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'Students Deserve So Much Better,' Union Leader Says as Trump Tears Up Education Department
"This contemptible assault on American education must be condemned by everyone who strives towards a prosperous future for our country and our children," said one opponent of the new partnerships.
Nov 18, 2025
Teachers union leaders, Democratic lawmakers, and other critics of President Donald Trump's efforts to dismantle the US Department of Education on Tuesday forcefully denounced what the administration is calling "new agency partnerships to break up federal bureaucracy."
Although the Education Department cannot be fully shuttered without approval from Congress, Trump has signed an executive order aimed at starting the process "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law" and laid off over 1,300 workers.
Shortly after journalists began reporting on the new plans Tuesday, citing unnamed sources, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon confirmed the agreements with the departments of Health and Human Services, the Interior, Labor, and State.
One federal official told Politico that the partnerships are a "proof of concept strategy to show Congress how this can be done," and said that the Education Department will work with lawmakers "on making these agreements permanent."
A succinct description of so much that this administration does: if they don’t like longstanding, duly enacted laws and Congress isn’t prepared to amend them, they’ll just hack them to bits illegally.wapo.st/4i6ZRr5
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— Heidi Kitrosser (@heidikitrosser.bsky.social) November 18, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union representing nearly 3 million employees, noted in a statement that "Donald Trump and his administration chose American Education Week, a time when our nation is celebrating students, public schools, and educators, to announce their illegal plan to further abandon students by dismantling the Department of Education."
"Not only do they want to starve and steal from our students—they want to rob them of their futures," Pringle said. "Ensuring a brighter future for our children should be a top priority for any administration, but this administration is taking every chance it can to hack away at the very protections and services our students need."
"Just last week, they went to the Supreme Court to avoid feeding families. And they're still pushing to gut healthcare programs," she continued. "Now, they're neglecting the basic responsibility to educate our children. It's cruel. It's shameful. And our students deserve so much better."
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, whose union represents 1.8 million people, declared that "this move is neither streamlining nor reform—it's an abdication and abandonment of America's future."
"Spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes, and more barriers for people who are just trying to access the support they need."
"What's happening now isn't about slashing red tape. If that were the goal, teachers could help them do it, and we invite Donald Trump and Linda McMahon to sit down with educators and hear from the people who actually do this work every day," she emphasized. "Teachers know how to make the federal role more effective, efficient, and supportive of real learning—if only the administration would listen."
"Instead, spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes, and more barriers for people who are just trying to access the support they need," she warned.
Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for nonprofit Protect Borrowers, similarly said that "shuffling certain functions of the US Department of Education across four different agencies is a political stunt that will only lead to more chaos and confusion for working families who just want their kids to get a quality education, to be able to pay for college, and to pay off their student loans."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, also slammed the announcement, saying that "in his ongoing rampage against everything that makes our country what it is, President Trump is now acting on the plan to destroy the Department of Education."
"Short of toppling the Statue of Liberty, there is perhaps nothing that could capture the agenda of this administration more than what they are in fact doing right now: Making an enemy out of education itself," she suggested. "This contemptible assault on American education must be condemned by everyone who strives towards a prosperous future for our country and our children."
Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.)—a former preschool teacher and local school board member—also piled on, saying that "Donald Trump and Linda McMahon are lawlessly trying to fulfill Project 2025's goal to abolish the Department of Education and pull the rug out from students in every part of the country."
"But instead of seeking congressional approval of their reckless actions to weaken our education system—which McMahon has acknowledged is necessary—Trump and McMahon are now pretending that our laws and the constitutional separation of powers are a mere suggestion," said Murray, who used to lead and remains a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
"This is an outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education," she argued, "and it is students and families who will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise and are gravely weakened—or even completely broken—in the process."
The senator stressed that she is "always ready and willing to talk about reforms to our education laws to improve educational outcomes for students," and urged her Republican colleagues to join Democrats in standing up against the administration's attacks.
The GOP controls both chambers of Congress. According to Murray, "The fact that Trump and McMahon are choosing to break the law to do this on their own—despite having unified Republican control of Washington—tells us they know just how unpopular their plans are and can't win the approval of members of their own party."
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Head of Largest US Teachers Union Warns Trump Budget Law Will Worsen Child Hunger Crisis
"These are not abstract numbers," wrote National Education Association president Becky Pringle. "These are real children who show up to school eager to learn but are instead distracted by hunger."
Aug 13, 2025
The leader of the largest teachers union in the United States is sounding the alarm over the impact that President Donald Trump's newly enacted budget law will have on young students, specifically warning that massive cuts to federal nutrition assistance will intensify the nation's child hunger crisis.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA)—which represents millions of educators across the U.S.—wrote for Time magazine earlier this week that "as families across America prepare for the new school year, millions of children face the threat of returning to classrooms without access to school meals" under the budget measure that Trump signed into law last month after it cleared the Republican-controlled Congress.
Estimates indicate that more than 18 million children nationwide could lose access to free school meals due to the law's unprecedented cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid, which are used to determine eligibility for free meals in most U.S. states.
The Trump-GOP budget law imposes more strict work-reporting requirements on SNAP recipients and expands the mandates to adults between the ages of 55 and 64 and parents with children aged 14 and older. The Congressional Budget Office said earlier this week that the more aggressive work requirements would kick millions of adults off SNAP over the next decade—with cascading effects for children and other family members who rely on the program.
"Educators see this pain every day, and that's why they go above and beyond—buying classroom snacks with their own money—to support their students."
Pringle wrote in her Time op-ed that "our children can't learn if they are hungry," adding that as a middle school science teacher she has seen first-hand "the pain that hunger creates."
"Educators see this pain every day, and that's why they go above and beyond—buying classroom snacks with their own money—to support their students," she wrote.
The NEA president warned that cuts from the Trump-GOP law "will hit hardest in places where families are already struggling the most, especially in rural and Southern states where school nutrition programs are a lifeline to many."
"In Texas, 3.4 million kids, nearly two-thirds of students, are eligible for free and reduced lunch," Pringle wrote. "In Mississippi, 439,000 kids, 99.7% of the student population, were eligible for free and reduced-cost lunch during the 2022-23 school year."
"These are not abstract numbers," she added. "These are real children who show up to school eager to learn but are instead distracted by hunger and uncertainty about when they will eat again. America's kids deserve better.
Pringle's op-ed came as school leaders, advocates, and lawmakers across the country braced for the impacts of Trump's budget law.
"We're going to see cuts to programs such as SNAP and Medicaid, resulting in domino effects for the children we serve," Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) said during a recent gathering of lawmakers and experts. "For many of our communities, these policies mean life or death."
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'You Don't Thank a Burglar for Returning Your Cash': Trump Admin Finally Releases Education Funds
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," said one Democratic senator.
Jul 25, 2025
While welcoming reporting that the Trump administration will release more than $5 billion in federal funding for schools that it has been withholding for nearly a month, U.S. educators and others said Friday that the funds should never have been held up in the first place and warned that the attempt to do so was just one part of an ongoing campaign to undermine public education.
The Trump administration placed nearly $7 billion in federal education funding for K-12 public schools under review last month, then released $1.3 billion of it last week amid legal action and widespread backlash. An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Washington Post that all reviews of remaining funding are now over.
"There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn't take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students," U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday.
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," Murray added. "You don't thank a burglar for returning your cash after you've spent a month figuring out if you'd have to sell your house to make up the difference."
🚨After unlawfully withholding billions in education funding for schools, the Trump Admin. has reversed course.This is a massive victory for students, educators, & families who depend on these essential resources.And it's a testament to public pressure & relentless organizing.
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— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@pressley.house.gov) July 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward—which represents plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's funding freeze—said Friday that "if these reports are true, this is a major victory for public education and the communities it serves."
"This news following our legal challenge is a direct result of collective action by educators, families, and advocates across the country," Perryman asserted. "These funds are critical to keeping teachers in classrooms, supporting students in vulnerable conditions, and ensuring schools can offer the programs and services that every child deserves."
"While this development shows that legal and public pressure can make a difference, school districts, parents, and educators should not have to take the administration to court to secure funds for their students," she added. "Our promise to the people remains: We will go to court to protect the rights and well-being of all people living in America."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes—a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit challenging the withholding—attributed the administration's backpedaling to litigatory pressure, arguing that the funding "should never have been withheld in the first place."
They released the 7 B IN SCHOOL FUNDS!! This is a huge win. It means fighting back matters. Fighting for what kids & communities need is always the right thing to do! www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
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— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association—the largest U.S. labor union—said in a statement: "Playing games with students' futures has real-world consequences. School districts in every state have been scrambling to figure out how they will continue to meet student needs without this vital federal funding, and many students in parts of the country have already headed back to school. These reckless funding delays have undermined planning, staffing, and support services at a time when schools should be focused on preparing students for success."
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education—starving it of resources, sowing distrust, and pushing privatization at the expense of the nation's most vulnerable students," Pringle added. "And they are doing this at the same time Congress has passed a budget bill that will devastate our students, schools, and communities by slashing funds meant for public education, healthcare, and keeping students from their school meals—all to finance massive tax breaks for billionaires."
While expanding support for private education, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month weakens public school programs including before- and after-school initiatives and services for English language learners.
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education."
Trump also signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education—a longtime goal of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial and unpopular plan.
Earlier this week, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department illegally impounded crucial funds from the Head Start program, which provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and other services to low-income families.
"Instead of spending the last many weeks figuring out how to improve after-school options and get our kids' reading and math scores up, because of President Trump, communities across the country have been forced to spend their time cutting back on tutoring options and sorting out how many teachers they will have to lay off," Murray noted.
"It's time for President Trump, Secretary McMahon, and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought to stop playing games with students' futures and families' livelihoods—and end their illegal assault on our students and their schools," the senator added.
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Despite Board Capitulation, NEA Teachers Still Reject Anti-Defamation League
NEA's commitment to free speech may be tested should the ADL object to teachers introducing lessons on the history of Zionist erasure of Palestine.
Jul 20, 2025
In a gut punch to the base, National Education Association leaders lickety-split dismissed a motion passed by a majority of the NEA’s 7,000 delegates not to partner with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for curriculum or professional development.
In a possible violation of the union’s Standing Rules, evidence suggests the leadership failed to solicit written rebuttals and oral presentations from dissenting state and local affiliate presidents. Instead, the Board of Directors seemingly rubber-stamped the NEA Executive Committee recommendation to not implement New Business Motion (NBI) (39), passed by the Representative Assembly (RA) on July 5th in Portland, Oregon.
All it took were a few hundred emails from the Israel lobby and an announcement from ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt—the guy who compared a keffiyeh to a Swastika—that he personally spoke to union President Becky Pringle to urge abandonment of the motion.
On a Friday night, July 18, less than two weeks after the NEA Representative Assembly (RA) voted “not to use, endorse or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League,” Pringle, president of the 3-million-member union, issued a statement.
“After consideration, it was determined that this proposal would not further NEA’s commitment to academic freedom, our membership, or our goals,” wrote Pringle, a former middle school science teacher who heads the largest teachers union–and the largest union– in the United States. “There is no doubt that antisemitism is on the rise. Without equivocation, NEA stands strongly against antisemitism.”
Ironically, it was a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, delegate Judy Greenspan of California, who introduced the ADL motion that emerged from the NEA Educators for Palestine Caucus.
In response to the NEA Board of Directors’ decision to nullify the RA vote, Greenspan said, “We are disappointed that the NEA not only violated a significant tenet of trade unionism by denying our democratically elected vote but also lost an opportunity to speak out against a harmful resource in our schools.”
Critics of the ADL point to its pro-Israel curriculum that links to handouts attacking Jewish Voice for Peace and the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel for its occupation of Palestine.
“The ADL is not a neutral body. It is a bully pulpit that is used to disrupt, dox, and target supporters of Palestine, and opponents of racism, transphobia, and oppression,” said Greenspan. “ We will continue to speak out and rise up in NEA until justice is served.”
Quick to celebrate subversion of union democracy, the ADL, together with the Jewish Federations of North America, welcomed the NEA Executive Committee and Board of Directors' decision “to reject this misguided resolution that is rooted in exclusion and othering, and promoted for political reasons.”
Nora Lester Murad, a member of the founding team of the Drop the ADL from Schools campaign, said the NEA board made a mistake by caving to a bully. “If the NEA thinks that capitulating to the political demands of the ADL will protect its members from Israel lobby attacks, they are wrong. Educators and union members need the NEA, the largest union in the country, to speak the truth about political organizations masquerading as educational partners.”
Those who wonder whether the Board’s decision will backfire need only read the full ADL statement, which suggests there will be more demands coming down the pike. In a finger-waving scold, the ADL statement adds that the NEA “must redouble efforts to ensure that Jewish educators are not isolated and subjected to antisemitism in their unions and that students are not subjected to it in the classroom.”
The ADL’s definition of antisemitism as anti-Zionism, however, confuses the public and leads to inflated statistics, say critics. In 2024, Wikipedia editors agreed. They called the ADL an unreliable source on antisemitism and Israel/Palestine and told its contributors not to cite the ADL in articles on those topics.
In a Wikipedia discussion, a user named Loki, who has edited thousands of Wikipedia articles, said, “The ADL is heavily biased regarding Israel/Palestine to the point of often acting as a pro-Israel lobbying organization.” In fact, the ADL in 2024 spent nearly $1.5 million dollars on lobbying, pushing legislation to center criticism of Israel in examples of antisemitism.
The NEA Board decision to side with the ADL drew adjectives like “shameful” and "anti-democratic" on the union’s Instagram account, where a smattering of backers of the ADL fenced with a flood of infuriated union members. One commenter wrote, “If this is what democracy looks like within the NEA, then we’ll take a hard pass. The irony is that this is very Trump-like... ”
Also troubling to anti-genocide teachers is the NEA’s referral to the Executive Committee of a Jewish Affairs Caucus NBI (52) to “educate” members about the U.S. State Department’s definition of antisemitism. The State Department has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) examples, which conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Any attempt to “educate” members would chill the speech of teachers and students. Meanwhile, NBI (26) to adopt a “Screening Out Hate” checklist, also aligned to IHRA, was referred to the Executive Committee because like NBI (52) “it cannot be accomplished without further staff and resources.”
Despite President Pringle’s refusal to implement the motion to reject the ADL, she conceded in her statement that this decision is “in no way an endorsement of the ADL’s full body of work,” adding words of warning to the litigious lobby group. “We are calling on the ADL to support the free speech and association rights of all students and educators. We strongly condemn abhorrent and unacceptable attacks on our members who dedicate their lives to helping their students thrive. Our commitment to freedom of speech fully extends to freedom of protest and dissent whether in the public square or on college campuses.”
NEA’s commitment to free speech may be tested should the ADL object to teachers introducing lessons on the history of Zionist erasure of Palestine. NEA delegate Merrie Najimy, former President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, points out that rank-and-file delegates also passed Amendment 5 to support the teaching of “accurate” Arab-American history. Scholars, such as authors Rashid Khalidi and Ilan Pappé, write Arab-American history encompasses the Nakba, the Arabic term for the “catastrophe” of 1948 when Zionist terrorist militias massacred Palestinian villages to impose a Jewish state.
Passage of an Arab-American history motion would have been unheard of several years ago, according to Najimy, a Lebanese-American who co-founded the NEA’s Educators for Palestine Caucus. In reflecting on the Board’s rejection of the ADL motion, a buoyant and ever-optimistic Najimy said, “What matters most is the passage of the motion in the first place because it represents a sea change in people’s understanding of who the Palestinians are and what their struggle is all about.”
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'Congress Must Reject This Attack': GOP Bill Would Revoke Charter of Largest US Teachers Union
The president of the National Education Association said Republicans are attacking the union because "the billionaires that fund their campaigns don't want educators to have a voice."
Jul 17, 2025
A group of congressional Republicans introduced legislation Wednesday that would revoke the federal charter of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the United States and an organization that has mobilized against the Trump administration's far-right agenda—which includes an ongoing effort to dismantle the Department of Education.
The bill, titled the National Education Association Charter Repeal Act, was introduced in the U.S. House by Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.) and in the Senate by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).
The GOP lawmakers pointed specifically to the union's recent decision to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League and the NEA representative assembly's adoption earlier this month of a pledge to "defend democracy against [President Donald] Trump's embrace of fascism."
Blackburn, a supporter of privatized charter schools who has endorsed Trump's effort to eliminate the Education Department, accused the NEA of embracing "radical left policies and antisemitism." Harris declared that "it's time to remove Congress' seal of approval from this rogue organization."
Becky Pringle, the union's president, hit back at Blackburn, Harris, and other supporters of the legislation, saying in a statement that "rather than supporting students and educators, some anti-public education politicians are now introducing legislation to repeal the National Education Association charter because the billionaires that fund their campaigns don't want educators to have a voice."
"Let me be clear—public school educators will never stop advocating for our students and communities, and the National Education Association will never stop lifting up the voice of those educators who dedicate their lives to the success of all of our students," said Pringle.
"Some in Congress want to destroy them because they don't like what the NEA says and does."
The NEA, which currently has around 3 million members across the U.S., was chartered by Congress in 1906 to "promote the cause of education in the United States" and "elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching." The organization was originally founded in 1857.
Republican lawmakers have been working for years to strip the NEA of its federal charter to express disapproval of the organization's support for progressive causes.
Education Week noted that the legislation introduced Wednesday "echoes the Heritage Foundation's conservative Project 2025 plan that has guided much of the Trump administration's education policy, and it could find more traction in the current GOP-controlled Congress."
The outlet observed that the the anti-union Freedom Foundation, which supports the GOP legislation, has called on Congress "to, among other things, bar the NEA from traditional labor union activities such as engaging in electoral politics, lobbying, or collecting dues, and require it to 'actively intervene to prevent any strikes or work stoppages by its affiliates.'"
"Revoking the NEA's charter would not, on its own, do any of those things," Education Week reported. "But Aaron Withe, chief executive officer of the Freedom Foundation, suggested that additional legislation would be introduced next week, 'whether that be removing [the NEA charter] entirely, or stripping it, or changing how it operates.'"
Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement Wednesday that the NEA is "one of the most powerful voices for public education" and warned that "some in Congress want to destroy them because they don't like what the NEA says and does."
"This administration is trying to end the Department of Education and silence opposition, and it is attacking labor unions, law firms, news outlets, colleges and universities, philanthropy, and many of our members. We will not be silent," said Wiley. "Congress must reject this attack on the NEA and defend the constitutional principles that guarantee all Americans the right to organize, advocate, and petition government."
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NEA Teachers Celebrate Motion to Drop ADL; Israel Lobby Fumes
With the ADL appealing to the NEA’s nine-member executive committee to reconsider the motion, union President Becky Pringle walks a tightrope as the committee studies whether to say yay or nay to the majority of delegates rejecting the ADL.
Jul 16, 2025
National Education Association teachers in support of Palestinian rights are celebrating their breakthrough success at the NEA’s Representative Assembly in Portland this summer. After years of organizing with both one-on-one conversations and state delegation talks, NEA delegates voted to pass a Drop the Anti-Defamation League motion that rejects the ADL as a curriculum and professional development partner.
“We are witnessing a sea change in people’s understanding of who the Palestinians are and what colonialism has done to them,“ said Merrie Najimy, former president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) and Founder of MTA Rank and File for Palestine. “In the past, too many people didn’t see the humanity of Palestinians because Israeli propaganda erased and dehumanized them. We call that anti-Palestinian racism.”
While the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and CODEPINK applauded the motion, the Anti-Defamation League blamed a “pro-Hamas” cabal inside the NEA for rejecting an organization that smears peace activists and slams Muslims and anti-Zionist Jews.
The “pro-Hamas” accusation echoes the verbiage of Project Esther, the Heritage Foundation’s MAGA blueprint for crushing pro-Palestinian voices amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The product of Christian nationalists, Project Esther has earned the ire of the Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace for blasting anti-genocide protesters as members of a fictitious U.S. Hamas Support Network.
“Allowing the ADL to determine what constitutes antisemitism would be like allowing the fossil fuel industry to determine what constitutes climate change.”
In response to the motion’s passage at the NEA Representative Assembly (RA), an enraged ADL sent out a mass email urging its supporters to tell the NEA executive committee to reverse the NEA delegates’ recommendation that teachers not “use, endorse, or publicize” ADL materials, nor “participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development offerings.”
A national Drop the ADL From Schools campaign has long criticized the ADL’s materials for whitewashing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, where Zionist militias destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages in the Nakba (Arabic word for catastrophe) of 1947-48 when the State of Israel was declared.
The ADL’s mass email made no mention, however, of Palestine, focusing instead on the urgency of providing resources to fight antisemitism. “Don’t let the radical anti-Israel advocates within the NEA marginalize Jewish voices,” read the ADL email.
Whereas Merriam-Webster defines antisemitism as “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group” and makes no distinction between the antisemitism that fueled the Holocaust and today’s white supremacist chants “Jews will not replace us,” the ADL’s Echoes and Reflections curriculum, co-developed with the Shoah Foundation and Yad Vashem, includes a unit that defines contemporary antisemitism as “anti-Zionism and opposition to the State of Israel.”
The unit introduces a pro-Israel vocabulary framework—delegitimization, demonization, and double-standards–a 3D test to evaluate whether an incident is antisemitic. Under this rubric, the campus slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is noted 600 times in the ADL’s 2024 audit of antisemitic incidents, according to the magazine Jewish Currents, which conducted a “line by line” examination of the audit. Even the ADL admits that 58% of the incidents cited in its 2024 audit were related to criticism of Israel.
Still, teachers and students who access ADL curriculum—No Place for Hate, Echoes and Reflections, A World of Difference—are encouraged, through links back to the ADL website, to complete a complaint form accusing others of involvement in what the ADL defines as antisemitic incidents.
On the floor of the Representative Assembly, delegate Stephen Siegel of Oregon reminded the delegates that Wikipedia editors determined the ADL is not a reliable source on antisemitism. “Allowing the ADL to determine what constitutes antisemitism would be like allowing the fossil fuel industry to determine what constitutes climate change,” said Siegel.
Backers of the NEA motion object to the ADL’s Zionist framing and stereotyping of all Jews as supporters of Israel.
“The ADL and other Zionist organizations continually try to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism,” said Judy Greenspan, the Oakland Education Association NEA delegate who introduced the motion that emerged from the Educators for Palestine Caucus inside the 3-million-member union. “The NEA will no longer be bullied into supporting this genocidal war,” added Greenspan, a public school teacher and member of Jewish Voice for Peace who was among the 6,000 delegates at the NEA Representative Assembly.
In the days following the RA, photos of delegates who championed the motion were posted on social media, leading to “doxing, harassment, and hate emails,” according to Greenspan.
In contrast, Jason Goldfisher, an NEA Jewish Affairs Caucus delegate, complained on his Facebook page that his Jewish friends did not feel safe following the vote at the NEA convention. “There were tears. Panic attacks. Silent breakdowns,” wrote Goldfisher, who noted the presence of keffiyehs in the assembly room.
“Yes, many of us wore keffiyehs throughout the NEA Representative Assembly,” said Greenspan, “because we wanted to visibly show our support for the Palestinian people who are being brutally murdered by the U.S. and Israel in what can only be called a genocidal holocaust. One of the continuing mantras of the Zionists is that our anti-Zionist activism makes them feel ‘unsafe.’ It is such a false narrative because looking at what is happening in the world objectively, it is the Palestinians who are being brutally massacred by the Israeli government with U.S. bombs and military equipment.”
On the floor of the assembly, a delegate from the “great state of New Jersey” skipped over Israel’s concentration camp in Gaza to “rise in opposition” to the NEA motion. “The ADL defends members of the Jewish community against hate, discrimination, and antisemitism. That support extends to our students and fellow educators who use those resources regularly,” said the delegate whose name was “unclear” in a transcript of the debate.
The ADL, however, did not defend New England teachers who developed a counternarrative to the “land without a people for a people without a land" mythology. Former MTA President Najimy said the ADL launched a smear campaign against the MTA to accuse the union of antisemitism following the MTA’s development of resources on Palestinian history and indigeneity. “So why would we partner with an organization that is actively trying to discredit the teachers’ union?” said Najimy.
In 2024, when the federal census added a new category—Middle East-North Africa—the NEA bestowed formal recognition on a MENA Caucus, which Najimy said helped delegates understand that the union’s commitment to antiracism must include support for equal rights for Palestinians. Israel’s live-streamed genocide also brought new member delegates to the NEA RA, making passage of the motion possible due to widespread outrage, according to Najimy.
The NEA motion rejecting the ADL followed a similar motion passed overwhelmingly last spring by the governing body of United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), which represents 35,000 educators in the country’s second-largest teachers union, right behind New York City. The UTLA motion asked Los Angeles Unified School Board members, administrators, and educators not to adopt or teach ADL curriculum or partner with the ADL for professional development because “the organization conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism to suppress debate.”
In its rationale, the UTLA motion referenced the ADL’s history of surveilling activists (UAW, NAACP, ACLU), suing school districts, and sending a threatening letter to college presidents demanding investigations of the nonviolent Students for Justice in Palestine.
With the ADL appealing to the NEA’s nine-member executive committee to reconsider the motion, union President Becky Pringle walks a tightrope as the committee studies whether to say yay or nay to the majority of delegates rejecting the ADL.
Pringle assured the public that the NEA is committed to combating “all forms of hate and discrimination, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bigotry.” In a public statement on the actions taken at this summer’s NEA’s Representative Assembly, Pringle reminded critics that the NEA hosted a panel on antisemitism, honored a Holocaust survivor, and voted to honor Jewish American Heritage Month.
The NEA executive committee will forward its recommendation on the motion to the NEA board, which will then circle back with the Representative Assembly for a final vote, according to Najimy.
In solidarity with Educators for Palestine, CODEPINK urged its supporters to reach out to the NEA executive committee, and Jewish Voice for Peace asked its members to weigh in with a one-click tweet to NEA leadership:
Thank you @NEAToday for voting to cut ties with the ADL. The ADL pretends it’s a civil rights group, but really, it’s a pro-Israel lobbying group that smears Palestinian rights, and it should never be trusted as an educational resource. I urge all educators to #DropTheADL.
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Rights Group Applauds Vote by Largest US Teachers Union to Cut ADL Ties
"Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be," said the National Education Association.
Jul 08, 2025
A leading Muslim civil rights group was among those applauding on Tuesday after the largest labor union in the United States took a major step toward "fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools" by voting to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League.
The National Education Association (NEA), which represents nearly 3 million educators, approved a measure saying it "will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or statistics."
The move is significant considering the influence the ADL has had over curriculum related to Israel in U.S. schools for decades, with the organization devising recent lesson plans about antisemitism "in the extreme political left" in the U.S., noting that such supposed antisemitism "is often centered on opposition to the state of Israel."
The ADL published a report last year that equated antisemitism with anti-Zionism and pointed to nationwide demonstrations against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Palestinians in Gaza as evidence that antisemitism is on the rise in the United States. The group has also lobbied in favor of legislation like the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which critics have said could be used to limit the right to criticize Israel on school campuses.
The NEA's 7,000-member Representative Assembly voted for the measure on Sunday, finding that "despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be."
In the lead-up to the vote, former Massachusetts Teachers Association president Merrie Najimy cited the ADL's attacks last year in the MTA as evidence that the national group is focused on rooting out and ostracizing critics of Israel's U.S.-backed policies and defenders of Palestinian rights—not on promoting civil rights for all members of school communities.
"This principled move is a significant step toward fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools, who must receive an education without facing biased, politically driven agendas."
When the MTA's elected board of directors called on the union to create resources for teachers to use to educate themselves about the history of Palestine, the ADL accused the union of "glorifying terrorism" and displayed what the MTA called "manipulated" resources at a state commission hearing on antisemitism in February.
"We had been led to believe that the commission hearing would provide the opportunity for a thoughtful discussion about how to teach this very difficult conflict with our students," said the MTA about the ADL's use of the resources. "The way these resources were manipulated in such a fashion, so as to label the state's largest union of educators as promoters of antisemitism, remains one of the more deplorable displays witnessed at the State House."
Labor Notes reported on Monday that MTA members are still facing attacks stemming from the ADL's claims that the union was promoting antisemitism in schools.
"Why would we partner with an organization that does us harm?" Najimy said ahead of the NEA vote.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Tuesday it welcomed the vote "to stop exposing public school students to biased materials provided by the Anti-Defamation League," and noted that in addition to "using false allegations of antisemitism to silence advocacy for Palestinian human rights," the ADL has historically demonstrated "opposition to Black movements for racial equality, including Black Lives Matter and the South African anti-apartheid movement."
ADL CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote in the New York Jewish Week in 2016 that Black Lives Matter leaders "have expressed support for efforts to boycott and divest from the state of Israel" and claimed those efforts "often are rooted in bigotry." The group also targeted activists who opposed apartheid in South Africa
"The ADL has only become worse under its increasingly unhinged director Jonathan Greenblatt, who has repeatedly smeared and endangered students in recent years," said CAIR. "This principled move is a significant step toward fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools, who must receive an education without facing biased, politically driven agendas."
CAIR pointed to recent statements made by Greenblatt in which he reportedly equated pro-Palestinian protesters to ISIS and falsely claimed that Jewish and other students protesting Israel's bombardment of Gaza are "campus proxies" for the Iranian government.
Palestinian-American civil rights attorney Huwaida Arraf said the ADL "has long masqueraded as a civil rights organization while actively working to suppress antiracist movements."
The anti-war group CodePink has led efforts to end the ADL's influence over public education, with organizer Marcy Winograd speaking out against the group's so-called "No Place for Hate" program earlier this year.
"The ADL's stated mission is to empower students, teachers, and parents to 'stand against bias and bullying...' with schoolwide pledges, projects, and games aimed at celebrating diversity and stamping out hate," wrote Winograd in a column at Common Dreams.
But when the Los Angeles Unified School District instituted the No Place for Hate program, its official website shared "an article attacking American Muslims for Palestine for 'being at the core of the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movement in the United States.'"
"While selling schools on activities to bolster respect and community, the ADL... engineers the death of debate over Israel's right to exist as a Jewish nationalist state in historic Palestine," wrote Winograd.
"Schools," she wrote, "are no place for the ADL."
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Split Supreme Court Won't Allow First Religious Public Charter School in US
Although another case could soon come before the high court, the ACLU still welcomed that, for now, "public schools must remain secular and welcome all students, regardless of faith."
May 22, 2025
Public education and First Amendment advocates on Thursday celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to allow the nation's first religious public charter school in Oklahoma—even though the outcome of this case doesn't rule out the possibility of another attempt to establish such an institution.
"Requiring states to allow religious public schools would dismantle religious freedom and public education as we know it," Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement about the 4-4 decison. "Today, a core American constitutional value remains in place: Public schools must remain secular and welcome all students, regardless of faith."
Wang's group and other partners had filed a lawsuit over St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School on behalf of parents, faith leaders, and public school advocates. Her colleague Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, declared Thursday that "the very idea of a religious public school is a constitutional oxymoron."
The new one-page opinion states that "the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court," which means the Oklahoma Supreme Court's June 2024 ruling against St. Isidore remains in place. There are nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett—who is part of its right-wing supermajority—recused herself from this case.
"While Justice Barrett did not provide an explanation for her recusal, it may be because she is close friends with Nicole Stelle Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School who was an early adviser for St. Isidore," The New York Times noted. "Although justices sometimes provide reasons when they recuse themselves, they are not required to do so."
Law Dork's Chris Geidner warned that "a new challenge not requiring her recusal could easily return to the court in short order—especially now that the court has shown its interest in taking on the issue."
In this case, as Common Dreams reported during oral arguments last month, Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to be the deciding vote. Geidner pointed out Thursday that while it seems most likely that he sided with the three liberals, "even that could have been as much of a vote to put off a decision as a substantive ruling on the matter."
Some groups happy with the outcome in this case also highlighted that the battle is expected to continue.
"This is a crucial, if narrow, win for constitutional principles," Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said in a statement. "A publicly funded religious charter school would have obliterated the wall of separation between state and church. We're relieved that, at least for now, the First Amendment still means what it says."
"The fight isn't over," Gaylor added. "The forces trying to undermine our public schools and constitutional freedoms are already regrouping. FFRF will continue to defend secular education and the rights of all Americans to be free from government-imposed religion."
Leading teachers unions also weighed in with both an amicus brief submitted to the high court and Thursday statements.
"Educators and parents know that student success depends on more resources in our public schools, not less. Yet for too long, we have seen anti-public education forces attempt to deprive public school students of necessary funding and support," National Education Association president Becky Pringle said Thursday. "We are gratified that the Supreme Court did not take the radical step of upending public education by requiring states to have religious charter schools."
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten also welcomed that the high court on Thursday let stand the Oklahoma decision, "which correctly upheld the separation of church and state and backed the founders' intention to place religious pluralism over sectarianism."
"We are grateful that it upheld the state's highest court's clear and unambiguous ruling to preserve and nurture the roots of our democracy, not tear up its very foundations," Weingarten said in a statement. "We respect and honor religious education. It should be separate from public schooling."
"Public schools, including public charter schools, are funded by taxpayer dollars because they are dedicated to helping all—not just some—children have a shot at success," she stressed. "They are the bedrock of our democracy, and states have long worked to ensure that they remain secular, open, and accessible to all."
This article has been updated with comment from the National Education Association.
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GOP Bill Gives Rich Funders of Deeply Unpopular School Privatization 'A Lucrative Tax Shelter'
"The House tax plan would create a system that treats people supporting private K-12 vouchers far more generously than donors to children's hospitals, veterans' groups, and every other cause imaginable."
May 16, 2025
Embedded in the House GOP's advancing reconciliation package is a major, long-sought victory for school privatization advocates that would let rich funders of vouchers avoid taxation, a change that opponents warned would supercharge the right-wing assault on public education.
The measure, which resembles the GOP-authored Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), was tucked into the House Republican tax legislation that passed out of the chamber's Ways and Means Committee earlier this week.
In effect, according to an analysis published Thursday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the legislation "allows wealthy individuals to avoid paying capital gains tax as a reward for funneling public funds into private schools."
"While the bill significantly cuts charitable giving incentives overall, nonprofits that commit to focusing solely on supporting private K-12 schools would be spared from those cuts and see their donors' tax incentive almost triple relative to what they receive today," ITEP explained. "On top of that, the bill goes out of its way to provide school voucher donors who contribute corporate stock with an extra layer of tax subsidy that works as a lucrative tax shelter."
"The House tax plan would create a system that treats people supporting private K-12 vouchers far more generously than donors to children's hospitals, veterans' groups, and every other cause imaginable," the group added.
ITEP estimated that if the policy had been in effect in 2021, billionaire Elon Musk could have saved $690 million in federal capital gains taxes.
"By putting this arrangement on the books," ITEP said, "the bill's proponents have ensured that there will be an eager pool of wealthy donors lined up to help move public funds into private schools, and to collect their capital gains tax cuts as a reward."
Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, said Republicans' effort to ram the tax scheme through as part of their filibuster-proof reconciliation package is a testament to the unpopularity of school privatization at the state and local levels.
"People don't like this stuff," Cowen told Roll Call. "Voters, whether they're Republican or Democrat, look at this stuff, and they're like, what does this really do for me?"
Supporters of school privatization were quick to celebrate the inclusion of tax breaks for voucher donors, with the American Federation for Children applauding Republican leaders for their "relentless commitment to ensuring school choice becomes the law of the land."
The American Federation for Children is funded by the family of billionaire Betsy DeVos, who served as education secretary during President Donald Trump's first term.
The DeVos family is part of a network of deep-pocketed school privatization proponents that has been working for years to siphon taxpayer funding away from public schools and toward private—often religious—institutions.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told The New York Times on Tuesday that voucher supporters "don't believe in public schooling."
"We are against giving people tax breaks to defund public schools," the union leader said. "What you're seeing here is the fragmentation of American education."
The National Education Association, the largest teachers' union in the U.S., has also voiced opposition to the voucher tax break scheme, writing in a letter to members of the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this week that "taxpayer dollars should go to public schools open to all students, not private schools that can pick and choose their students."
"Every time voucher schemes are on state ballots—17 times in total, including three states last November—voters have rejected them," reads the letter. "America cannot afford to fund two education systems, one private and one public."
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US Supreme Court Could OK Religious Public Charter School in Oklahoma
"Allowing taxpayer dollars to fund religious charter schools would put both public education and religious freedom at risk," warned one teachers union leader.
Apr 30, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments over what could become the country's first taxpayer-funded religious charter school—and opponents of the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School renewed their warnings about the proposal.
Faith leaders, parents, and educators celebrated last June, when the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against establishing St. Isidore. The test case for all such schools has now advanced to the country's highest court, which has a right-wing supermajority.
Reporting on over two hours of arguments Wednesday, Law Dork's Chris Geidner wrote that "the religious supremacy movement from the right's majority on the U.S. Supreme Court—with its outside helpers—appeared likely to... OK the first religious charter school in the country."
"Justices Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh appeared eager to do so, and Justice Neil Gorsuch's past writing in a related case signaled his alignment with the move, at least in principle," Geidner detailed. "Chief Justice John Roberts—the key vote then since Justice Amy Coney Barrett has recused herself from the case—appeared to be open to the idea as well."
Other legal reporters also concluded that Roberts appears to be the "key vote," given that the three liberals—Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor—all "expressed significant reservations" about allowing a religious charter school.
It appears very likely that the Supreme Court will force Oklahoma to approve and fund a Catholic charter school that reserves the right to indoctrinate students in Catholicism, force them to attend mass, and discriminate against non-Catholics. The three liberals sound increasingly exasperated.
— Mark Joseph Stern ( @mjsdc.bsky.social) April 30, 2025 at 11:52 AM
According to The Associated Press:
If Roberts sides with the liberals, the court would be tied 4-4, an outcome that would leave the state court decision in place, but would leave the issue unresolved nationally.
If he joins his conservative colleagues, on the other hand, the court could find that the taxpayer-funded school is in line with a string of high court decisions that have allowed public funds to flow to religious entities. Those rulings were based on a different part of the First Amendment that protects religious freedom.
Roberts wrote the last three of those decisions. He acknowledged at one point that the court had previously ruled that states "couldn't exclude religious participants," suggesting support for St. Isidore.
But he also said the state's involvement in this case is "much more comprehensive" than in the earlier ones, a point that could lead him in the other direction.
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in a statement after the arguments that "we respect religious education and the Founders' intention in separating church and state."
"Public schools, including public charter schools, are funded by taxpayer dollars because they are dedicated to helping all—not just some—children have a shot at success," the union leader said. "They are the bedrock of our democracy, and states have long worked to ensure that they remain secular, open, and accessible to all. They are not, and never have been, Sunday schools."
"The petitioners are seeking to change that," Weingarten warned. "Religious schools should be able to operate in the U.S., but they are not public schools, and they shouldn't be able to get the benefits and the funding yet ignore the obligations and responsibilities."
"Our hope is that the justices will uphold the Supreme Court of Oklahoma's decision, correctly siding with religious pluralism over sectarianism," she concluded. "A reversal would be a devastating blow to public education and the 90% of young people who rely on it. We must preserve and nurture the roots of our democracy, not tear up its very foundations."
The country's other leading teachers union also opposes the establishment of the Oklahoma school. National Education Association president Becky Pringle said in a statement this week that "every student—no matter where they live, what they look like, or their religion—deserves access to a fully funded neighborhood public school that gives them a sense of belonging and prepares them with the lessons and life skills they need."
"Allowing taxpayer dollars to fund religious charter schools would put both public education and religious freedom at risk," Pringle asserted, "opening the door to more privatization that undermines our public education system."
Proud to join @faithfulamerica.bsky.social outside of SCOTUS ahead of oral arguments in the OK religious charter school case, which challenges whether public funds can be used to support religious charter schools. As religious Americans, we say the separation of church and state is good for both!
[image or embed]
— Interfaith Alliance (@interfaithalliance.org) April 30, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Chris Yarrell, an attorney at the Center for Law and Education, similarly warned in a Common Dreams opinion piece earlier this month that "if the court sides with St. Isidore, the ripple effects could be seismic, triggering a wave of religious charter school applications and fundamentally altering the landscape of public education."
In addition to fighting for a taxpayer-funded religious school, Christian nationalists in Oklahoma want to put Bibles in public school classrooms—an effort the state Supreme Court has temporarily impeded.
The court last month blocked Oklahoma's superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, and education department from spending taxpayer dollars on Bibles and Bible-infused instructional materials.
“This victory is an important step toward protecting the religious freedom of every student and parent in Oklahoma," legal groups supporting plaintiffs who challenged the policy
said at the time. "Walters has been abusing his power, and the court checked those abuses today. Our diverse coalition of families and clergy remains united against Walters' extremism and in favor of a core First Amendment principle: the separation of church and state."
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