A record number of labor union members were elected to public office across the US in Tuesday's midterm elections as voters nationwide issued a furious rebuke to corporate interests that spent record sums trying to influence the vote. The AFL-CIO, America's largest labor federation, said Wednesday that 639 card-carrying union members…
Page A231From§Eachthe morning edition — 8 November 2026
Teachers union, accused of quitting classrooms for politics, touts a record 639 political wins.
As it ran on the front
On November 7, a teacher who has carried her National Education Association and California Teachers Association card for twenty-six years told Fox News the union she pays dues to is no longer focused on children, only on political power.
Two days earlier, on November 5, the union's own parent federation agreed with her, though it used different words. The AFL-CIO announced that a record 639 card-carrying union members had been elected to public office across the country in Tuesday's midterms — Democrats, mostly, with names like Troy Jackson in Maine, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico in Texas, Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania. The federation called it a blue wave, union-made. All together now — read the number the federation chose to lead with: six hundred thirty-nine.…
…(cont) Six hundred thirty-nine is not a count of students reading at grade level, or classrooms staffed, or contracts negotiated for smaller class sizes. It is a count of elections won. The teacher's complaint and the federation's brag describe the identical fact in the identical week — one files it as abandonment, the other files it as a record — and the only difference between the two documents is which side of the press release you are standing on.
This was not news to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. On October 17, three weeks before the teacher's statement and the federation's number, the committee had already published a report accusing the two largest teachers unions, the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers, of "promoting dangerous ideology instead of advancing our children's learning." The committee made the accusation in a document. The federation made the same accusation, unintentionally, in a press release bragging about a number. The teacher just said it out loud, with her name attached to her own dues statement.
None of this requires a theory. A 26-year member looked at what the union did with the week's headline and did not see a classroom in it. Reading the same week's paperwork, neither did we.
“This is the oldest trick in the dues statement: call political power "organizing" and call losing classroom funding "strategy." A teacher doing the math for twenty-six years finally said out loud what the federation already bragged about — the dues go to winning elections, not winning spelling bees. Follow the money and you'll find it in campaign accounts, not supply closets.”
“Look, political power for teachers is classroom power — when union-backed candidates win, they're the ones writing the education budgets, so every dollar spent on campaigns is really an investment in curriculum, sort of. Did I just say campaigns are curriculum? That's not — strike that.”
The receipts
Teachers spent an average of $895 of their own money on classroom supplies last school year AdoptAClassroom.org 2025 Teacher Spending Survey
Member of largest teachers union in US claims org is 'no longer focused on children,' only 'political power'A 26-year NEA and California Teachers Association member says unions abandoned classroom instruction to focus on political power and activism.
· The teachers unions’ activist allies: You won’t believe the outside organizations that drive educational dysfunction from the morgue, 17 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.