A newly uncovered set of National Education Association (NEA) training materials is shining fresh light on what critics describe as the ideological capture of the country’s largest teachers union—and the school systems it influences. On Chicago’s Morning Answer, education scholar Rick Hess joined host Dan Proft to break down what he calls a widening disconnect between the ideological agendas promoted to teachers and the academic collapse showing up among students.
Recent reporting from City Journal revealed that the NEA’s latest “Advancing LGBTQ+ Justice” training comes with pre-attendance directives such as “tell your truth” and a glossary of identity terms stretching from “agender” to “two-spirit.” The full packet includes more than 50 pages of pronoun mandates and oppression flowcharts for attendees, most of whom are district-level leaders or union activists—not rank-and-file teachers.
Proft emphasized that while the number of participants may be small, their reach is not: “Who do you think is attending these conferences—the rank and file or those in leadership positions within these government school systems?”
Academic Decline Meets Ideological Expansion
Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said the ideological training wave must be evaluated alongside grim academic data emerging from universities and K–12 schools.
He pointed to the recent shock at the University of California, San Diego, where administrators found that large portions of newly admitted students were unable to complete second- or third-grade–level math problems. UCSD had dropped admissions testing during the pandemic—a move Hess described as part of “the attack on objective measures of knowledge.”
The convergence of eroded standards and politicized training, Hess said, signals a deeper shift:
“Schools are being told that knowledge is optional, expectations are bigotry, and their real purpose is to manufacture some vacuous notion of social-justice-informed empathy.”
Students—particularly those without strong academic foundations at home—are paying the price.
Why Teachers Don’t Push Back
Although surveys show 30–40 percent of classroom teachers identify as conservative or moderate, Hess said that matters far less than many assume.
Those teachers, he explained, are routinely shamed or silenced in mandatory training environments if they question favored ideological frameworks such as the 1619 Project, Ibram Kendi’s “antiracism,” or various gender-identity doctrines.
“They’re told that their questions reflect their white supremacist biases,” Hess said. “They’re hung in effigy as wrong-thinkers.”
The outcome: a small minority of ideological leaders dominate policy and training while dissenting voices remain quiet—much like what has happened in university faculties.
The Trump Administration’s Quiet Restructuring of the Federal Education Bureaucracy
Hess also discussed a lesser-known but consequential shift underway at the U.S. Department of Education. Over the past ten months, the Trump administration has cut the department’s workforce roughly in half and begun transferring large program portfolios to other agencies, such as the Departments of Labor and Interior.
The moves do not eliminate federal education programs or funding streams like IDEA special education dollars or Title I aid for low-income schools. But they do meaningfully weaken the department’s policymaking muscle.
“The department is fundamentally declawed,” Hess said. “It wouldn’t be able to do the kinds of things it did during the Biden years with shutdowns, student loan forgiveness schemes, or Title IX gender policies.”
Hess cautioned, however, that transferring programs to other agencies does not automatically safeguard them from ideological influence. For instance, the Department of Labor—now responsible for certain education functions—is heavily aligned with union interests.
A New Federal Scholarship Program Could Become a Game-Changer
Proft and Hess also discussed the new federal scholarship tax credit program, part of the “one big beautiful bill,” which allows taxpayers to contribute up to $1,700 to scholarship-granting organizations and deduct the full amount from their federal taxes.
Depending on participation, the program could generate anywhere from a few billion dollars to more than $80 billion per year in scholarship funding to help families choose private education.
States must opt into administering scholarship programs—but individuals in opt-out states like Illinois can still direct funds to scholarships in participating states.
Hess noted that even former Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan, long skeptical of private school choice, has voiced support for the program due to its potential to help low-income children escape failing schools.
A System Still in Flux—But No Longer Uncontested
For all the incursions of ideology into the classroom, Hess offered one note of optimism: the wave of pushback from parents, policymakers, and teachers—combined with federal restructuring—has disrupted the unchallenged momentum enjoyed by activist educators in recent years.
“The crazy is still there,” he said, “but they’re not getting the fat consulting contracts. They’re not getting the prominent placement. They’re finding it tougher going.”
Whether those changes translate into long-term reforms or simply drive ideological agendas further underground remains to be seen.
But for now, Hess argues, the battle for American education is no longer one-sided—and parents and policymakers must remain alert, especially as unions prepare their next wave of training and influence campaigns.