Trump’s recently passed budget slashes funding for schools and healthcare while cutting taxes for billionaires. School voucher schemes have proliferated across the country. Immigrant students and their families and LGBTQ+ students continue to face an onslaught of attacks.
Over the past six months, the National Education Association (NEA) and tens of thousands of educators, students, parents, and community allies have been mobilizing against the administration's efforts to dismantle public education—and its assault on democracy.
At this year’s NEA Representative Assembly (RA), speaker after speaker warned of the continued dangers ahead and urged delegates—educators everywhere—to continue to fight. What happens between now and the 2026 elections (only 15 months way) could determine whether the country continues down this perilous path or enough people mobilize and show up at school boards, town halls, state legislatures, and even Congress, to say enough is enough.
To that end, on the first day of the RA, delegates took an unprecedented step. Instead of continuing, as usual, to debate new business items, they voted overwhelmingly to use July 6, the fourth and final day, as a day of learning. The goal? To train their members back home with campaign strategies, tools, and resources to protect and strengthen public education in communities nationwide.
Before the training sessions began in the morning, delegates first heard from Hardy Merriman, former president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and author of the organizing guide Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence. In his remarks, Merriman explained the current precarious state of U.S democracy, but acknowledged that asking the nation’s educators to save democracy is a tall order.
Still, in other countries—Poland in particular—that have stopped autocratic power grabs in recent years, Merriman explained, educators and their unions, in partnership with other advocacy organizations, were instrumental to success.
“It starts with people coming together, overcoming fear and feelings of powerlessness, organizing campaigns to push back,” Merriman said. “Labor unions and educators cannot bear this burden alone, but it is hard to imagine how to turn the tide without them.”
The day’s training covered a wide range of topics: maximizing digital and in-person lobbying and organizing, taking action against vouchers and school privatization, protecting immigrant students and LGBTQ+ students, building power for the common good through collective action, and countering attacks on democracy.
“We are building the capacity for the actions that will be required ahead. Lean in today’s training and conversation,” Pringle exhorted the delegates. “Let’s use this time to gain the knowledge and critical skills that we then take back to our communities. Learn, so you can teach. And lead, so you can encourage others, organize and mobilize millions in your states.”
