The Teacher Freedom Alliance says more than 272,000 teachers have opted out of union membership.
New organized labor reforms signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week require a majority of members to be present for teachers union certification or recertification votes, increase fines for illegal strikes, and establish merit-based pay for educators.
In Idaho, after July 1, teachers unions will be prohibited from collecting dues directly from members’ paychecks, using paid time off for union activities, or recruiting new members during school hours.
A similar law in Arizona, which also bans teacher strikes and prohibits organized labor members from using any school property—even email addresses—for union activities, will be decided on by voters in the November election.
“They can’t consume taxpayer-funded resources during the school day,” said Rusty Brown, special projects director for the Freedom Foundation policy organization, which assisted state legislators with those measures and helps teachers opt out of union membership.
These ideas are expected to gain ground throughout the nation in the months and years ahead, Brown told The Epoch Times.
Individually, the Freedom Foundation’s Teacher Freedom Alliance has so far helped more than 272,535 teachers opt out of union membership, including more than 50,000 in 2025 alone, according to data provided to The Epoch Times. This includes educators in red and blue states.
At the state level, Oklahoma lawmakers have advanced legislation that would allow teachers to withdraw from a union at any time and would terminate “closed shop” provisions that prevent teachers from accessing alternative labor or professional organizations, such as the Teacher Freedom Alliance.
Brown calls this an “equal access and an end to a monopoly and captive audience bill.” Alternative organizations can offer teacher liability insurance and other benefits at a fraction of the price that traditional unions charge, he said.
Alabama state lawmakers will consider legislation similar to Oklahoma’s next session, he said.
Maxford Nelsen, Freedom Foundation’s director of research and government affairs, said several factors prompted growing interest in pushing back against teachers unions. Members do not like that dues are automatically deducted from their paychecks. There is increasing animosity toward “zombie unions,” in which a limited number of members are informed or allowed to vote on matters. Labor organizations also engage in practices that create very narrow windows and bureaucratic hurdles for terminating membership.
“That’s the last thing they want to think about during their summer vacation,” Nelsen told The Epoch Times, citing one union’s requirement in which opt-outs were limited to the last 10 days of July.
Perhaps the most contentious issue, Nelson said, is how teachers union dues are spent. A review of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers unions’ websites shows that both heavily favor Democrats and promote transgender ideology; diversity, equity, and inclusion practices; special protections for illegal immigrants; anti-school choice measures; and other left-leaning policies.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into this progressive apparatus,” Nelson said.
A recent report from Defending Education, a conservative policy center, states that teachers unions at the local, state, and national levels have spent more than $1 billion on “far-left political causes” unrelated to collective bargaining since 2015. This includes school board races, political action committees, and campaigns against school choice.
“Given the outsized role that unions have played in the education system over the past 50 years, greater transparency on union spending is absolutely critical so that policymakers and teachers themselves can make informed decisions about the role that these entities should—or should not—play in the future,” Defending Education President Nicole Neily said in an April 27 statement.
