Teachers have a lot to learn from Trump’s education secretary

Education Secretary Linda McMahon conscionable dropped a bombshell video that's got teachers' unions scrambling. In it, she lays retired the facts plain and simple: "Teachers, did you cognize you are not obligated to wage national dues nary substance what authorities you unrecorded in? In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that nationalist employees, including teachers, cannot beryllium required to articulation oregon wage a national arsenic a information of employment."

She's talking astir the landmark Janus v. AFSCME decision, wherever the Supreme Court affirmed that nationalist employees can't beryllium compelled to subsidize national code they disagree with. McMahon drives the constituent home: "If you take to stay, that’s your call. The constituent is: the prime is yours."

If nationalist schoolhouse teachers are bushed of their hard-earned wealth backing extremist agendas, it's clip for them to opt retired and instrumentality backmost power of their paychecks.

Teachers unions similar the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) aren't prioritizing educators oregon their students. They're bloated bureaucracies much funny successful authorities than pedagogy. Take the NEA – little than 10% of its much than $400 cardinal yearly fund really goes toward representing teachers successful the workplace.

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Secretary of Education Linda McMahon joined Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman during a property league astatine Massapequa High School, successful Massapequa Park, N.Y., connected May 30, 2025. (Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

The remainder is funneled into lobbying, enforcement perks and ideological crusades that person thing to bash with improving classrooms. In the past predetermination cycle, 99.9% of the AFT's governmental contributions – nether the enactment of President Randi Weingarten – went consecutive to Democrats. That reeks of wealth laundering for Democrats, siphoned close retired of teachers' paychecks.

These unions are partisan, and they're besides pushing utmost propaganda into schools. Teachers' unions person been blasting retired anti-ICE materials, urging educators to rally against migration enforcement and crook classrooms into partisan battlegrounds. The NEA and its affiliates are encouraging teachers to station immigration-related governmental posters and be anti-ICE trainings, each portion schools should beryllium focused connected reading, penning and arithmetic – not indoctrinating kids with far-left activism.

Look astatine the NEA's yearly normal successful Portland, Ore. Their resolutions work much similar a declaration of warfare connected the Trump medication than an acquisition argumentation meeting. They labeled Trump a "fascist," railed against his acquisition policies and vowed to combat each measurement toward accountability and choice.

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Meanwhile, NEA President Becky Pringle, who is an at-large subordinate of the Democratic National Committee, and AFT's Weingarten, who announced a concern betwixt her national and the World Economic Forum to make curriculum, are raking successful astir fractional a cardinal dollars each year, extracted from the dues of hardworking teachers who marque a fraction of that. That's a racket.

Most teachers don't adjacent align with this radicalism. According to an Education Week survey, a bulk place arsenic either Republican oregon independent, outnumbering Democrats. Teachers should not support backing their governmental opponents. It's clip for them to halt bankrolling the precise radical moving against their values and commencement keeping much of their salaries for themselves and their families.

The bully quality is that teachers don't person to spell it unsocial erstwhile they permission the union. Alternatives similar the Teacher Freedom Alliance (TFA) connection escaped rank and idiosyncratic liability security for educators who opt out. TFA's sum is superior – $2 cardinal per occurrence, doubly the union's emblematic $1 cardinal limit, and it's successful the teacher's name, not the union's. That means teachers are protected individually, without the national deciding whether to support them based connected its agenda.

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Unions assertion to support teachers, but they truly shield the worst performers portion penalizing the best. Uniform wage schedules and blocks connected merit wage mean large teachers are dragged down by dormant weight. Without the union's monopoly, apical educators could negociate their ain salaries based connected performance, escaped from debased performers holding everyone back. The strategy rewards seniority implicit excellence, and it's clip to halt shortchanging large educators.

Choice is key. But much and much teachers are choosing freedom. Just this month, Washington authorities teachers went viral for speaking retired against their union's overreach. Fifth-grade teacher Travis Reep accused the Washington Education Association of bullying and silencing educators who enactment parental rights, saying national leaders are driven by "activists" with an agenda. He added, "I’m not the lone teacher that knows that parents emotion their kids acold much than I ever could."

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Look astatine the NEA's yearly normal successful Portland, Ore. Their resolutions work much similar a declaration of warfare connected the Trump medication than an acquisition argumentation meeting. 

Matt Bell, who near aft 29 years, revealed however teachers are banned from informing parents astir their child's sex modulation oregon pronoun changes: "I'm forced to support secrets from the parents." Bell explained his determination to leave: "When I saw my national trying to spell against protecting pistillate athletes and spell against parental rights, I said, 'I'm done.'" These brave voices amusement the tide is turning.

And that’s not all. In Florida, 2 national bosses – Teresa Brady and Ruby George – were conscionable sentenced to situation for stealing millions from hardworking educators. Brady got 27 months, George 12 months, aft embezzling much than $2.4 cardinal done fraudulent permission schemes.

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In Chicago, the Liberty Justice Center locked arms with national members to writer the Chicago Teachers Union for failing to nutrient required fiscal audits for 5 years successful a row. Congress is present investigating, and it turns retired the CTU failed astatine slightest 2 of those audits, with superior flaws successful their fiscal statements.

When teachers exit en masse, it forces national bosses to refocus connected acquisition alternatively of activism. Teachers person the powerfulness to starve the beast by keeping their hard-earned paychecks erstwhile unions overstep. Opting retired means redeeming wealth and reclaiming the assemblage from governmental hacks.

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