The National Education Association is asking delegates to approve a $5.2 million campaign demanding President Donald Trump’s “impeachment, conviction, and removal” from office before voters even head to the polls this November.
That’s just one item on a sprawling wish list the country’s largest teachers union, and largest labor union overall, unveiled at its annual gathering. The proposals read less like an education agenda and more like a progressive activist playbook, touching everything from reparations to immigration obstruction to transgender ideology in schools.
School choice advocate Corey A. DeAngelis reported Sunday that Item 10 on the union’s new business agenda, backed by 50 California delegates, calls for a “National March on Washington D.C. to remove Trump before the November 2026 midterm election.” The rationale cites fears of a “MAGA mob” staging another “coup attempt” if Republicans lose badly at the polls. A hypothetical scenario, in other words, being used to justify real-world action against a sitting president.
The price tag alone should raise eyebrows: $5,236,193.
But the anti-Trump push is far from the only controversial measure on the table. Item 24 would have the NEA president lobby the Congressional Black Caucus to advance “Educational Reparations.” Backers claim the initiative would eliminate student loan debt, direct funding to historically black colleges and universities, and dismantle property-tax-based school funding entirely.
Then there’s Item 46, which would put the union in the business of printing and distributing so-called “Red Cards.” These multilingual materials are designed to help educators and students’ families evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The union frames the nearly $219,000 initiative as protecting frightened families. Critics will likely see it differently: a taxpayer-adjacent institution teaching staff how to obstruct federal law enforcement.
Foreign policy makes an appearance too. Item 85 would direct NEA Today, the union’s official magazine, to publish articles defending teachers who bring lessons on “genocide in Palestine” into their classrooms. The $222,000 proposal includes language about “generational trauma” and claims educators are being “disciplined, doxxed and fired” for sharing their views on the Israeli-Hamas war.
Gender ideology runs through multiple proposals. Item 20 would rewrite the union’s family emergency planning guides to include instructions for transgender individuals on legal name changes and “affirming healthcare.” Item 78 would create state-by-state “legal risk” maps for transgender people and promote a “Trans Youth in Sports Conversation Guide” at a cost of $12,500.
Item 42 rounds out the agenda with a $314,000 “Culturally Responsive Teaching” library pushing “gender equity matters” and multilingual instruction into classrooms across the country.
All told, the proposals would cost more than $6 million combined. Delegates acknowledge that money isn’t in the current budget. But that hasn’t stopped the 3-million-member organization from pushing deeper into political territory that has nothing to do with teaching children to read, write, or do arithmetic.
The NEA’s agenda offers a clear window into what the education establishment prioritizes. And it isn’t the basics.
