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The latest federal labor filings pulled back the curtain on what many parents and taxpayers have long suspected: the National Education Association is diverting huge sums of member dues into national and international political causes rather than classroom priorities. The NEA’s November Form L-2 for the 2024 fiscal year shows millions routed to outside organizations, including a single payment of more than $3.5 million to Education International — a group where NEA President Becky Pringle holds a leadership role.
Those filings don’t stop there: the union reported six-figure and seven-figure disbursements to entities like the Sixteen Thirty Fund and to members of the Tides network, and it pumped sizable sums into state ballot fights that reshape education and election rules. The NEA even funneled money to campaigns aimed at eliminating standardized testing and backing so-called anti-gerrymandering initiatives in states like Massachusetts and Ohio, placing political activism ahead of representing classroom teachers.
This is not a small outfit with a modest war chest; the NEA represents millions of educators and manages hundreds of millions of dollars in budget and endowment resources while many rank-and-file teachers see little direct benefit from these political splurges. Critics have pointed out that union leaders enjoy six-figure pay and lavish organizational spending while member dues bankroll partisan campaigns and overseas federations. That kind of inside-the-beltway spending model is exactly why parents and local taxpayers are fed up.
The relationship between the NEA leadership and Education International raises a glaring conflict-of-interest question: how comfortable should Americans be with millions of union dues funneled to an international federation where the NEA president serves in an executive role? The optics — a domestic teachers’ union sending multi-million-dollar checks overseas while its president holds a vice-presidential post at that international body — are rotten and demand a full accounting from union bosses.
This is about more than bookkeeping; it’s about ideology and power. For years education unions have pushed a one-sided cultural and political agenda under the guise of “social justice unionism,” using member money to advance candidates, ballot measures, and global campaigns that reshape curricula and school governance without consent from parents. Hardworking Americans who pay taxes and teachers who simply want to teach deserve unions that prioritize classrooms over caucuses.
Lawmakers, parents, and concerned union members should insist on transparency, audits, and clear limits on how dues are spent. If the NEA wants to be a political machine, it should do so with voluntary donations and full disclosure — not by quietly extracting cash from overworked educators and redirecting it into far-left campaigns and international federations. The crossroads could not be clearer: protect our kids and local schools, or let national union bosses keep using dues to export radical politics.
