WASHINGTON, D.C. –  Today, U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced the Terminating Education Association Congressional Handouts (TEACH) Act to ban the National Education Association (NEA) from influencing the decisions of the federal government. This follows Senator Blackburn’s legislation to revoke the congressional charter of the NEA, the nation’s largest teachers’ union and the only labor union with a federal charter.

“The National Education Association has abandoned its mission of supporting America’s teachers and students in the name of pushing its far-left political agenda,” said Senator Blackburn. “The NEA has become nothing more than a radical-left activist group, and it has no business using its status as a congressionally chartered entity to push woke gender ideology, antisemitism, and propaganda on America’s students.”

BACKGROUND

• The National Education Association (NEA) voted to fight against President “Trump’s embrace of fascism,” promote LGBTQ events in public schools, and members backed severing all ties with the Anti-Defamation League. These latest examples of NEA’s blatant political bias, along with its recent promotion of hatred and antisemitism, are a clear departure from the organization’s intended purpose.

• The NEA has a long list of egregious violations of public trust:

• In the 2024 election cycle, 98 percent of NEA political donations went to Democrats. 

• In 2023, the NEA partnered with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), who collaborated with the Target Corporation to promote an obscene, radical agenda in their stores.

• In July 2021, the NEA adopted measures to support critical race theory.

• The NEA stood in the way of reopening schools in 2020 and 2021 by threatening strikes and influencing CDC guidance process to make it harder for schools to reopen.

• The NEA erased the word “Jewish” when referencing the Holocaust in their handbook. The NEA then erased the handbook from their website after being caught.

• Senator Blackburn and U.S. Representative Mark Harris (R-N.C.) introduced the National Education Association Charter Repeal Act  to revoke the congressional charter of the NEA.

THE TEACH ACT

The TEACH Act would:

• Ban the NEA from influencing the decisions of the federal government; and

• Require the NEA to submit an annual certification to the Secretary of Education that the association has not engaged in any such attempts. 

Click here for bill text.