NEA President Becky Pringle opened the 2025 NEA Representative Assembly (RA) in Portland telling the 6,000 delegates that despite the unprecedented challenges of the past six months, “We are powerful and resilient when we stand together.”
Only minutes after the RA opened, the U.S. House of Representatives passed President Trump’s budget by a razor thin margin, slashing funding for education, health care, and nutrition— measures that will harm students, working families, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, among others.
With the bill on the verge of becoming law, Pringle in her keynote address urged the delegates to continue their activism, because the country has to “know where the nation’s largest labor union stands in this moment.”
This country has endured an unprecedented assault, not only on public education, but also on the fabric of the nation—in an intentional and malignant agenda to demonize institutions and divide communities, Pringle told the delegates. Protections for transgender students, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, are being dismantled. Public dollars are being drained from our schools and redirected into private hands.
“This is a coordinated campaign to strip away the very tools that challenge power, demand justice, and preserve democracy,” Pringle said. “As they work to destroy public education, and then profit from the wreckage, this administration wants to lock in policies that will take generations to undo.”
‘We Must Lead the Way’
And while everyone is staving off exhaustion and even hopelessness, the work needed to bring the country back from this dark and destructive era depends on the leadership of educators and their allies everywhere, Pringle said. The stakes are too high.
“You defend truth and equity amid a vicious swirl of hatred and lies. You are the holders of hope and the keepers of dreams. You provide love and care to our students and to each other… Our country is depending on us, on this community, to lead the way . . . from dogmatism back to decency and democracy. NEA, we must lead the way from callousness and the castigation of society’s at-risk communities. It is up to us to lead the way toward the care, consideration and compassion that is everyone’s right.”
Delegates, I need you to understand that we are in a prolonged fight—one that cannot end on the last day of this RA.
But make no mistake. Even as we are all inundated every day by bad news, educators are notching up some key wins, said Pringle, saluting recent victories by NEA affiliates. In a historic vote for unionization last month, education support professionals in Kansas brought nearly 600 new members into the Lawrence Education Association. On Election Day 2024, voters in Nebraska, Colorado, and Kentucky delivered a stunning rebuke to school vouchers. In legislative sessions this year, educators and their unions were instrumental in defeating vouchers in Kansas, Mississippi, Utah, North Dakota and South Dakota. NEA-New Mexico turned back an attempt to use the standardized testing process to collect student immigration status.
“NEA, this is the type of work that we must do all over this country,” said Pringle. “We cannot simply fight against, NEA. We must also fight forward for our vision of a public school system where every student—every one—attends a school that is safe, welcoming, and plentiful in resources, a school where every student is celebrated for who they know themselves to be; a school that is steeped in excellence and care; where education justice is recognized as a birthright, where educators—you—are valued as the professionals you are.”
Seven Important Verbs
Pringle laid out a multi-pronged strategy, guided by seven pillars of advocacy: Educate. Communicate. Organize. Mobilize. Litigate. Legislate. Elect.
In educating the public, Pringle told the delegates, “We must be vigilant in teaching the lessons of history. We will talk openly about what is happening to the world around us and what it portends for the future.”
Communicating effectively means using truth to cut through all the lies and misinformation, she noted. “We will share all of the joyful and miraculous stories we have witnessed serving in our nation’s classrooms, on campuses, and worksites. Together, we will inspire, motivate, prepare, and compel others to join our movement and take action,” Pringle said.
Organizing means building the power to promote, protect, and strengthen public education—and to advocate for fair taxes and economic justice. “NEA has allocated more money to organizing,” Pringle told the delegates, “because it is the most powerful tool for creating change.”
Then educators must mobilize and “show up in school board elections, state capitals, marches, protests, at the ballot box—wherever our students’ futures are at stake,” Pringle said.
NEA has been enormously effective is using litigation over the past six months in fighting the abuses of the Trump administration. By filing and joining lawsuits, NEA has challenged the legality of dismantling the Department of Education; of attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and of withholding public education funding and support. “Every time they create an unjust policy, we will use every legal tool to challenge it,” Pringle said.
Whether it’s fair pay, education funding, better working conditions, universal school meals, or protecting the freedom to read, educators must continue to call for legislation that supports our public schools and students.
And, finally, in November 2026 (and beyond), educators will hold lawmakers accountable at the ballot box.
“NEA, we are not simply reacting to a moment,” Pringle said in closing. “We are building a strong, sustainable movement. A movement that votes. That holds leaders accountable. A movement of strong educator leaders who run for office—and win!”
