The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Teachers Unions' $1B+ Taxpayer-Funded Political Agenda Exposed

Summary

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The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Teachers Unions' $1B+ Taxpayer-Funded Political Agenda Exposed

Date: May 11, 2026
Host: Tudor Dixon
Guest: Nikki Neely (President, Parents Defending Education)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tudor Dixon invites Nikki Neely to discuss a newly released investigative report exposing how teachers unions in the United States direct over a billion dollars—much of it taxpayer-funded—towards advancing a progressive political agenda. The conversation unpacks the mechanics of union dues, the pressure on teachers to join, and startling details about the unions’ political spending at local, state, and national levels. The tone is urgent and critical, aiming to inform and mobilize listeners about the political influence wielded by teachers unions and its impact on American education and politics.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. How Taxpayer Money Fuels Union Politics

• Union dues and funding: Teachers’ union dues, often paid with taxpayer dollars (since teacher salaries are publicly funded), are being used to bankroll political campaigns and causes rather than focusing on education and teachers' welfare.
  • Dixon shares anecdotes about peer pressure facing teachers who object to paying union dues, regardless of political ideology. (03:00–04:53)
  • Quote:
    “You might be surprised to learn that a lot of that money is coming actually out of your pocket because it’s the teachers unions… making sure that these ballot initiatives fail, they’re putting millions of dollars into this…and yet our tax dollars are going to pay the teachers, which are then going straight into the unions that are fighting against our kids having a better education. It’s crazy.” — Tudor Dixon (02:57–07:15)

2. Political Priorities Over Educational Outcomes

• Union expenditures: The new report reveals most union political contributions are unrelated to teaching, with major donations to progressive organizations and candidates, often at odds with parent and teacher priorities.
  • Quote:
    “It really just reads like a laundry list of far left progressive priorities and has basically nothing to do with educating children, making up learning loss—the kinds of things that we as parents care about or as, you know, teachers care about that would help them be more effective in their jobs.” — Nikki Neely (04:53–05:46)
  • Teachers who may disagree with such political causes are still pressured to pay dues, and those dollars are used to oppose policies like school choice, keeping students in underperforming public schools for the unions’ financial benefit. (05:46–07:15)

3. Teacher Pressure and Lack of Choice

• Internal union dynamics: Despite a Supreme Court decision (Janus) forbidding mandatory union dues for public sector employees, teachers continue to face significant social and professional pressure to remain dues-paying members. Those who don’t comply risk missing out on promotions or transfers, and fear negative repercussions for non-compliance. (07:15–08:34)
  • Quote:
    “Teachers very credibly fear social repercussions, professional ramifications of not being in the union. Will they not be put up for a promotion, et cetera, will they not be able to transfer…?” — Nikki Neely (07:50)
• Union advocacy has included keeping schools shuttered during COVID, minimizing learning loss concerns, and sometimes portraying parental opposition as rooted in bigotry.

4. Political Activism and Ballot Campaigns

• Influence on school policy and elections: Unions are major spenders on ballot initiatives (especially those opposing school choice) and political campaigns at every level.
  • Millions are funneled to specific causes and candidates:
    • $0.5 million to support Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger (11:26)
    • $1.3 million in a single LA County school board race (18:48)
    • $32 million to the Senate Majority PAC, $25 million to House Majority PAC (22:20)
    • $106 million to California Teachers Association PACs (22:20)
  • Quote:
    “We also found $1.3 million going to a single school board race in Los Angeles county…” — Nikki Neely (18:48)
• These contributions often dramatically overshadow what grassroots parent or conservative organizations can raise.

5. Disproportionate Political Power and “Dark Money” Loopholes

• Campaign finance double standards: While unions are central to Democratic campaign funding, some state ballot efforts claim to clamp down on “dark money” but explicitly exempt teachers unions, stacking the political deck.
  • Quote:
    “…this is essentially dark money in politics because…over a million dollars was spent in a school board race. The average person, the average mom running for school board, cannot put a million dollars in—that is absolutely tipping the scales in an unreasonable way…” — Tudor Dixon (19:27)
• Examples cited where union funding boosted radical or controversial candidates, regardless of broader community sentiment (e.g., in Chicago and Maine). (22:20–25:41)

6. Ideological Agenda and the Transformation of Teaching

• Curriculum and teacher training: Both Dixon and Neely argue unions and progressive education schools are shifting teaching toward activism rather than educational fundamentals.
  • Quote:
    “…the curriculum, mandatory curriculum at education schools across the country, is centered on queer theory, debunking whiteness—all those things, all of the buzzwords. How does that help you be a better teacher?” — Nikki Neely (36:58)
• Teachers uncomfortable with progressive or identity-based policies (e.g., pronoun use, gender theory in elementary schools) find little support from unions, which are depicted as defending only the “right” kind of political views. (37:51–39:52)

7. The Scales and Asymmetry of Political Activism

• Comparison to right-leaning groups: Even the largest conservative organizations cannot compete with the financial resources that the teachers unions have “baked in” through monthly dues collection.
  • Quote:
    “…the teachers unions are playing with $200 million at least in a political cycle. That is stunning.” — Tudor Dixon (28:18)
• Grassroots disadvantage: Parent groups operate on shoestring budgets, while unions have essentially endless “play money” for politics. (30:02–30:26)
  • Quote:
    “On our side, we are having to scrape and beg and plead for people to give…they are already starting out with a pot of $200 million.” — Tudor Dixon (30:26)

8. Calls for Reform and Pushback

• Potential solutions: Dixon and Neely discuss policies like those in Florida, where unions must prove 50% membership to be certified, and suggest more transparency and options for teachers seeking professional liability coverage without union membership. (31:21–32:33)
• Hope that awareness of union political spending will prompt teachers and policymakers to reconsider support and offer alternatives. (25:41–26:43, 31:21–32:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It really just reads like a laundry list of far left progressive priorities and has basically nothing to do with educating children…” — Nikki Neely (04:53)
• “The unions are not going to step up and defend somebody…getting fired for not wanting to compromise their personal beliefs.” — Nikki Neely (39:32)
• “There's this endless bucket of money—they're just skimming off the top of teacher salaries and they're running it for climate policy, social justice…This is a massive amount of play money for politics.” — Tudor Dixon (20:34–22:20)
• “If you have all the teachers across the country, they're getting a massive amount of money…The unions are very wealthy.” — Tudor Dixon (08:34)

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Important Timestamps

• [02:57] – Dixon introduces the central question: How are student and teacher political actions being funded?
• [04:53] – Neely breaks down teachers union expenditures and dismisses the focus on education.
• [07:15] – Examining teacher pressure to join unions and the ramifications for dissenters.
• [11:26] – Discussing millions in campaign donations, including startling examples like $500k to Spanberger.
• [18:48] – $1.3 million in a single LA school board race; unions as kingmakers at the local level.
• [22:20] – Widespread funding for progressive candidates by teachers unions (specific dollar amounts given).
• [25:41] – The effect of teachers unions on ideological radicalization and recent examples in state politics.
• [28:18] – Contextualizing political war chest sizes: unions versus grassroots.
• [31:21] – State policies suggesting possible reforms and union recertification requirements.
• [36:58] – Discussion of how teacher education now trains activists rather than educators.
• [39:32] – Teachers unions' lack of support for members opposed to progressive identity policies.

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How to Learn More

• Parents Defending Education: For investigative reports, lawsuits, and policy updates, visit defendinged.org.
• For episode archives and more from Tudor Dixon, find The Tudor Dixon Podcast on major podcast platforms.

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Tone:
The conversation is direct, urgent, and often incredulous. Dixon and Neely approach the topic from a critical, conservative viewpoint, aiming to rally parents, teachers, and policymakers to reconsider the scope and influence of teachers unions in American politics.

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Transcript

[Tutor Dixon]

this is an iheart podcast guaranteed human colorado is trying to silence free speech

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[Martha Stewart]

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[Tutor Dixon]

welcome to the tutor dixon podcast are you ever wondering how your kids are getting into all of these crazy political fights while they're walking out of school these things are being organized you've got all of these ballot initiatives that are being organized and your children are actually getting pulled into that too but how is it all getting funded you might be surprised to learn that a lot of that money is coming actually out of your pocket because it's the teachers unions and the teachers are paid by you and you may think the teachers are making these choices on their own but oftentimes they either don't have the choice as to whether or not they're going to pay the teacher's union or the pressure is so great if they don't that they're kind of forced to it's like a peer pressure thing so we wanted to bring on nikki

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

neely we've had her here before she's

[Tutor Dixon]

the president and the founder of parents defending education and they've just come out with a new report of where all of that money is being spent by the teachers union in the political world nikki thank you so much for being on thank you for having me absolutely so i have been talking about this for a long time i mean especially amongst friends like we actually had a friend who was a part of who was a teacher and was pushing back on paying the dues to the unions and like i said got so much pressure from other teachers and in a very conservative area because it's like you know these people are bargaining for us they're getting us better insurance they're getting us better wages and if you're in the in if you're in a teacher and if you are a teacher and you're in the union that's really what you want the union to be there for but do they really realize that now over a billion dollars of that money has been funneled into political causes

[Nikki Neely]

yeah no i think this is really astonishing once you pull back the curtain and see what their actual expenditures are at the federal level at the state level these teachers unions their leadership does not care about they don't care about their lay teachers their average union members nor do they care about children in the district achievement or the families in the district my coworker dug through the lm two s unions are basically a heavily regulated industry so they have to file these regular disclosures either with the federal government or the state government so we went back ten years and just identified a bunch of the expenditures a bunch of the line items and we were horrified what we found because it really just reads like a laundry list of far left progressive priorities and it has basically nothing to do with educating children making up learning loss the kinds of things that we as parents care about or as you alluded to that teachers care about that would help them be more effective in their jobs well

[Tutor Dixon]

i and and that was i kind of came into the political world and when i came into this world gosh like twenty seventeen people were saying to me then do you understand that our teachers unions are really heavily involved in the political world and taking over political causes and i was in this mindset of like i thought they were there to protect teachers and actually there was a part of me who felt like they were there to make schools better and it took a minute for me to realize okay they're not actually there for the students at all they're there just for the teachers which okay that's fine they're there to bargain for the teachers but then you find out that they are actually funneling millions and over a billion dollars but millions of dollars in different states to fight things like school choice so you don't have an option and if your public school is not doing well you don't have an option to go to a different school because they're making sure that these ballot initiatives fail they're putting millions of dollars into this and i say that because we have schools that are actually failing our kids you talked about being in chicago that is a significant problem what's happened there the reading the graduation rates same thing happening in michigan same thing happening in many states across the country and and yet our tax dollars are going to pay the teachers which are then going straight into the unions that are fighting against our kids having a better education it's crazy yeah it's really

[Nikki Neely]

it's a it's appalling that they want to trap children in this failing system because schools get per pupil funding and so if children are in a public school then a public school has more money and the more public school you know students there are the more teachers they need and then the more dues they take out and even i think it's important to remember even in the wake of that supreme court janus decision that says that unions couldn't mandate takeout dues just automatically deduct them as you said there is this pressure for teachers to be a member of a union and i think teachers very credibly fear social repercussions professional ramifications of not being

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

in the union will they not be put up for a promotion et cetera will they not be able to transfer with letters of recommendation and that is something that's very potent as you know many teachers have families they have these pensions they worry about they have their own children that are in the system and so i think that speaks volumes but the fact that they care more about their money and their power as opposed to our children and our schools doing well is something i think that was sadly thrown into stark relief during COVID when we saw people like randy weingarten pushing to keep schools closed and teachers unions like chicago teachers union actually tweet the push to reopen schools is rooted in racism sexism and misogyny it had nothing to do with parents worried about learning loss social development et cetera we were just racist for wanting teachers to be back in classrooms with our

[Tutor Dixon]

children well and you think if that's the attitude if anybody goes against us we're going to call them out and say terrible things you can imagine the pressure of having to pay into the union but also i mean if you are a teacher you really you do kind of have to pay into the union regardless because they are negotiating for you and then there is pressure also the other teachers feel like well you are getting the same things we're getting and we have to pay for it and you're choosing not to pay for it so obviously and it ends up that the majority of teachers pay into the union therefore the unions are very wealthy i mean the unions if you have all the teachers across the country they're getting a massive amount of money there has been a discussion in washington and on the state level in many cases to say well public unions like that because they're using taxpayer dollars they're essentially they're getting paid by the taxpayers and then those dollars are being skimmed off the top really i mean that's the truth that those public unions should not be able to play in politics and once you see that they are actually planning i mean i saw on your site that they planned some of these mayday walkouts yeah what in the world they're planning to take kids out

[Nikki Neely]

of school yeah you know but again they kept the schools closed for so long and by doing so they sent a message to families that school doesn't matter and so is it any surprise now that we have truancy rates that are off the chart and then because

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

of other union and push policies like social promotion children who are not actually

[Nikki Neely]

at grade level are not being held

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

back to master that material they're just allowed to graduate with kids their own age and so we're setting children up for a lifetime of failure because learning is iterative you know what you learn in second grade is the foundation for

[Nikki Neely]

what you will learn in third grade

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

fourth grade et cetera and so if we rip that early fund those early fundamentals away from kids they will never be able to catch up it's truly criminal what's happening but even for the idea of teachers having to painted the system i think it's going to be a surprise to a lot of teachers

[Nikki Neely]

exactly what their money is going towards

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

you know this is most teachers are not hardcore progressives right i mean you look at polling exit polling you know the elections teachers are not over you know across the board radical certainly there are a few bad apples that are spoiling the barrel but you know for teachers to see that their money is going to fund planned parenthood that wants abortion on demand and gender hormones for minor children without parents knowing the trevor project that is pushing for parental exclusion policies saying that parents don't have a right to know their child's gender at school the bill and hillary clinton foundation and the clinton global initiative the human rights campaign i mean the southern poverty law center it is astonishing how these unions have been spending their money because i bet you dollars to donuts that

[Nikki Neely]

most teachers do not want their finite paychecks being spent on these things when

[Tutor Dixon]

you talked about earlier that they would obviously be interested in making sure that the public schools continue i can say to myself okay i can step back and as much as i might want to see a school choice option i mean in michigan you can you can choice into other districts but if i wanted a true school choice option where you could go to private schools i can understand why the union would actually fight against that because that doesn't benefit their teachers they would want their teachers to be the ones that are getting all of the students and the more students you have the better diverse the classroom is and then you have students that are good learners students that are tough learners if if all the good learners leave i can see how the classroom can be difficult so i could understand that and i could probably say you know maybe that is how they would want to play in politics if they if they continue to play in politics but then i look at virginia and i go my gosh they put half a million dollars into spamberger's campaign why and how does that benefit the teachers in any way whatsoever because i mean i guess you could say that youngkin was hard on the schools discriminating against students and and and parents who wanted to have school be for school school be for learning but really is that then then does that mean that the union is actually against what parents and students want it is yeah unfortunately

[Nikki Neely]

because you know i think when there are choice options i think it also forces public schools to be more responsive to what families in the district want you know iron sharpens iron if a district knows eyes wide open that students if there are families if they're unhappy about what their kids are being taught they're going to bug out and go to a catholic school it's going to make them examine their curriculum and say what are we offering you know is there discipline in schools you know there are so many of the problems in schools today the reasons that we see families leaving it's a lot of the content options and curriculum that families are excluded from knowing and that doesn't fit their values there are discipline issues as well with kids attacking both each other as well as teachers and then not actually being held accountable for it going to the principal's office and singing kumbaya it turns out that doesn't actually discourage bad behavior and so you know things like that it's actually when you look at polling as to why teachers lead the profession it's not based on salary which is something we've been told by randy weingarten and becky pringle for forever it is issues like classroom management being supported being forced to keep secrets from mom and dad these are things that are really making teachers feel very uncomfortable and so it is i think in union's best interest to keep their members happy but perhaps that's one of the reasons that we're also seeing declining union member writ large you know the nea and aft even though they both claim to have a few million members they actually have opened quietly opened up their membership to paraprofessionals so teaching assistants as well as random average humans like parents or just the general public so that they can keep their numbers artificially high but they don't actually speak for the majority of teachers in this country so there is a little bit of a potomacan village going on here alliance defending

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

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freedom i need your attention for sixty seconds love generosity compassion we say those words all the time they sound good they feel good but here's the truth those words don't mean anything unless you've turned them into action right now not later today not tomorrow there's a child in the world who doesn't know if

[Tutor Dixon]

they'll eat if they'll have a chance

[Compassion International Representative]

to learn or if there's any hope at all and while we're busy while life keeps moving that child is waiting this is where you come in with compassion international you have the chance to change a child's future not with words not with promises but with real help that provides food education and hope through local churches and people already in their community put your words into action introduce a child to a loving heavenly father today at compassion dot com that's compassion

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[Martha Stewart]

disclosures this is martha stewart from the martha stewart podcast ever wonder how to make hosting look effortless here's a secret getting ahead of the mess with new reynolds kitchens countertop prep paper just lightly wet the counter beforehand so the paper grips and stays in place then lay down the reynolds kitchens countertop prep paper so drips and spills stay on the paper not all over your kitchen counter you can roll out dough prep a party spread or cook alongside family when you're done cleanup is as simple as lifting the paper and revealing that clean counter underneath effortless you can use it for cooking and baking prep and even crafting especially when you need extra working space because when the mess is already handled you can focus on what matters the food the people and the moment it may look effortless but now you know it's reynolds kitchen's countertop prep paper take a tip from me wet it set it prep it done make it easy make it with reynolds kitchens countertop prep paper available now in the reynolds wrap aisle in walmart target amazon and

[Tutor Dixon]

costco you would think that teachers would say are dues too high if you can take half a million dollars and set it aside for a gubernatorial campaign i mean that really does blow my mind because the political activism with regard to schools i guess i could try to explain that away and i think the unions could explain that away but

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

to get into a gubernatorial campaign is

[Tutor Dixon]

very out of the realm of what they should be doing in my opinion

[Nikki Neely]

yeah you know we also found one point three million dollars going to a single school board race in los angeles county and that one stuck out to me because in the wake of the janus decision unions actually made a very conscious decision that they were going to run kansas for school boards okay we can't force policies through we'll just get our people onto the school board so they will rubber stamp these collective bargaining agreements many of which have outrageous provisions like hiring on the basis of race i mean we have found those in collective bargaining agreements in places like minnesota and so these are the kinds of things that we encourage teachers look into because the regime that they have signed up for is not the one that they think it is and they deserve better and families deserve better why isn't

[Tutor Dixon]

there more pushback when you hear these candidates it's always the democrat candidates that are out there going they're taking dark money there's all this dark money in politics but this is essentially dark money in politics because you just said over a million dollars was spent in a school board race the average person the average mom running for school board cannot put a million dollars in that is absolutely tipping the scales and in an unreasonable way we have a situation right now in michigan where there's a ballot initiative and i don't know what it's i can't remember what it's called do you sarah remember what the ballot initiative is called it's to supposedly to get dark money out of politics however the teachers unions are exempt from this so essentially what they're doing is anybody that would fund republicans would be illegally funding republicans but all of these unions that fund the democrats whether it's private or public they would be allowed to so you think about that i mean think about that amount of money when you're talking about million dollars in just a

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

school board race or a half a

[Tutor Dixon]

million dollars in a governor's race but also you start to look at you tip a few of these state senate state senate state house races you put a a few million in here or there or even twenty thousand for some of those races money that the republican candidate could never raise that's all they need is enough run money that the republican candidate could never raise or the conservative candidate could never raise it and these radical progressives in so i was actually in ann arbor a couple weeks ago walking down the street and this guy came up to me and he was like hey will you sign this petition and i said what petition is it and you know you're in ann arbor you're probably not planning on running into the former republican nominee for governor and he's like oh this is to get dark money out of politics and i'm like i hate this petition my daughter laughed because she was like you smiled so big when you looked at him and said i hate the petition that you're running right now and he was like why don't you think the people should choose i said you're not allowing the people to choose you just lied to me and told me this was to get all dark money out but you but the democrats will have endless money to work with so there's no way i'm signing this but that's what i think people don't understand i mean there is this is just an endless bucket of money they're just skimming off the top of the teacher salaries and they're running it for climate policy social justice all of these things that are coming back into the next generation into their like daily life you know these these campaigns are run online they're run on social media they're run on college campuses this is a massive amount of play money for politics oh yeah

[Nikki Neely]

i mean we thirty two million dollars to senate majority pac right that's electing people like al said like graham plantner in maine i mean those are hardcore progressives that that money is going towards twenty five million dollars to the house majority pac same thing these are radicals that they are funding one hundred six million dollars to california teachers association pacs i'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they're not supporting steve hilton right you know they're going for the candidates that are going to do their bidding because they know if we get out the vote if we get out the money if we do the ads you will be beholden to us i mean being from chicago watching what happened in the last days of that election to get brandon johnson across the finish line brandon johnson himself a former ctu official right is now i mean he is now controlling the purse strings and the city is suffering for seemed like we were going to have paul velas win but at the end of the day it was ctu getting out the vote knocking on doors

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

showing up at the ballots spending a

[Nikki Neely]

boatload of money that got him in

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

and is that speak to the actual values of the city of chicago i don't think so and we're paying the

[Tutor Dixon]

price everybody is paying the price and this has become a situation where some of these policies that they're fighting for have caused some real anti semitism problems i mean we've seen that in the state of michigan you talk about el sayed's campaign and there are severe concerns that there is a lot of pro hamas messaging coming out of his campaign a lot of anti semitic messaging coming out of his campaign and that that's sort of being hidden up until the time that these people get into office and then they do with it what they like which is what we see rashida tlaib doing you know and rashida tlaib is on his calls and out there campaigning with him graham platner is a very interesting one for those of you who haven't heard there is a candidate in maine who is running for the us senate it was such a long shot when he first came out people were like there's no way this guy has like a really nasty nazi tattoo it's like it's not just a nazi tattoo it's like the worst of the worst of the nazis and then he covered it up and was like oh i had this you know some bad times i'm like yeah i mean that has to be pretty ingrained in you to be like i want that permanently on my body then it comes out that he has these comments where he says that these nasty terrible things about women who are raped and like women who are raped i can't remember exactly the terminology but it was very disgusting and you have janet janet mills who is the gov she's governor now right she's governor of maine right now so she's the democrat governor and she's running against him and she's really establishment but you think about that this woman has been governor this is the end of her term she's running for senate everybody in the state should know her name right so she should have it made i mean it should be like a shoe in if you are the governor to be the candidate on your

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

party's side she's just stepped out of the race and he is gaining speed

[Tutor Dixon]

like you would not believe an open communist i mean he openly says he's a communist and yet you have money from the teachers unions going into these races how is that possible yeah it's

[Nikki Neely]

really frightening and so you know we just wanted to surface all this information so that teachers go into this eyes wide open i mean i know we're at the end of the school year but you know do they want these dues these deductions coming out of their paychecks in the next school year i

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

hope not and i also hope that you know state and federal policymakers keep an eye on this and realize that as we hear about these quote unquote organic protests right in the ice walkouts

[Nikki Neely]

in the anti semitism walkouts you know

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

this is not all organic this is very well funded this is very well coordinated i think of teachers unions as

[Nikki Neely]

the superhighway of misinformation to share information on all of these hot button issues

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

be it on race be it on

[Nikki Neely]

gender be it on anti semitism or

[Union Critic / Education Expert]

critical race theory or things like that stirring up all their colleagues through this kind of network of allied organizations that are also getting money right it is like it almost feels like money laundering because it is the left hand giving the right hand money to go out and do their bidding and then pretend that they speak for the american public that is not what is happening and it is important that people use their

[Nikki Neely]

voice and stand up against it i

[Tutor Dixon]

mean it is it does feel like money laundering because it's hard to see where this how this money is funneling from pac to c four to all of these different organizations and the funny thing is it's the left accusing the right of doing this and yet it is the opposite i mean i think both sides do it but this is pretty radical to think that the teachers union dues are going to this how much do you think that they're spending annually on politics yeah i mean clearly

[Nikki Neely]

things spike during election years so they get a little bit more you know out of control then but it is i mean you know these sums year over year we just i mean this is we look back at a ten year window but we didn't even do all fifty states i mean we looked at some of the big ones california new york florida just to kind of get a sense of that but you know that is the scale of this is astonishing you know i have run a nonprofit for twenty years i have to go out and raise money from the private sector i do not suckle at the public teeth the way that these federal or you know that some of these progressive nonprofits do and i think that's one of the underrated things that president trump did very on was he just cut off the spigot you know by cutting off the grants the usaid programs et cetera these entities that pretended again like they were speaking for the people that they had raised this money it turns out that a lot of them were just getting federal grants our money was being directly used against us in addition to being siphoned away from teachers unions dues so just this whole ecosystem that the left has is built on our money it's not built on their money it's generally not built on private sector money either well and

[Tutor Dixon]

i think people are used to i mean it's like remember when austin in austin powers when doctor evil woke up after all those years and he was like a million dollars and like i think you want to say a billion you know i think we've gotten really used to now a billion dollars is like is a billion dollars that much yes you're talking about in ten years if the cycle is every two years i mean you're talking about two hundred million dollars of of taxpayer money to just play with and that and and let me put this in perspective for you i think the highest number that turning point ever had was just over a hundred million so you think the teachers unions are playing with two hundred at least in a political cycle that is stunning and this is and think about it this is not a known political entity so when you when you break it down like that and you go a political organization on the right struggles to even and that and that was the highest i mean for most years it was eighty five seventy five sixty five you know that was over time that they built that up that was a truly political organization that was building up that kind of cash on the right on the left they just have it it's already it's just siphoned off the top they just it's play money i mean that to me is the most stunning part about this people who are paying their dues every month don't real that they are giving play

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

money to the left for some of

[Tutor Dixon]

the most radical ideologies out there so when you think about having just a pot of hundreds of millions of dollars to say i like that senate race and i like this congressional race and i like that school board race that is something we just don't have access to on our side no i mean

[Nikki Neely]

the parent groups we work with across the country you know dollar five hundred to them is a big deal they are getting signs printed they are getting swag printed out of their pockets you know their husband's job and asking for a few hundred bucks here or there gas to drive around the state on a weekend to go put up signs or knock on doors as opposed to having this built in astroturf ecosystem that is funded by all of their cronies so it really is it's apples to

[Tutor Dixon]

oranges and that's where to be honest this is where people say to me all the time they're like why you know our candidates don't fight hard enough our candidates aren't working hard enough and i'm like you can't you can't fight against ninety million dollars in a race you know and that's what comes for democrats especially in a purple state it's amazing the amount of money that just comes flowing in and it's because of things like this you because on our side we are having to scrape and beg and plead for people to give

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

their money they are already starting out

[Tutor Dixon]

with a pot of two hundred million think about that starting the cycle already with that there and knowing that anything on top of that is gravy i mean that is quite stunning to find that out is there any way to fight against this i mean i really don't know if there is any way to fight against this yeah i think

[Nikki Neely]

you know governor desantis in florida has taken some good steps he has said that for unions to be recertified at the local level they have to have fifty percent of members or eligible members in any given district sign on affirmatively so it's not just they don't they don't get to automatically roll things forward and with declining union membership as people realize oh i don't necessarily have to have this money taken out to fund stuff i don't believe in even in places like miami dade unions have not been able to meet that threshold and so some of those local unions have been shutting down there also are you know as teachers think that they have to be part of the union to have insurance or things like that like malpractice type thing there are other private sector entities that will provide those things and so i think there is just a big information awareness going on but there certainly is a role for state policymakers to step in and say we expect if you want to operate a union in our state we expect more i mean virginia we're about to lose being right to work state thank you governor spamberger you know and then in places like illinois clearly you know the unions run that michigan same thing but i think it's important that we at least make an effort to try and wind back their power because they're not speaking for us and they do not have our children's best interest at heart

[Tutor Dixon]

colorado is trying to silence free speech

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

again a state law forces businesses to use customers preferred pronouns even if they're biologically inaccurate with the help of alliance defending freedom a christian bookstore and a sports apparel company are challenging that law but a court recently ruled against them they appealed the ruling and with the adf's help they'll keep fighting another attempt by colorado to skirt the first amendment

[Tutor Dixon]

learn more about how you can support

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

free speech by texting tutor to eight three eight four eight or going to joinadf dot com tutor sponsored by alliance

[Tutor Dixon]

defending freedom them i want you to

[Compassion International Representative]

pause what you're doing for just one minute to hear about alejandra she lives in a remote community with very few resources and little to no health care so when alejandra got sick her parents had no real options no doctors in the community and no money for real medical care by the third day her body was shutting down she woke up just long enough to tell her mom i can't take the pain anymore i can't keep going her parents drove hours to find doctors who tried everything everything but she needed a private hospital and that was impossible for her family to afford that's when compassion international stepped in through compassion alejandro was treated and against all odds she survived she lived because someone took action right now there are children like her who won't survive unless someone steps in someone like you compassion international partners with local churches providing children with the support they need need critical medical care plus food education and the hope of the gospel all in jesus name help a child like alejandra today visit compassion dot com that's compassion dot

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[Martha Stewart]

ever wonder how to make hosting look effortless here's a secret secret when prepping for cooking and baking get ahead of the mess with new reynolds kitchens countertop prep paper just lightly wet the counter so the paper grips lay it down and drips and spills stay on the paper not on your counter cleanup is as simple as lifting it away to reveal clean counters effortless it is thanks to reynolds kitchens countertop prep paper wet it set it prep it done available in the reynolds wrap aisle at walmart target amazon and costco i remember they

[Tutor Dixon]

had teacher of the year awards i guess it must have been like at the end of twenty twenty five where they had their big conference and all of the most radical teachers go to the conference and they gave their award and the person who became teacher of the year stood up and said at some point during the year she had realized that her job was like inherently political and that she had to be political and it was critical to her students that she have her political ideology in the classroom and i thought when you are so close to these unions i can see how that could happen but the unfortunate part about this is is it'd be great if unions did

[Alliance Defending Freedom Representative]

what they were supposed to do if

[Tutor Dixon]

their goal was to fight for teachers to get good salaries they complain every year that teachers have crappy salaries and then they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on politics isn't that stunning yeah

[Nikki Neely]

it's awful and even just i mean as you alluded to the fact that the whole teaching profession has changed we did a study a couple years ago looking at what colleges of education teach american as you know upcoming teachers it is not how to do phonics better it is not how do we demystify calculus it is you are an agent of social change here's how we enlist these pupils as foot soldiers in our social justice war and that is something that is really astonishing i mean the curriculum mandatory curriculum at education schools across the country is centered on queer theory debunking whiteness all of those things all of the buzzwords how does that help you be a better teacher what if you were a subject matter expert and then you learn some of the tactics on how to share that information instead of starting out from a position of our job is to change society and you're going to use these minor children to do so i find that gross and that's not a system i want

[Tutor Dixon]

my kids in it is interesting because they tell us that the unions have nothing to do with curriculum and yet i just had a teacher who so my girls went to public school up until the pandemic we moved them to private school during the pandemic one of their public school teachers is now coming to our school and said to me the other day i've decided to leave and the reason he said you would not be you would be shocked by what happens in the public school and ours is a very i mean we're in a pretty bible belty area where when my kids went to school there they said prayers in kindergarten it has and that was was i mean my oldest is sixteen so you know we're talking about eleven years ago that she was in kindergarten and they were saying prayers in the afternoon and now he said if i don't refer to a boy student as a girl and this is fourth grade fourth grade he said i'm told that he said i've been told that i don't fit in the school and he said i just finally was like you know what if i don't fit in the school i'm going to go to a different school but i refuse to allow children who are eight and nine years old to tell me they're a different gender and i have to refer to them as a different gender and a new name i'm not going to do it i mean you cannot tell me that the teachers union is not advocating for him if he goes to them and says i'm not going to do this instead of them fighting a lawsuit on his behalf and saying you cannot fire a teacher because they won't refer to a kid as a different gender they won't go against their religious beliefs right the teachers union would never fight for him for

[Nikki Neely]

that right yeah no there are some views that are important and protected and privileged and then there are other views that are not and that is yeah the unions are not going to step up and defend somebody who has been who is on probation or getting fired for not wanting to compromise their personal beliefs and so it is there's real

[Tutor Dixon]

they should be fighting for it is

[Nikki Neely]

completely what they should be fighting for they should be defending all teachers full stop but they're not doing that wow

[Tutor Dixon]

it's crazy we so appreciate what you guys do tell people where they can find your next report and what's coming

[Nikki Neely]

out yeah our website is defendinged dot org so we have lots of investigative reports we file public records requests all the time we also love to file lawsuits and civil rights complaints so a few weeks ago we sued missouri state university over compelled speech policy and then we also we actually just yesterday found out that we filed a civil rights complaint against smith college an all women's college that allows biological males that now identify as women to enroll but if you're a biological girl who says you're a boy you are not allowed to enroll so we find that interesting and the trump administration just opened an investigation into that yesterday so we're very pleased with that so we believe in the sanctity of single sex spaces well we

[Tutor Dixon]

appreciate everything you do it's always a pleasure having you on nicki neal thank you so much for being on the podcast thank you and thank you all for listening to the podcast as always you can find it wherever you get your podcasts the iheartradio app apple podcasts youtube rumble just go to tutor dixon and join us on the tutor dixon podcast right now have a blessed day

[Sophia Donner]

this is sophia donner from ok storytime this summer find your next obsession on prime video and listen we're not saying you need another obsession but there could be a lot worse one steamy romance addictive love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice so why not watch them a third time off campus elle the love hypothesis and more slow burns second chances chemistry you can feel through the screen and it makes you wish you were actually in that movie we've got binge worthy series can't miss movies perfect for when you're ignoring your own problems or procrastinating as one does your next obsession is waiting

[Martha Stewart]

watch only on prime this is martha stewart from the martha stewart podcast ever wonder how to make hosting look effortless here's a secret when prepping for cooking and baking get ahead of the mess with new reynolds kitchens countertop prep paper just lightly wet the counter so the paper grips lay it down and drips and spills stay on the paper not on your counter cleanup is as simple as lifting it away to reveal clean counters effortless it is thanks to reynolds kitchens countertop prep paper wet it set it prep it done available in the reynolds wrap aisle at walmart target amazon

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