Last month, Republicans running for office who were either backed by teachers unions or spoke out against school choice lost big in their primary elections in Idaho, Kentucky and Texas.
It’s part of a larger trend happening across the United States, and it should serve as a wake-up call to candidates running for office: Teachers union support is the political kiss of death for Republicans.
Power-hungry teachers unions are the enemies of parents and children.
Our government school systems have been hijacked by extremists who want to push their radical ideology on other people’s kids.
They have essentially ruined education in America and made it abundantly clear they are more focused on trapping children in failing government schools than giving kids the quality education they deserve.
During the pandemic, unions were the tip of the spear for school closures and crippling learning loss.
While Becky Pringle of the National Education Association and Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers were fighting tooth and nail to keep schools closed, they were lining their own pocketbooks and raking in over $500,000 – nearly nine times the average teacher’s salary in America.
As if that wasn’t enough, as public schools dominated by teachers unions continue to fail their students in almost every major city, Stacy Davis Gates of the Chicago Teachers Union sent her own son to private school after calling school choice racist.
But parents are waking up.
Families know that unions are coming after their rights to raise their children, and that their kids aren’t getting the education they need.
From school board meetings to the voting booth, parents and their advocates are taking matters into their own hands — supporting candidates and policies that promote education freedom.
For far too long, union-controlled politicians of both parties have bowed down to teachers unions and spoken out against school choice, despite the wishes of the local communities they were elected to represent.
But this year’s Republican primary elections in Idaho, Kentucky and Texas proved that parents are united behind school-choice candidates and intend on defeating politicians who don’t support their rights.
The three Republicans in the Idaho House with the most support from teachers unions all lost their primary elections to candidates who support school choice.
Anti-school-choice Republicans in Texas saw even more opposition from frustrated families.
Twenty-one of them voted with all the Democrats to block school choice in the Texas House last year. Fourteen of them are now gone.
Parents now have the votes to pass school choice in Texas for the first time in history.
Nine of the 13 anti-school-choice Republicans in the Texas House targeted by AFC Victory Fund, my organization’s school choice super PAC, lost their races this year.
These wins translate to a 69% victory rate against incumbents — the hardest thing to do in politics: Incumbents generally win reelection 95% of the time.
It was no different in Kentucky. In an absolute bloodbath, the two GOP state House members who received the most money from teachers unions lost their elections by 44 and 48 points to challengers who support educational freedom for students and parents.
These wins aren’t unique to this year. In 2022, 40 of the 69 legislators challenged by my organization and our state affiliates nationwide lost their seats.
In Tennessee that year, 10 of the Republicans running for the House were supported by the teachers union. Nine of them lost.
School choice has emerged as a GOP litmus-test issue and a political winner because parents are holding politicians accountable.
The hard truth is, these public sector unions aren’t just trying to take control of education and trap parents and students in failing schools.
They also want to shoehorn unions into every aspect of American life, growing their progressive influence and control over the American people.
But if the recent primary elections across the country teach us anything, it’s that parents, families and everyday Americans are fed up with overreaching unions and the control they are attempting to take in our core institutions.
Let this electoral trend serve as their warning: Enough is enough.
Corey DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and author of “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools.”
