Better pay for educators.
Last year, average teacher pay rose by 3.8 percent while starting teacher pay increased by 4.4 percent, the biggest annual increase in the 15 years that NEA has tracked this number. These gains are the direct result of determined union members, fighting for contracts that will help them to live in the communities where they work.
For example, in Somerville, Mass., educators ratified a contract last July that pays paraeducators’ at least $50,000, doubling the wages they made six years ago. (Somerville Educators United also won 12 weeks of paid parental leave for all educators!)
In 2026, NEA members are going to keep fighting for the pay that they need and deserve—and they’re going to win.
“You can’t expect somebody to give their everything while you give them nothing,” said one Natomas, Calif., educator whose union is currently bargaining for safer schools, more special education services, and pay raises that will keep Natomas teachers in Natomas.
More voucher bills.
Or, in other words, expect to see more attempts by billionaires to take scarce money away from public schools and give it to unaccountable private schools.
To date, 18 states have universal voucher programs; the other 32 have limited programs or no vouchers. In many of those places, lawmakers are still pushing for new or expanded programs—despite the fact people don’t want them. Seventeen times vouchers have appeared on state ballots, and every time, voters have rejected them.
North Dakota is one of those states without a voucher program and educators want to make sure it stays that way. Last year, after state lawmakers passed a voucher bill in a close vote (49 to 43), N.D. Gov. Kelly Armstrong vetoed it. In all, North Dakota educators squelched six voucher bills last year.
"One of the things we've found is you need to take the case right to the people—in North Dakota, we're mostly a rural state—and point out the fact that vouchers are terrible for small towns. They get nothing out of the deal," says North Dakota United executive director Nick Archuleta. "Once that becomes clear, the public is overwhelmingly on our side that they want zero state money for vouchers."
It's also important to realize that vouchers proponents aren't going away, says Archuleta. "They're playing the long game... We have to be as persistent as those who are promoting these schemes."
Additionally, last year Congress passed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” which included the first-ever federal voucher program, guaranteed to weaken public schools. So far, seven state governors (Colo., La., N.C., Neb., S.D., Tenn., and Texas) have said they’ll opt into the program. Three other governors (N.M., Ore., and Wisc.), citing their concern for public school funding and enrollment, have said they won’t. The remaining 40 governors haven’t yet decided, according to an Education Week tracker.
Make sure they hear from you!
More cellphone bans.
This is an easy call! At the start of this school year, at least 26 states had cellphone bans and 22 of them passed in the first half of 2025. (The 27th state, Wisconsin, came on board in November.) They’re enormously popular with educators and students, and more states are certain to follow.
Thanks to union members’ support, Pennsylvania may be the first in 2026. Last month, Pennsylvania’s Senate Education Committee advanced a K-12, bell-to-bell ban (this means no phones during lunch or recess) to the chamber floor.
“Our country has a youth mental health crisis,” which corresponds to the increased use by students of smartphones and social media, wrote Pennsylvania State Education Association Aaron Chapin to state lawmakers in October. These devices also disrupt learning, isolate students from each other, and facilitate peer-to-peer cyber-bullying, he reported.
A few years ago, Pennsylvania educators weren’t convinced it was the state’s role to regulate phones in their classrooms, Chapin recalled. New research on the ill effects of cellphones on youths, plus growing frustration among union members, prompted PSEA to throw its support behind legislation. “Our members started to believe that Pennsylvania could and should put the genie back in the bottle,” Chapin said.
A similar bill in Massachusetts—which has the support of the Massachusetts Teachers Association—also has passed that state Senate and is waiting for House action in early 2026.
As more bans roll out, two patterns have become clear, a researcher told NEA Today last year. “The stricter the ban, the happier the teacher and the less likely students are to be using their phones when they aren’t supposed to,” said Phones in Focus lead researcher Angela Duckworth.
More pro-public education lawmakers elected.
From statehouses to school board offices, November’s elections delivered massive wins for students and educators, as voters veered sharply toward lawmakers promising to support public education and working families. Take, for example, Cy-Fair, Texas, where three pro-public education candidates backed by the Texas State Teachers Association won school board seats. In Iowa and Colorado, 77 percent of union-endorsed school board candidates won.
This momentum will continue in 2026.
Voters don’t want kids to go hungry, they don’t want cuts in support for students with disabilities, and they don’t want money for public schools to get diverted to private schools. All of these issues will be on the ballot again in November, when U.S. voters decide whether to keep the U.S. House and Senate in the hands of President Trump’s party. Voters additionally will weigh in on 36 governors’ races.
More NEA members.
Your national union grew in 2025—and it’s gonna keep on growing in 2026 as educators realize the power of their shared voice.
Faculty at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, are among the newest NEA members—and the first from a private college in that state—thanks to an October vote to affiliate with the Maine Education Association. Their goal? To strengthen their voice in decisions impacting faculty and students.
Faculty’s unionization efforts kicked off in 2025 after administrators began making unilateral changes to academic offerings—what programs were being offered and whether courses should be online or in-person—without consulting the faculty senate or, in other words, the people who know students best.
“It was like, ‘Wait a second, this doesn’t feel like a partnership,’” recalls Jono Anzalone, a member of the faculty organizing committee.
Educators’ enthusiasm for unionism matches Americans’ support. For the past five years, Americans’ approval for labor unions has been in the 67-71% range, a level last reached in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Most promising for the years to come? The highest level of support for unions is among younger people, ages 18 to 34.
