I’ve been a teacher for 38 years. I still remember when I was taking my education classes early in my career, and my conservative uncle, who was a school superintendent in the Chicago suburbs, gave me a bit of advice that stuck with me. He said, “Do not join a teacher’s union.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant. I guess I was too young and idealistic. But now, decades later, I understand exactly what he was trying to warn me about.
Over the years, I’ve gone back and forth on union membership. Sometimes I joined the NEA (National Education Association), sometimes I didn’t. If there was no pressure, I stayed out. If everyone else around me was joining, I’d go along with it. For the past 15 years or so, I’ve been a member off and on. But this year, as I prepare to move to a new school in a larger city where nobody knows me, I’ve made a clear decision: I will not be joining the teachers’ union again—especially after what I’ve seen recently.
In the past few weeks, I’ve read several articles that left me stunned. One headline from the Washington Free Beacon hit me like a ton of bricks: “Largest Teachers’ Union in the United States Erases Jews From the Holocaust.” According to the article, the NEA described Holocaust victims as “12 million people from various faiths”—never once mentioning the systematic extermination of the Jewish people. That omission is not just disappointing—it’s disgraceful.
It’s become increasingly clear to me that the NEA is no longer focused on students, academics, or educational excellence. Their priority now seems to be pushing political and ideological narratives. I’ve read how they’ve voiced support for groups aligned with Hamas and use language that downplays the suffering of Jewish people while glorifying the Palestinian “Nakba” and vilifying the state of Israel. According to their 2025 handbook, they want to “educate” the public about the Nakba, which literally means “catastrophe,” framing the founding of Israel in 1948 as a disaster rather than a historic triumph for the Jewish people and a vital democratic ally of the United States.
This is not why I became a teacher.
I’ve also seen videos from PragerU, like the story of a gym teacher who was fired because she wouldn’t allow a biological male to enter the girls’ locker room. She was then investigated simply for expressing Christian beliefs in her personal life. They actually questioned whether her faith could be “accommodated.” This isn’t just anti-education. It’s anti-freedom.
I am deeply disappointed, not just in the NEA, but in how so many educators have fallen in line with an agenda that is increasingly radical, anti-patriotic, and anti-Israel. The NEA has strayed far from its mission. It is now a political machine, not a professional organization serving teachers and students.
As someone who has dedicated nearly four decades to education, I feel disillusioned. I love my country. I support Israel. I believe in the importance of free speech, faith, and honest history. But I can no longer support an organization that undermines these values.
So goodbye, NEA. I’m walking away—with a clear conscience and my eyes wide open.
in my experience unions USED to be good. over the years they have been morphed into left leaning corrupt money pits..
in 2013 I heard a guy belonging to a trade union bragging about how “the union takes great care of us, I get hurt the union will pay ALL my debt off”
then he got hurt… his brand new truck got sold his bike got sold he just about lost his house…
didn’t he grumble when I said “gee the union took great care of you huh”
last I knew hes on some sort of disability…
an electrical worker union reps would pressure me to join and were very nasty to me when I refused. they all had the BUCK FUSH bumper stickers on thier vehicle…
ole Maha Rushie used to say unions were money laundering for democrats…
I would like to laugh but can only groan whenever I hear a teachers’ union boss speak of being there for the students. That isn’t true and I don’t think ever was.
Unions supposedly serve one constituency, the members. In practice, all too often the only constituency they serve are the union bosses. But even if they do serve the members, they most definitely do not serve anyone else. So, for example, a teachers’ union may work for the benefit of teachers, but the good of the students is entirely immaterial to its goals or its purpose for existing.
It is an as yet undead myth that labor unions were good. Few, very few in the workforce today, or those who had retired within, say the last ten years, have first hand knowledge of unions being ‘good’.
Fifty years ago I was forced to join the Teamsters. I specifically recall my anger over that.
Before that, while working through college, I was forced to join the Retail Clerks union. Less distasteful, but I surmise it was due to my own naivety.
Incidentally, my maternal grandfather, a carpenter, had his work van blown up. Several weeks prior, he had taken a baseball bat across the knees. All because he refused to join the union.
A staunch Democrat, he had been so sickened by how the unions operated in Seattle, that he turned state witness.
I have more tales about labor unions, but I think the reader has enough to know my position on unions.
Finally, maybe that myth is finally dying.
By their own hand. Finally, they have overplayed their hand. It’s not the first time, but with staying power now.
As someone whose workplace is “represented” by SEIU, I hear you.
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I recognize that unions were necessary at some point, but labor laws have largely kept wages, benefits, and working conditions “good enough” that 95% of unions’ original purpose is irrelevant.
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I’ve never joined “my” union. I’ve worked there long enough that I was required to pay dues even as a non-member, but then that Supreme Court decision came down, and within an hour of having the option I opted out. There have been several times — usually during bargaining seasons — that I’ve been tempted to join, but invariably the union leadership does something to remind me why I’m not a member. Most recently it was passing a “Sanctuary Union” resolution, saying that the union stands with and will fight for the rights of all minorities, including non-citizen workers regardless of immigration status, and will fight to let employers hire without using E-verify.
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Ummm… no. You don’t get to place people who don’t have a right to live and work in the U.S. ahead of people who do. Especially when people who can’t work here can’t really join the union, so the resolution places non-members ahead of members.
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And the craziest part is, most actual union members are eating this up!
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But what really ticks me off is two-fold, both concerning the political endorsements. The reps and stewards say that endorsements come from a certain optional fund, called CAPE, that we don’t have to pay into, but I and those like me call B.S.; when a
politicianDemocrat accepts the endorsement, it doesn’t come from “SEIU-CAPE”, it comes from “SEIU”, so whether we’re paying into CAPE or not, the endorsement is issued on our behalf. That’s the first thing.–
The second thing is that when I and those like me say something about that, we’re told we need to join up, pay our dues, and then pay into CAPE in order to “have our voices heard”. As if the committee that issues endorsements won’t take our money — and the legitimacy that comes with it — and then vote behind closed doors approve those same candidates, this time with our buy-in.
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No, thanks. By which I mean, “No, with or without thanks.”
“It’s become increasingly clear to me that the NEA is no longer focused on students, academics, or educational excellence. Their priority now seems to be pushing political and ideological narratives.”
And when, exactly, was the NEA ever NOT putting their pedofag-commie political and ideological goals FAR above “academics” (as if that word even means anything, considering what it’s been used to justify).