The nation&#8217;s largest teachers union imposes racial quotas for its board and leadership, designating a portion of its roles for those who qualify as an “ethnic minority,” a report from Defending Education, exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire, reveals.
The National Education Association (NEA), which <a href="https://www.nea.org/">calls itself</a> “the nation&#8217;s largest professional employee organization,” stipulates in its constitution that various boards and committees are required to have a specific proportion of “ethnic minority” members, and that elections can be held for certain positions with the specific intent “to elect a member of an ethnic-minority group.” The NEA’s <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/teachers-unions-bylaws-bipoc-delegates-and-reps/">bylaws</a> spell out those who qualify as ethnic minorities, listing all racial categories other than whites.
“Ethnic minorities shall comprise at least twenty (20) percent of the Board,” the NEA constitution reads, adding that the “Representative Assembly shall elect additional directors as appropriate to assure such ethnic-minority representation.”
“There shall be a minimum of twenty percent ethnic minority representation on each committee,” the NEA constitution goes on to say. The organization’s constitution also stipulates that, if the NEA has had white presidents for eleven consecutive years, then “the Association shall take such steps as may be legally permissible to elect a member of an ethnic-minority group.”
While the NEA focuses on imposing its racial agenda, it has presided over a decline in educational outcomes, Defending Education Director of Outreach Erika Sanzi told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;The NEA has become a race-obsessed organization, and these racial quotas written into their constitutions and bylaws provide further evidence of how far they&#8217;ve fallen,” Sanzi charged. “It has become an ideological project for them, and it&#8217;s no surprise that educational outcomes continue to decline as the largest teachers union in the country become more and more extreme.”
This focus on DEI isn’t relegated to NEA itself, however. The organization’s affiliate groups across the country similarly maintain specific positions that can only be held by members of certain racial and ethnic groups.
The California Teachers Association, an affiliate of the NEA, limits certain elected representative positions within the organization to those who identify as “BIPOC,” an acronym that stands for “black, indigenous, people of color.” Those running for the organization’s at-large position “must be BIPOC,” the group’s <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/teachers-unions-bylaws-bipoc-delegates-and-reps/">election manual</a> states.
“NEA policy requires that each state include BIPOC delegates in numbers commensurate with the population of the state,” the manual adds.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, another NEA affiliate, similarly disqualifies white people from holding certain elected positions on account of their race. The organization’s board of directors <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/teachers-unions-bylaws-bipoc-delegates-and-reps/">reserves a spot</a> for an “At-Large Director for Ethnic Minority Membership,” noting that the term is used to refer to those who are “American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic, and Cape Verdean.”
There’s also the Michigan Education Association, which <a href="https://mea.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/M-3-MEA-PAC-Policies-May-2024-pending-RA-and-Board-approval.pdf">stipulates</a> that the governing board of its political action council must include “two (2) members who identify as Black, Indigenous or a Person of Color (BIPOC).”
Defending Education points out that these race-based policies have become commonplace in other organizations across the country, noting that at least 36 teachers union organizations, from Wyoming to Mississippi, reserve positions on boards or committees for those who qualify as &#8220;BIPOC.&#8221;
The NEA and its state affiliates did not return requests for comment.

NEA Speaker

EXCLUSIVE: Teachers Unions Across America Have Racial Quotas For Leadership Roles

DEIA

Education

National Education Association

school

Teachers Unions

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten resigned from the board of the Democratic National Committee after more than 23 years, citing disagreements with new leadership.
“I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more of our communities,” Weingarten wrote in her June 5 <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000197-75eb-da2a-a9bf-7feba2f90000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resignation letter</a>.
Weingarten, who leads the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, opposed DNC Chairman Ken Martin in February’s election. Upon becoming chair, Martin removed Weingarten from her longstanding position on the Rules and Bylaws Committee.
Weeks before Weingarten resigned, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Lee Saunders also stepped down from the DNC. On May 27, Saunders wrote that “public service workers are facing unprecedented attacks,” a challenge which “demands unwavering focus.”
“In that spirit, and with deep respect, I must decline your nomination to the DNC,” Saunders wrote, according to The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/15/randi-weingarten-democratic-national-committee/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Washington Post.</a>
Saunders further <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/us/politics/randi-weingarten-dnc-ken-martin.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a> his decision to resign in a statement to The New York Times, saying, “We must evolve to meet the urgency of this moment. This is not a time to close ranks or turn inward.”
“This amounts to the exit of two of the highest-profile union leaders aligned with the Democratic Party,” The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher <a href="https://x.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1934441042016645243" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on X.
The two resignations are the latest signs of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dei-claims-another-scalp-dnc-diversity-rules-oust-david-hogg?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=DEI+Claims+Another+Scalp%3A+DNC+Diversity+Rules+Oust+David+Hogg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">internal conflict</a> at the DNC. Two vice chairs were voted out last week, including 25-year-old activist David Hogg, whose controversial $20 million project to back younger Democratic candidates over their “out-of-touch, ineffective” incumbent seniors was supported by Weingarten.
This caused tension between Hogg and the chairman, who told the Gen Z activist he would have to leave if he wanted to continue with the project.
“If you want to challenge incumbents, you’re more than free to do that, but just not as an officer of the DNC, because our job is to be neutral arbiters,” Martin said. “We can’t be both the referee and also the player at the same time. You have to make a decision.”
In leaked video footage of a Zoom meeting, Martin told Hogg, &#8220;The other night I said to myself for the first time, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this anymore&#8217;&#8230;you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to.”
This feud led to Hogg’s removal, though the DNC claimed the vote was occasioned by a failure to adhere to gender diversity protocols in the previous election.
“I ran to be DNC Vice Chair to help make the Democratic Party better, not to defend an indefensible status quo that has caused voters in almost every demographic group to move away from us,” Hogg said.
Saunders and Weingarten aren’t the only ones souring on the Democratic Party. According to a recent <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/16/politics/cnn-poll-democrats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN poll</a>, more than half of “Democratic-aligned adults” say the party is heading “in the wrong direction.” When asked which Democratic leader best represents the values of the party, “More than 30% didn’t offer a name in response.&#8221;
“No one,” one respondent answered. “That’s the problem.”

Randi Weingarten

Teachers’ Union President Randi Weingarten Resigns From DNC

David Hogg

Democratic National Committee

Unsurprisingly, there is tremendous fearmongering marked by falsehoods from the opposition regarding President Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Public school personnel are already claiming that special education funding has been cut and that closing the department will devastate their ability to educate students. These claims are unfounded.
Amongst the loudest clamoring are the teachers union bosses. Randi Weingarten, head of the second largest teachers union, the American Federation for Teachers, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/randi-weingarten-spitting-mad-about-evisceration-education-department" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in her own words</a>, is “spitting mad.” Note this is the Weingarten who leveraged her political power to <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/biden-believes-in-science-so-long-as-the-teachers-unions-approve/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">directly influence the CDC</a> to keep public schools closed to children outrageously far longer than necessary.
Following the signing of the executive order, the American Federation for Teachers issued a <a href="https://www.aft.org/press-release/educators-professors-school-districts-unions-unite-challenge-trump-attempt-dismantle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> announcing the filing of a lawsuit by a coalition of educators, school districts, and unions against the Trump administration. Regarding the recent cutting of the massive bureaucracy bloat within the federal department and those responsible for woke DEI initiatives, the press release <a href="https://www.aft.org/press-release/educators-professors-school-districts-unions-unite-challenge-trump-attempt-dismantle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a>: “Mass firings of these hardworking people planned by the Trump administration will harm students and schools.”
Clearly overlooking the reality that public education is failing to effectively educate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-national-test-scores-make-undeniable-case-for-school-choice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seven out of ten</a> schoolchildren in the basics of reading and math, the teacher union is rushing to legal action in an attempt to maintain the status quo, which is a death sentence for children’s futures.
John B. King Jr, who was the U.S. Secretary of Education for a stint during the Obama administration, is another Democrat working overtime to dispense fear to Americans over the plan to dismantle the disastrous Department of Education. In a recent short <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/nx-s1-5341462/trump-education-department-financial-aid-layoffs-arrests-international-students" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview with NPR</a>, King kept his main talking point on repeat, asserting that “People are very worried.” Continuing, he commented about the things he’s “most worried about.” King went on, “…I’m very worried…” The painful and brief interview concluded with a final question to which King tripled down on his anxiety-spreading effort. “I’m really worried….I’m worried…I’m worried…”
The fearmongering is unfounded. President Trump, in his address prior to signing the “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities</a>” executive order into law, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjnoGgEJvLs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">communicated</a> that “Pell Grants, Title I funding, resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be preserved — fully preserved.” He explained that those programs would be “redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them.”
More specifically, special education programs will <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-and-defense-secretary-hegseth-deliver-remarks-on-f-47-fighter-jet/657517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">move to</a> the Department of Health and Human Services. Student loans will <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-and-defense-secretary-hegseth-deliver-remarks-on-f-47-fighter-jet/657517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">head to</a> the Small Business Administration (SBA), which is a commonsense change from education policy personnel managing the <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article/40-18-trillion-student-loans-late-payments-trump-seeks-abolish-dept-ed/27711" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1.8 trillion loan portfolio</a>. And, importantly, states will be freed from the red tape of Washington D.C., empowering them to make decisions concerning how best to educate the children of their state.
So, what is being cut? Simply put, the billions of dollars spent fueling the promotion of radical ideologies to children, such as gender ideology, Critical Race Theory, and an anti-American worldview. As one example, on January 23, the U.S. Department of Education, under the president&#8217;s direction, <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-takes-action-eliminate-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">began taking action</a> to “eliminate harmful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.” That <a href="https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/cultural-issues/article_89d2f95a-da74-11ef-881f-c31173f69a5c.html?seyid=48320" target="_blank" rel="noopener">included</a> placing personnel who lead DEI initiatives on administrative leave, the deletion of more than 200 webpages of DEI resources that “promote or endorse” the “harmful ideological programs,” and ending DEI contracts totaling over $2.5 million.
Then, on January 29, President Trump signed the “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling</a>” executive order. It <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that “In recent years…parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.” Specifically, the Secretary of Education, Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services must consult with the Attorney General to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">create a plan</a> within 90 days to end indoctrination and protect parental rights.
Additionally, federal bureaucrats pushing paper in Washington D.C. have been cut. Already, <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-initiates-reduction-force" target="_blank" rel="noopener">half of the positions</a> within the U.S. Department of Education have been eliminated as education rightfully returns to the states. Big government control of K-12 education has been a massive failure and has not increased student learning. Block granting the money back to the states will enhance efficiency and effectiveness while also providing increased accountability for student academic learning.
Don’t listen to the lies or anxiety-induced talking points. Dismantling the U.S. Department of Education is a win for America and a much-needed step forward toward the goal of successfully educating our future generation.
Hats off to President Trump for taking this longtime-coming, much needed action to ensure that gone will be the days of only three out of ten public school children learning to read or do math proficiently.
* * *
Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Rally Held In Support Of Department Of Education And Schools

Fearmongering And Falsehoods Over Education Dept. Shutdown

Department of Education

Opinion

Parental Rights in Education

President Trump

Public Schools

Student Loans

Students

The L.A. teachers union is defying President Trump by championing DEI policies while demanding pay increases of more than 26 times higher than the current annual pay raise for some teachers.
United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has called for support of “new educators, with targeted investment in the recruitment and retention of BIPOC, multilingual and immigrant educators and service providers” and “strengthened policies to support LGBTQIA+ students, educators and staff,”  The Los Angeles Times <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-26/l-a-teachers-union-pursues-salary-hike-progressive-goals-amid-trump-agenda" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a>.
Last week, the White House issued a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-empowers-parents-states-and-communities-to-improve-education-outcomes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fact sheet</a> regarding an executive order targeting DEI policies. The fact sheet stated, “The Order also directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology. &#8230; Mathematics and reading scores are down in public schools, despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% since the 1970s, indicating that more spending does not mean better education.”
“The district’s DEI initiatives and self-declared sanctuary status make it a potential subject of investigation by the federal government,” Will Swaim, president of California Policy Center, stated. On March 3, Swaim’s group joined others to file a <a href="https://californiapolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DFI-CJC-Title-IX-Complaint-CDE-and-Districts.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">complaint </a>against the California Department of Education (CDE), Los Angeles Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and Capistrano Unified School District “arising from ‘gender identity’ policies and practices in violation of Title IX.&#8221;
The complaint notes that on February 4, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights issued a letter stating it would “enforce Title IX under the provisions of the 2020 Title IX rule, rather than the 2024 Title IX rule,” which had prohibited “gender identity” discrimination. “CED responded to OCR’s guidance with public statements indicating that it plans to change nothing about its ‘gender-identity’-related lodging or intimate facility access policies,” the complaint points out.
“President Cecily Myart-Cruz said her members are fully cognizant of Trump’s hostility to union priorities but are determined to stick with theirs,” The Times reports.
Additionally, the union is demanding automatic annual salary increases at a rate of 3.25% a year for the first 10 years of a teacher’s career, “more than 26 times the current annual bump in some cases and the higher annual raises would be built in, without having to bargain for them in every contract cycle,” the Times notes. Additionally, the union wants to reduce the number of education credits required to qualify for salary bonuses by roughly 30%.
“LAUSD has the money to fund these contract proposals, but you will hear that they don’t,” Myart-Cruz claimed. “Don’t believe it.”
“School district leaders, including Supt. Alberto Carvalho, have said LAUSD is spending at a pace that would nearly wipe out its reserves over the next three years,” the Times reports.

Education Workers In L.A. Go On Strike After Failing To Make A Deal

LA Teachers Union Defies Trump On DEI, Demands Huge Pay Raise

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Donald Trump

Los Angeles Schools

As an educator and parent, I’ve long wondered if America’s education system can ever recover from the ever-expanding, costly bureaucratic machine it has become. A machine that inhales taxpayer dollars and exhales nothing — not literacy, not educated children, not competence. Unfortunately just a steady stream of bloated budgets, federal grants, and equity initiatives.
This machine is called the Department of Education. Founded in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter, it was designed not to improve schools but to buy political favor with the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers’ union. From the beginning, its function was clear: funnel billions of dollars into a federal stronghold for progressive priorities while granting the unions unchecked influence over education policy. It was never meant to make our children smarter; it was meant to make Washington more powerful.
After 45 years of unmitigated failure, President Trump has officially signed an executive order to begin eliminating the Department of Education once and for all and I had the incredible honor of witnessing this historic event first hand. The president assured all of us in the room who are at the forefront of the fight for our country’s educational future that the department’s useful functions will be fully preserved such as Pell Grants and resources for special needs by being redistributed to various agencies and departments as he returns education back to the states.
In total, the DOE employed over 4,400 bureaucrats, until the new administration recently reduced this number by close to 50% as the president shared this afternoon, and it has spent<a href="https://nypost.com/2025/02/11/us-news/doge-ends-nearly-1b-in-federal-education-contracts-to-nix-waste-and-dei/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> $881 million</a> on ineffective or purely progressive initiatives — including a mind-boggling $1.5 million just to “observe mailing and clerical operations.” <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/02/11/us-news/doge-ends-nearly-1b-in-federal-education-contracts-to-nix-waste-and-dei/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$268 billion a year</a> disappears into this bottomless pit, yet reading and math scores have either stagnated or dropped for the past five decades. The <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/29/us-news/heartbreaking-test-score-shows-us-children-falling-behind-on-reading-math-and-some-gop-members-are-blaming-biden/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">latest data</a> from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows eighth-grade reading scores at historic lows, with nearly one-third of students unable to demonstrate basic literacy. The same trends appear in math. Meanwhile, taxpayer spending continues its relentless climb — now exceeding $18,000 per public school student per year—while private schools achieve superior results at half the cost.
The money, of course, never reaches the students. Instead, it vanishes into an expanding black hole of consultants, bureaucrats, and initiatives designed to push political agendas rather than academic excellence. Social–Emotional Learning programs turn classrooms into “gender affirming care” sessions. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives send teachers on racial reeducation retreats instead of training them to teach reading. Federal grants reward states that adopt Critical Race Theory under innocent-sounding names like “culturally responsive teaching.” In Oregon, taxpayer dollars fund “Equitable Math” programs that argue showing your work is an act of white supremacy.
But here’s the secret the teachers unions and their political friends don’t want you to know: We never needed a federal Department of Education to teach kids. We simply need to go back to basics and return education to the states. Structured phonics-based reading instruction. Math that prioritizes logic and computation over activism. History grounded in facts rather than ideology. And the data bears this out: private schools and homeschools, selected by the parents, outperform public schools across the board. Private school students outscore their public peers by an average of 20 points in reading, while homeschoolers surpass public school kids by 15–25 percentile points in virtually every subject. They do it at a fraction of the cost, with some homeschooling families spending as little as $700 per year.
So how will American students be impacted by the historic shutdown of the DOE? They will escape ideological indoctrination and regain the liberty they need to actually learn. The Treasury Department can handle fund disbursement. The Justice Department can oversee Title VI legal matters. Special education funding can be transferred to the Department of Health &amp; Human Services — an agency that actually understands disabilities. There is no function the DOE performs that couldn’t be more efficiently handled by other existing departments or, better yet, by state and local governments accountable to parents.
Critics will continue to claim President Trump is abandoning children, that he’s gutting education. But they will never explain why, after decades of DOE oversight, so many American kids still can’t read. They will never explain why taxpayer money meant for students instead funds activist bureaucrats and political unions. They will never explain to us where or why $268 billion disappears every single year. And they certainly won’t explain why they’re so terrified of letting parents make the choices that are best for their children.
This shutdown is not a crisis. It is long-overdue justice for America’s students.
* * *
Marissa Streit is CEO of Prager University and Host of Real Talk.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Trump Signs Executive Order Intending To Abolish Education Department

Why The DOE Shutdown Is A Win For America’s Students

Why The DOE Shutdown Is A Win For America's Students

Federal Government

PragerU

Trump Signs Executive Order To Begin Dismantling Education Department

All The Reasons Why Abolishing The DOE Is A Great Move By Trump

Matt Walsh

Republicans

Donald Trump has fired nearly 50% of the staff of the Department of Education, sending waves of shock and outrage through 50% of the staff of the Department of Education. And maybe a few other people; I’m not sure.
The president took the drastic step of canning 13-thousand DOE employees after finding out that — one — the DOE has been spending more than $250 billion a year which is some 4%of all federal spending and — two — American students’ math and reading skills have plummeted into an abyss of mental darkness and — three — there is not really a clause in the Constitution that allows the president to have DOE employees executed, but only in the make-believe Constitution that Elon Musk doodled on a stall in a White House restroom as a joke. So firing these people turned out to be the best Trump could do.
Outraged Democrats held a protest in a broom closet in the Capitol, and spoke with a reporter from the Associated Press who was hiding there from Karoline Leavitt lest she strike again. Democrat congressman Fidel Mohammed Jihad Mao Mohammed Jihad told the reporter, “This assault on our beloved education department has angered every single American in this broom closet. Trump is trying to ruin our schools and trap our children in ignorance and poverty — and that’s the job of the Teachers Unions, so not only is he a tyrant, he’s actually a scab as well. Democrats should take to the streets to protest this action just as soon as they finish protesting the disempowerment of sexual psychopaths and drastic cuts to a vast network of waste and fraud that has taken us years of work to build. Trump is destroying America or, anyway, our version of America which, okay, isn’t “America” America, but we still call it America, so when we say Trump is destroying America, that is technically something that almost sounds true.”
Teachers Union President Randi Weingarten also protested the job cuts. Appearing in an interview on CNN after rising from a flaming crevice in the earth in a yellow cloud of sulfurous smoke, Ms. Weingarten said “The Department of Education has spent literally hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars doing the all-important work of buying union support for Democrats. This money is carefully doled out to ensure that every child in America has a teacher whose union representative is driving a Mercedes after doing an hour of paperwork to prove their schools are following a federal recipe for success that has already raised the reading skills of eighth graders to a third grade level. Trump’s secret plan is evil, and believe me, I know something about evil. I mean, just look at me. Look at my golden eyes. Trump’s plan is to allow poor minority students to choose their own schools. That’s insane! These children are languishing in a seething hell of illiteracy, damning them to a jobless future in which their only consolation will be the false comfort of drugs and children born out of wedlock ultimately leading to yet another generation of crushing poverty. They’re not educated enough to choose their own schools. We need to keep spending taxpayer’s money until they’re completely ignorant. Then at least when they have school choice, they might choose public schools.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
As if Trump’s cuts to the DOE weren’t bad enough, the president further outraged educators by arresting and threatening to deport a Palestinian Columbia student who led illegal demonstrations on college campuses in support of Hamas and who belongs to an organization dedicated to “the total eradication of western civilization.”
CNN Anchorwoman Shapely Nudnick objected to the move, saying, “Just because a man shuts down a university and persecutes Jewish students to support mass-murdering terrorists, that doesn’t make him a bad person. I’m afraid by having him arrested, this administration is distracting federal law enforcement officers from their important work of investigating parents who want to keep pornography out of elementary schools and spying on Catholics who attend Latin Mass.”
With that, the anchorwoman was surrounded by a sulfurous cloud of yellow smoke and dragged down into a flaming crevice in the earth, where she joined the Teacher’s Union.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Woman Underground.</a>” His most recent nonfiction release is “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=nMYjR&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_r=133-8344803-2786917&amp;pd_rd_wg=7a8J3&amp;pd_rd_r=5791ea0f-6d96-4732-9d6a-3a4e6b348bb5&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness.</a>” (May 2025, Zondervan/HarperCollins).

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-ECONOMY-CLIMATE-ENERGY

Trump Fires Half Of DOE, Outraging Half Of DOE

Andrew Klavan

Humor

Satire

When I was growing up in Los Angeles, the bumper stickers proclaimed “Work Union, Live Better.”
For more than two decades as an educator, I lived by those words, serving actively in the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), even representing my colleagues in the House of Representatives.
But in January 2022, I made the difficult decision to leave the union I once cherished.
The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles will be deciding a landmark case brought by Jewish teachers — with the support of the Freedom Foundation — challenging UTLA’s legal status as their exclusive representative.
This case isn&#8217;t just about workplace discrimination. It’s about the transformation of a once-proud teachers’ union into a platform for anti-Semitism and radical politics.
The change began about six years ago when a group called Union Power seized control of UTLA’s leadership. Instead of focusing on teacher welfare, fair wages and workplace protections, it began pushing divisive social and political agendas.
The monthly union newspaper, which had long provided transparency into union operations, mysteriously ceased publication. UTLA’s new leadership endorsed the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and voted to demand the immediate cessation of U.S. aid to Israel.
The hostility toward Jewish members became increasingly overt. Jewish teachers have been systematically removed from online meetings for questioning anti-Semitic stances.
During a UTLA ethnic studies meeting, President Cecily Myart-Cruz declared the Museum of Tolerance — a Holocaust museum — the union’s “enemy.” At the same event, protesters shouted “F*** Israel” alongside calls for violence.
A UTLA chapter chair even taught students that life in Palestine was comparable to Holocaust concentration camps — a grotesque distortion of history that minimizes the systematic murder of six million Jews.
This isn’t about choosing sides in global conflicts. It’s about a union betraying its fundamental purpose — protecting and supporting all of its members, regardless of their faith or heritage.
The union’s increasingly toxic culture extends beyond anti-Semitism. The LAUSD headquarters houses what teachers grimly call the “Teachers in Trouble” room — essentially a holding pen where educators under investigation languish for days, weeks or months while UTLA does little to defend them.
It’s a stark example of how far the union has strayed from its mission to protect teachers.
After the election of President Trump, Myart-Cruz stoked racial tensions by warning that, “Parents of black and brown children really need to pay closer attention this week to their kids’ classes. Remember, 55 percent of white women voted for Trump, and they are nearly 80 percent of the teaching profession.”
During board meetings, union members openly maintain databases of parents who dare to speak out against their agenda. They’ve even threatened to visit dissenting parents at their homes.
UTLA collects nearly $120 monthly from each of its 30,000 members, totaling more than $43 million annually. Yet when teachers need real support, the union often fails them.
Its legal department routinely abandons educators facing workplace issues, forcing many to seek costly private representation. The union’s standard response to teachers in trouble has become a cynical question, “How close are you to retirement?”
The Freedom Foundation has been instrumental in exposing these practices and supporting teachers who wish to opt out of UTLA’s discriminatory regime. The ongoing legal challenge represents a crucial effort to hold this union accountable for its systemic failures and discriminatory practices.
While opting out of membership provides some relief, Jewish employees still face a fundamental challenge: Under current labor law, UTLA remains their exclusive bargaining representative regardless of membership status.
This means they continue to be associated with the union’s positions even after leaving.
Teachers unions should unite educators, not divide them. They should fight for better working conditions, not propagate hatred.
They should protect all members, not discriminate based on faith or ethnicity.
The reality is, UTLA has abandoned its core mission of protecting teachers’ rights and dignity in favor of anti-Semitic rhetoric and divisive politics. Until fundamental change occurs in UTLA’s leadership, I’ll keep my $1,440 in annual dues and my conscience clear.
Thanks to the Freedom Foundation, teachers have support in challenging UTLA’s discriminatory practices. This court case offers hope for change.
It’s an opportunity to hold UTLA accountable and remind them of their true purpose: supporting and protecting all educators, regardless of their faith, ethnicity, or political beliefs.
Our schools, our teachers and, most importantly, our students deserve nothing less.
* * *
Barry Blisten is a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Los Angeles Skyline Palm Trees

I Teach In Los Angeles. Anti-Semitism Has Taken Over Our Union.

Anti-Semitism

antisemitism

California

Israel

Los Angeles

Pro-Hamas

Teachers

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">report</a> confirms the continuation of a decades-long trend: American workers are rejecting union membership in record numbers. For the first time since the BLS began tracking this data in 1983, less than 10% of the workforce belong to a labor union.
This historic decline isn&#8217;t happening by accident — it’s the direct result of workers having the freedom to choose whether their hard-earned dollars fund unions that consistently prioritize political activism over member interests.
The numbers tell a stark story. While overall union membership sits at 9.9%, Big Labor still maintains a stranglehold over public employees, 32.2% of whom are union members.
Of the 14.3 million union members nationwide, half work in government jobs, with teachers unions alone accounting for nearly one-quarter of all union members.  
The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers together report around 3.5 million working members — but even this has declined consistently in recent years, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME striking down laws requiring public employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
In states like Florida, where recent reforms ended government deduction of union dues from public employees’ paychecks, many workers didn’t feel the need to sign up to pay the union directly. The Florida Education Association alone lost <a href="https://www.freedomfoundation.com/labor/florida-teachers-union-loses-20000-members-after-government-stops-collecting-dues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than 20,000 members</a> in just one school year when teachers were given a meaningful choice about whether to fund union activities.
Overall, the percentage of public employees who were union members <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declined</a> from 32.5% in 2023 to 32.2% last year. That’s down from <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/union2_01182019.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34.4% in 2017</a>, the last year before the Supreme Court made union membership voluntary for government workers, despite government growth.
This exodus speaks volumes about the disconnect between union leadership and rank-and-file members.
Across the country, public employees are waking up to the reality that their unions aren’t fighting for their salaries, their benefits or their working conditions. In fact, government unions have morphed from worker advocacy organizations into political machines more interested in advancing progressive causes than representing their members’ interests.
They collect millions in dues from workers’ paychecks, then funnel that money into political campaigns and causes that many of their own members oppose.
My organization, the Freedom Foundation, has seen firsthand how workers respond when they learn the truth about their union’s political spending via its ongoing education campaign to help public employees understand their rights and make informed decisions about union membership.
The results are clear: When workers know they have a choice and understand how their dues are being spent, huge numbers of them choose to opt out.
This trend isn&#8217;t just about numbers — it’s about fundamental fairness and worker empowerment. Public employees shouldn’t be forced to fund political activities they disagree with just to keep their jobs. The dramatic membership declines indicate that when workers are given the freedom to choose, they often decide their unions no longer represent their best interests.
The success of reforms like Florida’s payroll protection law provides a roadmap for other states. When unions can no longer extract dues directly from workers&#8217; paychecks, individual employees are empowered to make their own decisions about union membership.
This isn&#8217;t union-busting — it’s democracy in action.
As union membership continues its historic decline, union executives face a choice — return to their core mission of representing workers&#8217; interests or continue losing members as they prioritize political activism. The numbers suggest they’re choosing the latter, and workers are voting with their wallets.
The path forward is clear. More states should follow Florida’s lead in implementing reforms that protect worker freedom.
Meanwhile, the Freedom Foundation will continue educating public employees about their rights and options. The era of unions treating worker dues as a blank check for political activism is ending — and the latest BLS numbers prove it.
The decline in union membership isn’t just a number — it&#8217;s a wakeup call. Government unions can no longer take their members for granted or assume their political agenda aligns with their members’ wishes.
Workers are speaking clearly through their actions. They want unions that represent their interests, not unions that see them as ATMs for progressive political causes.
* * *
Aaron Withe is the CEO of the Freedom Foundation, a group dedicated to combatting government unions. He is the author of the book &#8220;Freedom is the Foundation: How We Are Defeating Progressive Tyranny By Taking On The Government Unions.&#8221;
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Side view of worker welding airplane wing at night

Government Unions Are Hemorrhaging Members. Here’s Why.

Government Unions Are Hemorrhaging Members. Here's Why.

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Florida

Labor Unions

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/011325zor_5425.pdf">declined</a> to hear a challenge to New York’s “Taylor Law,” which gives unions monopoly bargaining privileges in the public sector. At best, the Court missed an opportunity to protect the First Amendment; at worst, the Court endorsed Marxism.
We are Jewish academics who have been forced to accept the “exclusive representation” of unions that we consider anti-Semitic. One of us, a professor at the City University of New York, <a href="https://www.nrtw.org/goldstein/">brought the eponymous challenge</a>, Goldstein v. Professional Staff Congress/CUNY. The other, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, similarly <a href="https://www.nrtw.org/news/jewish-mit-students-eeoc-03212024/">filed federal charges</a> against the MIT Graduate Student Union. Both unions engage in the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement (BDS), which we vehemently oppose.
At CUNY, the faculty union in 2021 <a href="https://2022.psc-cuny.org/sites/default/files/Final_Resolution_in_Support_of_the_Palestinian_People.pdf">condemned Israel</a> “dating back to its establishment as a settler colonial state in 1948.” At MIT, the graduate student union in 2024 <a href="https://mitgsu.org/resolutions/ceasefire">called for</a> “an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza,” without mentioning Hamas or the hostages they still hold. The resolutions compare Israel to apartheid South Africa — ironic, given that the unions treat objectors like us as second-class citizens without voting privileges.
One need not share our opposition to BDS to see that these unions cannot represent us at the bargaining table. Yet that is exactly what is happening. Had the Supreme Court taken up Goldstein, the Justices could have struck down the Taylor Law on the grounds that it violates employees’ freedom of speech and association. Instead, the Court let stand the Second Circuit&#8217;s <a href="https://www.fairnesscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Second-Circuit-Goldstein-v.-PSC-Decision.pdf">ruling</a> that “Designating PSC as Plaintiffs’ exclusive bargaining representative does not impermissibly burden Plaintiffs’ ability to speak with, associate with, or not associate with whom they please, including CUNY and PSC.” In other words, it is permissible to subordinate individual rights to collective interests — classic Marxism.
The Supreme Court knew this when it declined to take the case. An <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-71/323009/20240821101037349_240806a%20AC%20Brief%20for%20efiling.pdf">amicus brief</a> supporting the petitioners, filed by the Upper Midwest Law Center and the Manhattan Institute, cites the MIT Graduate Student Union as an example of the problem: “Jewish students are being compelled to associate with and implicitly endorse these views despite their most sincere religious beliefs, so they filed discrimination charges with the EEOC.”
The outcome of those charges was that religious students at private universities could divert their union dues to charity, but they would still be subject to exclusive representation. Public employees, including CUNY professors, already have the right to opt out of union dues under Janus v. AFSCME, but they too remain subject to exclusive representation by a union they abhor. While the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recognized</a> in Janus that “Designating a union as the employees’ exclusive representative substantially restricts the rights of individual employees,” the validity of exclusive representation was not squarely before the Court — until Goldstein, which the Justices declined to hear.
The result has been predictable. Ten days after the Court denied the petition, the CUNY faculty union adopted a <a href="https://psc-cuny.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/PSC-and-NYCERS-Israeli-Investments-Divestment-Resolution-1-23-25.pdf">resolution</a> “expressing its support for complete disinvestment from Israel,” further resolving to “divest its own funds from any investment vehicle that includes in its portfolio stocks and bonds of Israeli companies and Israeli government bonds.” In response, a Jewish civil rights organization <a href="https://x.com/_SAFECAMPUS/status/1884323681675141318">filed a complaint</a> with the New York State Division of Human Rights, arguing that the union “has abandoned their sacrosanct Duty of Fair Representation.” Under Janus, “That duty is a necessary concomitant of the authority that a union seeks when it chooses to serve as the exclusive representative of all the employees in a unit.”
There is another way. New York and other states could amend their labor laws to give employees the right to opt out of union representation. Unions could thus continue to engage in BDS, but not on behalf of those who oppose it. Additionally, the states could adopt laws that give private employees the right to work without paying compulsory dues to unions that they oppose. Twenty-six states already have such a law, which Congress could extend to all fifty states by passing the National Right to Work Act.
The Soviet Union put up a physical wall to keep people in; New York’s labor law puts up a legal one. If unions are as good as they claim to be, they should not need to compel representation or financial support. To borrow a phrase: Governor Hochul, tear down this wall!
* * *
<a href="https://x.com/AvrahamGoldste3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Avraham Goldstein</a> is an assistant professor of mathematics at the City University of New York.
<a href="https://x.com/WillSussmanPhD/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Will Sussman</a> is a collegiate associate at the Manhattan Institute and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

CUNY Students Hold Rally In Support Of Palestine

Did The Supreme Court Just Endorse Marxism?

City University of New York (CUNY)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

New York

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

Unions

Two teachers union heads in Florida have been indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges, accused of stealing more than $2 million from union members.
The indictment against Terrie Brady, who was president of Duval Teachers United, and Ruby George, who was executive vice president, was unsealed on Monday.
Brady, 69, and George, 81, could face decades in prison if convicted of the charges, which <a href="https://jaxtoday.org/2025/01/13/teachers-union-fraud-indictment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">include</a> conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud, and three counts of aiding and abetting mail fraud.
The indictment accuses the two women of cheating the union out of <a href="https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2025/01/13/florida-teachers-union-execs-terrie-brady-ruby-george-indicted/75914930007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more</a> than $1.2 million each between 2013 and 2022, in part by claiming much more unused vacation time than they had. According to the indictment, they tag-teamed on signing each other&#8217;s union checks for fraudulent vacation time payments and additional bonus payments.
Brady was also charged with two counts of money laundering for allegedly using nearly $44,000 of the money to pay personal American Express credit card debt.
Then, the women filed false documentation to a union auditor, the indictment claimed.
The bombshell charges come after agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service raided the union&#8217;s headquarters in San Marco in September 2023, sparking confusion and speculation. Agents were spotted carrying computers, bags, and boxes of financial documents out of the building.
Brady and George resigned just weeks later after leading the union for 24 years, saying they wanted to spend more time with their families.
Back in 2023, Brady <a href="https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/governor-ron-desantis-takes-aim-teachers-unions/XEPIGBHODZB7PEWRRJNWN2XYCE/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">complained</a> about Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis trying to impose new financial transparency requirements on the unions.
“We think we’re pretty transparent in the work that we do,” Brady said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Terrie Brady, President of the Duval Teachers United union, put in a rare appearance at the DCPS school board meeting to discuss…not receiving dues for 12 days because of the new Florida law making teacher dues opt in and not mandatory. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MomsForLiberty?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MomsForLiberty</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Florida?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Florida</a> <a href="https://t.co/71OLVS4MSc">pic.twitter.com/71OLVS4MSc</a>
&mdash; Moms For Liberty &#8211; Duval Co., FL (@DuvalMoms) <a href="https://twitter.com/DuvalMoms/status/1686628447953555456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
DeSantis had accused the unions of being too political and promised better pay for teachers and a cap on the salaries of teachers union officials.
“Having partisan groups basically get special privileges for deductions and all these other stuff, you know, that doesn’t work and so, I think this will be a huge, huge boon for transparency and efficiency in our school system,” DeSantis said at the time.
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Duval Teachers United represents about 13,000 teachers and other school employees in the Jacksonville area. The local union is affiliated with both the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA).
The union <a href="https://jaxtoday.org/2025/01/13/teachers-union-fraud-indictment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brings</a> in about $5 million in revenue a year.
In 2022, Brady received a lifetime achievement award for “a long record of excellent leadership” from the Florida Education Association.
She also chaired the Florida Democratic Party in the 1990s.

Money

Teachers Union Heads Indicted For Fraud, Stealing More Than $2M From Union

Teachers Union Heads Indicted For Fraud, Stealing Millions From Union

Crime

DeSantis

Fraud

Ron DeSantis

U.S.

Opponents of school choice can’t be happy. The past three years have seen a flood of school-choice victories – and, ironically, we can thank two very “progressive” groups.
Two thirds of all states now have some form of private school-choice policies. Notably, 11 states have universal education choice, a policy no state had just three years ago. Even in states where school choice is still elusive, the dam is breaking. In Texas, opponents of education freedom were roundly defeated in the primaries this past spring.
What has transpired in these 36 months? As scholars who have closely studied and chronicled these developments, the only response we can give is that American parents rebelled against what happened four years ago.
So as people who fully welcome policies that liberate American families and leave them free to educate their children as they see fit, and not remain shackled to bad public schools set on indoctrinating their young children, we’d like to thank Black Lives Matter.
Yes, BLM.
If it weren’t for all the damage they have inflicted on society, we would consider sending handwritten thank-you notes to founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and the rest.
Without the chaos and violence created in 2020 by the BLM organizations — founded by these Marxists with the express goal of achieving systemic-wide societal change — combined with the radical gender ideology infecting local schools, parents maybe have been slower to demand an escape hatch to let them opt out of the indoctrination meted out in public schools.
They did, and the progress speaks for itself.
Of course, we don’t want to leave out the teachers&#8217; unions. Bless them, they also did their part.
The shutdowns they demanded were the first instance of public schools breaking faith with families; failing to reopen their doors long after we knew it was safe for them to do so. In rapid succession, parents saw the second instance: emergency remote learning gave them a window into what their children were being taught, raising red flags in school board meetings across the country.
States responded, giving parents the ability to vote with their feet. And vote they did. The number of children exercising school choice – using a voucher, tax credit scholarship, or education savings account – has roughly doubled from the 2019 pre-pandemic level to nearly 1 million students.
Today, 19 states have Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) or ESA-style policies enabling families to choose schools and learning options that are right for their children. ESAs are accounts into which the state deposits a portion—usually 90 percent—of the money that would have been spent on a child in their district school.
The parents can use the money in the account to pay for private school tuition, online learning, special education services and therapies, tutoring, textbooks, and a host of other education-related services, products, and providers. And unused funds can be rolled over from year to year, and even rolled into a college savings account.
This year alone four states established ESA options: Wyoming, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia. Louisiana went all-in with universal ESAs, opening up eligibility to every family in the state, regardless of income.
In Texas, up until this year, state legislators who call themselves Republicans had stood in the way of school choice programs out of concern for what it might mean for the district public school.
Well, this year the Lone Star State had elections. Six out of eight incumbent Republican lawmakers who had stood in the way of school choice lost their primaries or the runoffs.
This was a big win for Gov. Greg Abbott, who made school choice a hill to die on, and now more than ever looks like a reality in the Lone Star State.
If Texas finally adopts school choice, some 40% of all kids in the country would be eligible to choose a school other than their assigned district school. At that point, we can reasonably say that Milton Friedman’s vision of breaking the public schooling monopoly – some 70 years in the making – has come to fruition.
Which brings us back to how we got here. Four years ago, this country was caught up in one of its biggest political convulsions in decades, after BLM manipulated the tragic death of George Floyd to carry out their plan. We had weeks of rioting, burning, and looting.
As if the physical damage didn’t take enough of a toll, the stewards of our cultural institutions — our schools and universities, our libraries and museums, our theaters and movie studios, everyone involved in industries that create meaning and content — then capitulated and accepted as facts a number of falsehoods they should have had the confidence to dismiss.
America is systemically racist; white supremacy is the operating system of our society; the founding of America took place in 1619, when a group of Africans arrived in Jamestown, not 1776, when America’s founders signed the Declaration of Independence. These and other fabrications were accepted as facts.
The idea was to stain and destroy the idea of America. Rather than being conceived in liberty, everyone was told to believe that ugly racism and oppression was the post-partum reality.
Then there were the sexual delusions. Among these were that a man could become a woman or vice versa, or that children could be born in the “wrong body.” America circa 2020 thus fell into what can only be described as a moment of mass hysteria.
These ideas swarmed into our classrooms and children began to be indoctrinated into these hallucinations. Their purveyors intentionally targeted our schools, fully cognizant of the fact that if you capture a generation of children, if you interrupt the transmission of culture and facts and you change the narrative, you have created a new hegemony.
This movement had the wind fully at its back in 2020. The world was going its way.
But then something happened: parents and grandparents, especially mothers and grandmothers, started to fight back, a counterrevolution that gathered force in early 2021. They organized, went to school board meetings, and voted. They demanded the freedom to opt out of the frenzy. School choice was the way out.
They put pressure on politicians in states like Texas. And they voted out recalcitrant politicians standing in their way.
If you ask us, that is the reason why education choice has met the success it has.
So special thanks go to Randi Weingarten, Nicole Hannah-Jones, Ibram Kendi, and Robin DiAngelo. The school choice movement couldn’t have done it without you.
###
Lindsey M. Burke is the Mark A. Kolokotrones Fellow and Director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
Mike Gonzalez is the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, <a href="http://www.heritage.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.Heritage.org</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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