Follow the Dues: Report Says Teachers Unions Spent Nearly $8 Million on School Ballot Fights, and Here's Where Parents Won

Ten days after the midterm elections, a new accounting of teachers union money is giving parents a clearer picture of who stood where on the ballot questions that touched their children's schools. The National Education Association, its advocacy fund and its state and local affiliates put nearly $7.8 million into campaigns over school choice and education-related ballot measures in just three states this year, according to a report from the parents' rights group Defending Education that Fox News detailed this week ^[1].

The results of those fights were mixed. Washington voters protected girls' sports but narrowly turned down a parents' rights measure ^[2]. Arizona's school choice program came through the year untouched after a union-backed effort to rein it in never reached the ballot ^[4]. And in New Jersey, federal investigators are now reportedly examining how the state's largest teachers union spent tens of millions of dollars on a run for governor ^[5]. Here is what happened, what each side says, and what comes next for families.

What the report found

Defending Education tallied $7,791,929.95 in contributions from the NEA, its Advocacy Fund and state and local affiliates to political action committees and groups working on ballot fights in Alaska, Arizona and Washington, Fox News reported ^[1]. The group drew the figures from campaign filings and from internal union documents ^[1].

By far the largest share went to Arizona. A committee called Protect Education, Accountability Now received more than $7.07 million from the Arizona Education Association and the NEA in the first two quarters of 2026 for its campaign against the state's school choice program, according to the report ^[1]. Defending Education said the committee appears to be run by the president of a local NEA affiliate, the Kyrene Education Association, a link Fox News said it could not independently confirm ^[1].

In Washington, the Washington Education Association gave more than $391,000 to a group called No Hate in WA State, which opposed both a measure to restore parents' rights in public schools and a measure requiring sex verification for girls' school sports ^[1]. In Alaska, the NEA Advocacy Fund gave $250,000 to a group opposing a ballot measure on the state's election system, the report said ^[1].

The report also pointed to an NEA guidance document stating that unions may spend unlimited amounts from their general treasuries on ballot measures in any state, subject to agreements with state affiliates ^[1]. For a teacher whose dues fund that treasury, and for parents whose children sit in those teachers' classrooms, that is worth knowing.

Washington: a split verdict, then a lawsuit

Washington's ballot carried two citizen initiatives sponsored by the group Let's Go Washington. The girls' sports measure, IL26-638, passed comfortably, while the parents' rights measure, IL26-001, was failing with more than 52 percent of voters opposed and about 47 percent in favor, The Center Square reported ^[2]. The parents' rights initiative would have restored the right of parents to see their children's school information, rolling back changes lawmakers made in 2025 to a parents' bill of rights the Legislature had adopted the year before ^[2].

The girls' sports measure won roughly 56 percent of the vote, and within a week opponents were in court ^[3]. A coalition of parents, educators and nonprofit groups sued the state in King County Superior Court, arguing the initiative violates the Washington Constitution's provisions on privacy, equal rights and the right to an education, the Washington State Standard reported ^[3]. Among the plaintiffs is the Washington Education Association itself, the state's largest teachers union, alongside an organization that supports families of children who identify as transgender ^[3]. They are seeking an emergency order to keep the law from taking effect while the case proceeds ^[3].

Related Kristan Hawkins Wraps 'Feminists Lied' Campus Debate Tour With Turning Point USA

The state attorney general's office is responsible for defending the voter-approved law, and Let's Go Washington disputed the lawsuit's claims in a lengthy statement, according to the Washington State Standard ^[3]. The initiative is set to take effect Dec. 3 unless a judge blocks it ^[3].

The sequence matters. The same union that helped fund the campaign against the measure is now asking a court to set aside the result, after a clear majority of Washington voters sided with the girls who wanted fair competition ^[1][3].

Arizona: school choice survives

Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which lets families direct public education dollars to private school tuition, homeschool materials and other approved expenses, was the target of the biggest spending in the report ^[1]. The union-backed Protect Education Act would have barred families earning more than $150,000 a year from the program and sent unspent account money back to public schools, the Arizona Capitol Times reported ^[4].

The measure never reached voters. In August, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled the campaign had not proven its claim that about 24,000 signatures were wrongly subtracted twice, leaving it roughly 10,000 signatures short of the 255,949 it needed to qualify, according to the Arizona Capitol Times ^[4]. Supporters of the measure said they wanted more accountability and limits on the program's cost; school choice advocates welcomed the ruling, and the program continues unchanged for families this school year ^[4].

New Jersey: federal investigators look at union political money

The week's newest development came from New Jersey. Federal authorities are investigating how the New Jersey Education Association used roughly $40 million to support the 2025 campaign for governor of its president, Sean Spiller, Politico reported, according to Montclair Local ^[5]. Several people connected to Working New Jersey, a super PAC closely tied to the union that backed Spiller's candidacy, have received subpoenas, at least one of them from the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey ^[5].

The union money moved through a super PAC called Garden State Forward, which also steered at least $5 million to a nonprofit that promoted Spiller, Montclair Local reported ^[5]. Two teachers had already sued the union and Spiller in state court in 2025, arguing that the union's political committee and that nonprofit together gave his campaign twice the legal contribution limit ^[5].

The U.S. Attorney's Office and Spiller declined to comment, and a union spokesperson declined to discuss the investigation but said the association has a long record of cooperating fully with government inquiries ^[5]. No charges have been reported, and the people under scrutiny deserve the presumption of innocence. But teachers who never chose to bankroll a political campaign have a fair question about where their dues went.

Bow, N.H.: parents win the right to speak on the sidelines

Not every fight this fall was about money. In New Hampshire, the Bow School District settled a free-speech lawsuit brought by parents who were punished for silently wearing pink wristbands marked XX, for the female chromosome pair, at a September 2024 girls' soccer game to show their support for female-only sports, the Concord Monitor reported ^[6]. School officials called police during the game, and the district later issued no-trespass orders that barred two fathers from district property and their daughters' events ^[6].

Under the settlement, a federal judge entered a declaratory judgment on Nov. 5 that the district violated the parents' First Amendment rights, and the district agreed to pay about $275,000 in legal fees, according to the Concord Monitor ^[6]. Parents in Bow may silently wear the wristbands on the sidelines going forward ^[6]. As one of the parents put it to the paper, "What happened to us was wrong" ^[6].

What it means for families, and what comes next

Taken together, the week's news points in one direction. Parents are asking to be treated as partners in their children's education, not as obstacles to it, and Scripture's charge in Proverbs to train up a child in the way he should go has always placed that duty first with mothers and fathers. When parents organize, gather signatures and win at the ballot box, as they did on girls' sports in Washington, the people's decision deserves respect from school districts and unions alike.

Several dates are now on the calendar. Washington's girls' sports law is set to take effect Dec. 3, and a King County judge will decide whether to put it on hold first ^[3]. In New Jersey, the federal inquiry into union political spending continues ^[5]. In Arizona, the school choice program carries on for families this school year ^[4]. And in Washington, supporters of the parents' rights measure must decide how to answer a narrow defeat ^[2].

For parents, the lesson of the fall is simple: show up, read the filings, and ask who is paying for the campaigns that shape your children's schools.