A top education watchdog recently discovered that powerful teachers’ unions across the country have been quietly funneling more than $1 billion into political causes over the past decade.
Now, experts are warning that the spending reflects a growing focus on activism rather than classroom priorities.
According to research from Defending Education, national teachers unions alone have directed roughly $669 million toward left-wing political groups, advocacy organizations, and campaigns since 2015.
Coupled with state and local unions, that figure balloons to more than $1 billion in total political spending, according to their findings.
The reports track spending from the two largest unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), as well as their state-level affiliates, using federal filings and campaign finance records.
Defending Education’s shocking report found the unions’ political spending stretches across a vast network of progressive organizations and political committees, including the State Engagement Fund, which received more than $60 million, and For Our Future Action Fund and its affiliates, which pulled in more than $40 million.
“These entities are a political machine,” Rhyen Staley, research director at Defending Education, told Fox News, who first broke the story.
“Show me your budget and I will show you what you value; and what the teachers unions value is political power and advancing a left wing, social justice agenda. Parents, families, and communities have little to no counter to the influence that teachers union dollars have on state and local campaigns. Gone are the days of unions just advocating for higher wages, better working conditions, and good health insurance; they are a political machine focused on fomenting a ‘political revolution,’” added Staley.
The findings also noted that teachers’ unions also directed tens of millions toward major Democratic-aligned political committees, including the Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC, finding more than $85 million went directly to Democratic Party entities at the federal, state and local levels, not including individual candidate contributions.
In addition to bankrolling far-left groups, the watchdog found the unions also funded a wide range of progressive causes, from climate initiatives to ballot campaigns opposing school choice, often routing money through nonprofit groups and political action committees.
Fox News reported that progressive groups in the report who took money from the nation’s most powerful teachers unions include: Color of Change + PAC, Indivisible, National Center for Transgender Equality, Planned Parenthood, Sixteen Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
Defending Education President Nicole Neily argued the findings challenge long-standing assumptions about how union dues are used.
“It’s time to dispense with the myth that unions care whatsoever about teachers’ best interests. Educators are victims of a bait-and-switch: instead of their dues going to advocate for increased pay or improved working environments, they’re being spent advancing a hard-left political agenda, underwriting causes such as climate change, gender activism, and abortion (as well as supporting progressive politicians at all levels),” Neily said.
“Given the outsized role that unions have played in the education system over the past fifty years, greater transparency on union spending is absolutely critical so that policymakers and teachers themselves can make informed decisions about the role that these entities should — or should not — play in the future.”
None of the unions listed in the report has issued statements on the findings at the time of publication.