We can't abolish America's largest teachers union. But Congress can do something else

Fox News

4 days ago

For decades, the National Education Association (NEA) – the country's largest teachers union – has amassed nearly unrivaled political power with which to pursue its own narrow self-interest and impose its radical social and economic agenda.
COVID-19 placed the NEA under the microscope as never before, offering the union an opportunity for some much-needed introspection. In 2021, the Wall Street Journal editorial board proclaimed what informed conservatives have long known and what, by that time, had become obvious to the public at large:
The NEA is "the ideological and institutional vanguard of progressive politics," a "powerful wing of the Democratic Party," and intent on "invading" public schools with "progressive politics."
But instead of abandoning its partisan special interests and returning to its early mission of "[promoting] the cause of education in the United States," the NEA emerged from the pandemic determined to double down on every one of its harmful, misguided beliefs and ideologies.
The NEA's annual Representative Assembly, held this month in Portland, generated headlines and mockery as copies of the controversial resolutions approved by the union's delegates were leaked to the public, including everything from attacking democratically elected President Donald Trump as a "fascist" to undermining the enforcement of our immigration laws and, in a brazen display of the union's antisemitism, cutting ties with the pro-Jewish Anti-Defamation League.
While the growing public outcry over their extremism led the NEA to stop making its convention resolutions publicly available, the dizzying array of woke material freely available on the union's website is even more shocking.
For instance, some of the "important" documents posted online for attendees at the NEA's Portland convention included: a "Pronoun Guide" claiming that people who do not habitually share their pronouns are "unsafe"; a byzantine "Land Acknowledgement Guide" directing readers to fight "colonization" by reminding attendees at any event of the "dispossession of Indigenous land and people"; and a form to submit complaints to the NEA's "Committee on Equity & Ethnic Harmony" should any conference attendee breach social justice protocols.
More concerning was the NEA's nine-page "report" for convention delegates highlighting the union's priorities and activities in the first half of the year. Among other things, the union boasted about: "taking the lead in filing lawsuits" against the Trump administration; fighting efforts to defund DEI in public schools; shuttering schools with strikes; fighting "authoritarianism" and engaging in "resistance" by supporting the "No Kings" rally and similar protests; backing "World Pride and LGBTQ+ Pride Month"; organizing "labor opposition" to immigration enforcement; and working to "flip" the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats in 2026.
Notably absent from the union's achievements? Improving student learning, promoting family values or using tax dollars efficiently.
If this is what happens when NEA completely controls an event and its programming, the union's tremendous influence over classrooms is a five-alarm fire not just for public education, but the future of our country.
Congressional action addressing the pernicious influence of the teachers unions is long overdue. That's why I (Mr. Fitzgerald) and Sen. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming have introduced the Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today (STUDENT) Act, which would overhaul the NEA's federal charter to make the union more accountable and less partisan.
The NEA received a federal charter by act of Congress in 1906, granting it special recognition shared by only 95 organizations, including such storied American institutions as the Boy Scouts, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the VFW – company which the NEA no longer deserves to keep.
Congressional Republicans have long proposed addressing the NEA's ideological extremism by repealing its federal charter. But as the Freedom Foundation explained in a 2023 report, the NEA incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia long before receiving its federal charter, meaning it would continue to exist and operate as it does now even if stripped of its special federal recognition.
The STUDENT Act takes a different approach, rewriting the union's charter rather than repealing it.
According to the Freedom Foundation's analysis, the NEA's charter lacks many of the safeguards and accountability mechanisms common in other federal charters intended to ensure the chartered organizations remain uncontroversial, patriotic and deserving of federal recognition.
Under the STUDENT Act, the NEA would have to abide by the same rules as other federally chartered entities, such as refraining from partisan political advocacy and abiding by corporate transparency requirements.
The legislation also addresses some of the worst NEA practices unique to its status as a labor union, requiring it to respect teachers' First Amendment right to refrain from union membership, prohibiting it from closing schools with damaging strikes, barring the union from advocating for the core concepts of critical race theory, and more.
Perhaps most importantly, the STUDENT Act would end direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies for the NEA and its affiliates around the country.
Conservatives recognize that the time for action is now, with more than 30 organizations around the country endorsing the STUDENT Act.
Republicans in Congress scored a huge win for education freedom with the recent passage of school choice tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But the next step in making public education great again should be taking on the NEA.