist?" The Daily Wire, May 27, 2026.
- Joshua Q. Nelson, "NEA President Speaks at Sunrise Movement 'Political Revolution' Event," Fox News, January 28, 2026.
- "NEA President Becky Pringle Joins Sunrise Movement's Roadmap to Political Revolution Event Series," Defending Education, January 27, 2026.
- "A May Day 2026 Host Toolkit Includes Training Information for a Coordinated Day of Action," Defending Education, April 2, 2026.
- "K-12 Student Walkout and Protest Tracker," Defending Education, March 9, 2026.
- "Thousands of Students Ditch Class as Anti-ICE Protests Surge in 2026," Fox News, March 11, 2026.
- "America's Largest Teachers Union Prizes Activism Over Education," City Journal, March 30, 2026.
