Largest Teachers Union Spent Far More On Dem Politics And Leftist Activism Than On Members

Joe Biden recently quoted his father saying,

“My dad had an expression. He said, ‘Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value.'”

Yesterday, President Biden announced his fiscal year 2023 Budget. pic.twitter.com/cS9t9rFW0G

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 29, 2022

Well, have you ever wondered what teachers unions value? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not kids, and it’s not education. It’s not even the teachers that are their own members. And if Joe Biden’s dad was right, their budget shows us exactly what the really value–politics and political power.

An analysis of document filings by the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country, showed that their politics-related spending more than doubled their spending on member needs. You know, the actual teachers of the teachers union.

According to the Washington Examiner,

“The data reviewed by Americans for Fair Treatment, which was provided exclusively to the Washington Examiner, showed that the political activities donations totaled 18% of the union’s $374 million budget for 2020-2021. The “contributions, gifts, and grants” totaled 32% of expenditures. Meanwhile, only 9% of the NEA’s budget was spent on direct assistance to its members, who pay an annual fee of $200 to maintain their membership in the union.”

The exact numbers were 17.6% on political activities and lobbying, 15.1% on employee benefits, and 8.6% on membership representation and assistance. That’s right, their political spending also exceeded their employee benefits spending by several percent.

The Americans for Fair Treatment explained to the Washington Examiner,

“The National Education Association’s political and charitable spending in 2020-2021 makes the NEA look more like a political organization than a membership organization. The union spent $2 on politics for every $1 it spent on representing its members.”

Some of the NEA’s 2020-2021 political spending included:

• $15.7 million to their own political action committee, the NEA Advocacy Fund.
• $6.7 million to the State Engagement Fund, used to funnel donations to Democrat political candidates and leftist activist groups.
• $1.85 million to the Strategic Victory Fund, which likewise funnels donations to Democrat political candidates and leftist activist groups.
• $1 million to the Future Forward USA Action, which is a political action committee that backed Democrat candidate Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
• $125,000 to Project 2043 for their work to help “companies and nonprofit organizations achieve their Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility goals.”

Of course, such donations weren’t officially listed as political spending, but rather classified as “contributions, gifts, and grants.” That’s a really great little loophole they can exploit to make it look like they aren’t overtly political entities who have no business being involved in education.

Open Secrets, an organization dedicated to “following the money in politics,” reviewed their 2022 election cycle contributions and found that 99.45% of them have been to Democrats. While we’re only in April, this number is up from the 2020 election cycle total, where only 95.71% of donations went to Democrats.

For an organization that claims in their social media bios that they are “advocating for our students and our professions,” seems a little more like they’re just another left-wing political lobbying organization with money and power as their main priorities.