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More and more American parents are getting fed up with the public school system. They are sick and tired of liberal teachers indoctrinating their children with things like transgender ideology, critical race theory, and climate change. One thing that might have swayed the votes of those parents is President-elect Donald Trump considering abolishing the Department of Education and bringing the task of educating our children back down to the local and state levels. Now, the nation’s two largest teachers unions and some left-wing news outlets might have just given us more proof that that might be a great idea.

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According to recent financial disclosures by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), three liberal publications — The New Republic, American Prospect, and Courier Newsroom — have collectively accepted roughly $905,000 since 2022. The problem was that after receiving the cash from the Teachers’ unions, the outlets failed to disclose the payments and published positive articles about the unions. Courier Newsroom, which runs outlets in 11 states, including those considered swing states during this year’s presidential election, received $500,000 from the NEA and $35,000 from the AFT between 2022 and 2024. Again, all the outlets ran positive coverage of the NEA. 

For just a sampling of Courier’s work, their North Carolina outlet, Cardinal & Pine, back in March, featured a video with NEA President Rebecca Pringle, explaining why it is important to teach America’s school children that the U.S. is systemically racist. What was missing? If you guessed disclosing the fact that the outlet had been given around $550,000 in just the span of a few years, you would be right.

In New Hampshire, the Courier outlet Granite Post took the side of the NEA and AFT while covering a court battle involving book bans in the classroom. In Virginia, the Courier outlet Dogwood somehow concluded that collective bargaining backed by the NEA helped students learn better. Once again, financial activities between the union and the news outlets were never disclosed.

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What’s the one thing all of these outlets have in common? Mike Watson is research director at the Capital Research Center and says the answer to that is: 

“All these outlets rely on patronage and advertising from ideologically aligned donors and groups to stay afloat, so, of course, the teachers unions are supporting their ideological allies.”

The next biggest beneficiary is The New Republic. They received roughly $225,000 from the AFT between August of 2023 and April of 2024. In October of 2023, The New Republic published a story with a ratcheted-up argument by AFT by union President Randi Weingarten about how conservatives wanted to ban sexually explicit books from public school libraries as part of a larger plot to “destroy” public education. 

Democrat candidates were also the beneficiaries of positive coverage. The New Republic also ran glowing stories on Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN). One was about Walz’s bonafides with the Labor movement, the other, the endorsements that Walz was racking up that should have “scared” Trump. The pattern continued, with no mention of financial disclosures.

The American Prospect received around $100,000. The outlet ran positive coverage of Weingarten’s handling of tensions stemming from the Israel-Hamas war — no word on what Teachers’ unions have to do with that — union involvement in an apprenticeship program, and the AFT expanding into southern states. Once again, no financial disclosures.

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It is the never-ending story of taking the union dues from hard-working, underpaid teachers and giving them to Democrat candidates and causes without consent, combined with an ongoing quest for power that puts the nation’s schoolchildren in the middle.

Mike Watson also had this to say: “I think it says more about the teachers unions than the journalists: They want to build left-wing infrastructure, not work for children’s education.” We already know liberal media is dying; they might just end up taking teachers’ unions along for the ride.