Nearly 7,000 teachers are coming to Denver this Independence Day weekend to set the direction of the nation’s largest teachers’ union.
Over four days of the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly, delegates from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, will vote to set policy and legislative priorities for the year ahead. It will also elect its new president, who will confront many challenges in the years ahead, including helping the union tackle issues like how AI affects teachers and the explosion of school choice programs.
The union represents 2.8 million active, retired, and student teachers and paraprofessionals—a slight increase from 2023-24.
Here’s what to know about the upcoming NEA RA. Follow along at edweek.org for coverage over the weekend and after.
1. NEA’s finances are steady, but voucher programs and restrictions pose questions
The NEA’s net assets have fallen somewhat from nearly $346 million in 2017-18—before a landmark 2018 Supreme Court ruling, Janus v. AFSCME, that barred the national union from charging representation fees of nonmembers—to less than $317 million in net assets in 2024-25, the most recent data available from its federally required filings.
However, the national union, funded mainly though dues, has recovered revenue since the Janus ruling. It collected nearly $391 million in dues in 2024-25, about $10 million more than the prior year and $17 million more than the dues and fees collected in 2017-18, both from changes in dues and expanded categories of members, such as student-teachers.
Affiliates have faced a year of budget and school voucher battles at both the federal and state levels, and ongoing pushes in GOP-dominated states for union restrictions. Those include laws in states including Florida and Wisconsin requiring union affiliates to hold votes to “recertify” annually, or when paid membership drops below a given share of eligible employees, and the elimination of automatic payroll deductions for union membership dues.
For example, Idaho’s legislature inserted language into a bill on LGBTQ+ instruction—passed on the last day of the session on April 10—which cut off public funding for teachers’ union activities. It outlawed payroll dues deduction, preventing unions from holding training or other events in district facilities, and barred union members from using paid time off for union activities, among other things.
The NEA’s Montana affiliate, known as the Montana Federation of Public Employees, barely beat back legislation for similar union restrictions and successfully sued last fall to stop implementation of the state’s education savings account program for students with disabilities. (Montana still has a tax-credit scholarship program that effectively funds school choice in the state.)
Such efforts are part of a full-court press by union affiliates nationwide to curtail state voucher programs and the imminent roll-out of a similar federal school choice program passed in February.
Unions generally contend that choice programs could “undermine the very foundations of public education,” by diverting school funding to private, charter, and other non-unionized schools and programs held to different accountability requirements, according to a letter to Democratic governors signed by more than 30 state teachers’ unions last month.
Expect to see more discussion and debate at the RA about the fallout of choice programs.
2. Policy debates could focus on immigration
Like last year, debates immigration enforcement may be some of the most emotionally charged for delegates this year.
Immigration raids in and around schools mean that “students are sitting in classrooms fearful that their families could be torn apart, parents are disengaging from school events due to safety concerns, and communities are being destabilized—conditions incompatible with learning,” NEA wrote in a June letter urging Congress to reject a $70 billion expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget in the budget reconciliation bill signed into law June 10.
“Sometimes it feels very dark and I’m not sure what we can do,” said Ric Calhoun, a campus supervisor at Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, Wash., and member of the Washington NEA delegation. “But when you see hundreds and thousands of educators that are all doing the same thing you’re doing for the same reasons you’re doing it, it just refills your cup.”
3. NEA will pick its new president
The assembly also will choose new leaders, including a successor to Becky Pringle, who ends her second and final three-year term as the NEA president in August.
The union’s presidential election frequently includes multiple candidates, but historically, most contests have overwhelmingly favored the incumbent vice president. But this year’s election could play out a little differently.
In this year’s race, the union’s current vice president, Princess Moss, an elementary school music teacher from Louisa County, Va., will be challenged by two major state affiliate leaders: Kate Dias of Connecticut’s 40,000-member affiliate and Sean Spiller of the 200,000-member New Jersey union. Also running is Tania Kappner, a English and history virtual education teacher in the Oakland, Calif., schools associated with the Equal Opportunity Now By Any Means Necessary caucus, a far-left labor group.
For the second year in a row, the assembly will also close with daylong training and strategy sessions for members fighting a wave of ongoing anti-union legislation in GOP-dominated states.
4. Extra credit: How the NEA does business
For those following along online, you should know some basics about how the NEA does its work at the RA. Media outlets often botch these details, so it’s worth understanding some of the ways the union sets policy.
Constitutional and bylaw amendments proposed to delegates are typically for things that affect core operations—like the union’s dues structure and membership categories.
The union’s resolutions are generally drafted and edited by a resolutions committee before they’re put to the entire delegation. They represent the union’s long-term stance on issues from early childhood education and teacher autonomy all the way to policy issues like performance pay and collective bargaining.
New business items take up the bulk of RA floor time. They direct the union to do something for a year, but are not permanent statements of belief. They can come from the union’s various leadership bodies, but most come from delegates, and it takes only 50 signatories to get one to the floor. (Partisan news media often seize on these, even before debate or when they are ruled out of order or dropped from consideration.)
The union will also finalize its budget and set its legislative agenda at the RA in closed-door sessions.