Unions continue to put millions into school board races.
Former President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute Chris Braunlich said teachers’ unions are controlling the education system and have been funding pro-union political candidates, all the way down to school board members, in an effort to retain their power. Braunlich said parents and other concerned citizens must be aware of what teachers’ unions are doing and stop their monopoly, including their control of school boards.
School boards have become a battleground for major cultural issues, including parental rights, critical race theory, racial justice, transgenderism, sex education, gun laws, first amendment rights, misinformation, etc., because school boards can decide policy in all of these areas.
“If you are concerned about what your local school board is doing, you need to be equally concerned with what the political forces backing them are doing,” Braunlich said during a July 6 webinar to discuss the effect of collective bargaining on public schools.
There are approximately 83,000 school board members and 13,000 districts in the United States. Approximately 9,000 school districts across 35 states are holding regular school board elections in 2023, according to Ballotpedia.
Two of the largest teachers’ unions, the National Education Association (NEA), ended the 2022 school year with 2.5 million working members, down 40,107, and the American Federation of Teachers (ATF) had 1.12 million, a loss of 19,078 active in most school districts across the U.S. including Virginia.
Despite lower member numbers, the combined income of NEA and its local affiliates reached close to $1.75 billion in 2020-21, an increase of $49 million (2.9%) from the previous year, of which nearly all is exempt from income and capital gains taxes.
Collective Bargaining
If state laws allow, school boards control whether or not their district can collectively bargain.
School divisions across Virginia are starting to unionize, with the Fairfax County School Board (FCPS) and the Falls Church School Board having approved resolutions allowing for collective bargaining among public school employees in March.
By Masooma Haq
