Executive Summary
Corey DeAngelis joined me this week and he did not bring opinions — he brought resolutions, filings and enrollment data, which is what makes this episode so difficult to argue with. He read all two hundred pages of resolutions considered at the American Federation of Teachers convention and reported that almost none of it concerned educating children. Delegates considered impeaching and removing the President and cutting the military budget by fifty percent. They passed resolutions to abolish immigration enforcement, to force employer health plans to cover gender-affirming care including surgeries and puberty blockers, to make D.C. a state, and to fund universal childcare with a unionized childcare workforce. They passed a resolution allowing teachers to socially transition a child at school while keeping it from parents, with the informing teacher facing discipline for "outing" the student. They designated May first — May Day — as a day of civic action with students trained and marched. Then came the arithmetic: since 2014 the public school system has lost 750,000 students and added 600,000 staff. Chicago lost 30,000 children since 2019 and raised staffing twenty percent. New York City spends around $40,000 per student in some districts while forty-three percent of students attend schools where most cannot read or do math at grade level. Randi Weingarten faces a congressional inquiry over roughly $1.4 million in union funds tied to her own book's promotion, and 99.9 percent of her last-cycle contributions went to one party. At Davos she announced bringing the World Economic Forum agenda into 100,000 American schools, and a new AI teaching partnership targets 400,000 teachers. It ends where these conversations always end: parents are the answer, and the fastest lever is local.
Scroll to the bottom for Key Takeaways.
The Enrollment Math That Ends the Argument
Start with the subtraction problem, because it is the fact nobody at that convention will defend on camera.
Since 2014, the number of students in the public school system has dropped by seven hundred fifty thousand. Over the same period, total staffing rose by six hundred thousand people.
Chicago is the local version. Thirty thousand children lost since 2019 — a ten percent enrollment drop in a handful of years — met with a twenty percent staffing increase.
As Corey put it: in what other enterprise do you lose ten percent of the people you exist to serve and answer with a twenty percent hiring spree?
The reason is not mysterious. More employees means more dues-paying members. More dues means more revenue. More members means a larger bloc to mobilize in November. The incentive is doing exactly what an incentive of that shape does.
And the classroom teachers are not the ones collecting it. The growth is concentrated in administrators, superintendents and support staff. In Texas, sixteen superintendents earn more than the President is entitled to by statute. Corey's suggestion made me laugh out loud: everyone worries AI will replace teachers — start with the superintendents and protect the classroom.
$40,000 a Child and 43 Percent Who Cannot Read
New York State spends roughly $21,000 per student. New York City runs closer to $40,000 in some districts. Across thirteen years of schooling, that is more than half a million dollars per child.
A report released this year found that forty-three percent of New York City students are in failing government schools where a majority cannot read or do math at grade level.
We usually call that failure. Corey offered the reading that stopped me cold: from the perspective of the people running the system, it is working precisely as intended. A young person who cannot read a founding document cannot be governed by one. Students come out of that pipeline taught to critique capitalism for every flaw and forgive socialism for every failure, having never been shown Moscow, Caracas or Havana.
The method has a documented author. Lenin is credited with the line: give us the child for four years and he will be a Bolshevik forever. And Yuri Bezmenov, the Soviet defector, told American audiences in the 1980s exactly how demoralization works — one generation of children taught from kindergarten through college to hate their own country is enough to destroy a nation from within, with no invasion required.
The Resolutions, in Their Own Words
Corey read the two hundred pages so the rest of us would not have to.
Considered at the convention: a resolution to impeach and remove the President from the White House. A resolution to cut the military budget by fifty percent. Even if you agree with those positions, what do they have to do with teaching a child to read?
Passed: a resolution to abolish immigration enforcement — language Corey notes comes straight out of the Democratic Socialists of America platform. A resolution to force employer-provided health insurance plans to cover gender-affirming care including sex change surgeries, puberty blockers and hormone interventions, paid through everyone's premiums. A resolution to make D.C. a state. A resolution for taxpayer-funded universal childcare with the childcare workforce unionized. And a resolution declaring May first a day of civic action, with explicit language calling for students to be trained and to march — the resolution itself uses the phrase political protest.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, spoke from that stage and called for regime change and help taking the House in November. Senator Raphael Warnock made the same appeal. The delegates cheered both.
They are not hiding it. As Corey said, they did not let the mask slip — they tore it off and threw it in the fireplace.
The Secrecy Resolution and What a Ban Is Actually Worth
One passed resolution deserves its own heading, because it redefines the relationship between a parent and a school.
Teachers may socially transition a child at school. A teacher who tells the parents would be in trouble — for "outing" the student.
Look at the word, because the word is the whole mechanism. "Outing" converts a parent from the person legally and morally responsible for a child into a threat that child needs protection from. Accept the word and you have accepted everything built on top of it.
Corey asked the only question there is: why do you want government employees keeping secrets from parents about their own children, when parents know those children's needs better than anyone alive? Nobody at that convention answered it.
And your state's ban does not protect you. Corey reported that in red states where CRT and gender ideology are formally prohibited, teachers admit on undercover video that they still teach it once the door closes. A ban is a piece of paper. A parent paying attention is the enforcement mechanism.
May Day Was Chosen on Purpose
The May first designation was not a scheduling accident. May first is May Day, a recognized communist holiday. American labor deliberately chose Labor Day in September specifically to distance itself from it.
The Chicago Teachers Union called for a strike on May first this year. The negotiated result was a half day of school teaching children about protest and political action — after which district school buses carried those children to the Capitol to continue it. Then the delegates voted to take it national.
They ran the pilot, publicized the pilot, and scaled the pilot. All of it in resolutions anyone can read.
Follow the Money — Then Follow It Again
Corey found the first thread himself. A September 2025 line item on the union's LM-2 filing showed $171,000 going to Feldman Strategies, a PR firm simultaneously advertising on Facebook about having pushed Randi Weingarten's book onto the bestseller list. He asked publicly and got no response. The Freedom Foundation dug deeper and the figure appeared closer to $1.4 million.
Weingarten has responded to a congressional letter of inquiry, calling it a targeted harassment campaign. She also acknowledged that half the book's proceeds went to the union — which raises the obvious question about the other half.
She has led the AFT since 2008. There are no term limits. She was just re-elected to another two years, putting her near two decades at the helm. Ninety-nine point nine percent of her last-cycle campaign contributions went to a single party.
Corey calls that one-sided political money laundering. I would say it more simply: teachers are being taxed to fund politics many of them vote against — and that is precisely why they are leaving.
The same pattern runs locally. Corey's own former San Antonio superintendent pressured district staff to turn out for a billion-dollar school funding referendum, held as these always are on a low-turnout day when the institution's employees decide the outcome. He spotlighted it in 2022, the attorney general's office looked into it, and the superintendent retired shortly after — landing a position with the superintendents' association at the Capitol.
Davos, a Global Curriculum, and the Classroom AI
Here is the part I have been warning about for years, and it accelerated this month.
I covered Davos. Randi Weingarten stood on that stage and announced the World Economic Forum agenda would be brought into one hundred thousand American public schools. If Common Core was objectionable because it nationalized curriculum, this is the same proposition scaled to the planet — and it was announced, not leaked.
Now there is an AI partnership. The AFT announced a classroom teaching tool built with Anthropic, aimed at training four hundred thousand teachers, with plans described as extending to roughly three hundred fifty progressive-leaning NGOs working alongside the unions in schools.
Corey did not argue bias from a feeling. He cited a measurement: a Washington Post analysis comparing AI systems found Anthropic's Claude gave only-left-leaning answers approximately forty-five percent of the time and only-right-leaning answers zero percent of the time, with the balance mixed. By that same analysis, Grok came out the most balanced system tested. Take it for what it is — one outlet's methodology, one prompt set, one moment in time. It is still the only number anyone has put on the table, published by a paper with no incentive to produce that result.
My own concern goes one step further and I mark it as mine. A great many children already do not think — they ask the machine first. Install the machine at classroom scale, tuned by whoever tunes it, and the question stops being what children believe. It becomes whether they form beliefs at all.
New Hampshire Republicans passed a bill banning WEF-infused curriculum from their schools. More states should, in both directions of the aisle, because the underlying question is not partisan. It is a sovereignty question about who writes what an American child learns.
The Exit Is Real and It Is Accelerating
Now the good news, and there is a lot of it.
Since the Supreme Court's 2018 Janus decision, no public employee can be compelled to pay union dues. Roughly two hundred thousand teachers have left the National Education Association since. In the past year alone, more than sixteen thousand joined the Teacher Freedom Alliance, which provides donor-funded liability insurance, professional development, and — the part that matters most — a support group, so no teacher has to be the only dissenter in the building.
Corey met a half dozen teachers in Minneapolis who wanted out and were afraid of being bullied or blacklisted. At the Teacher Freedom Summit, hundreds of public school teachers who had left or were about to leave cheered through most of his remarks. One sent him her resignation letter opting out of all levels of membership, and he posted it with her name blacked out so the next teacher would have a template.
That is how a captured institution actually gets unwound. Not by a decree from Washington. By sixteen thousand people writing the same letter.
The Empowerment Pivot — Look Past the School Board
I asked Corey for solutions and he gave concrete ones, so I will not dress them up.
Parents are in the driver's seat even when nobody hands you the keys. Take them anyway. Watch your district whether you live in a red state or a blue one, because the undercover video proves the ban is not self-enforcing.
And look one layer past the school board. This is where Corey and I both landed: the piece almost nobody watches is the connection between NGOs and superintendents, and the contracts flowing into your district. That is where a global curriculum or a classroom AI tool actually enters your child's day — not through a vote you get to attend, but through a procurement document you were never shown. Those contracts are public records in nearly every state.
Homeschooling is rising. School choice is rising. Every resolution passed at that convention is free advertising for both. Local action is where we win. We the People are the answer, and in this fight "the People" means the parents.
Key Takeaways
- The public school system lost 750,000 students since 2014 and added 600,000 staff. Chicago lost 30,000 kids since 2019 and raised staffing 20 percent.
- New York City spends around $40,000 per student in some districts while 43 percent of students attend schools where most cannot read or do math at grade level.
- AFT delegates considered impeaching the President and halving the military budget, and passed resolutions abolishing immigration enforcement and mandating insurance coverage for gender-affirming care.
- A passed resolution lets teachers socially transition a child at school and penalizes any teacher who informs the parents, framed as "outing" the student.
- In red states with CRT and gender ideology bans, teachers admit on undercover video that they teach it anyway. A ban is a piece of paper; a parent is the enforcement mechanism.
- Randi Weingarten faces a congressional inquiry over roughly $1.4 million in union funds tied to her book's promotion; 99.9 percent of her last-cycle contributions went to one party.
- At Davos she announced bringing the WEF agenda into 100,000 American schools; a new AI teaching partnership targets 400,000 teachers.
- Since the 2018 Janus decision roughly 200,000 teachers have left the NEA, and 16,000 joined the Teacher Freedom Alliance in the last year alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
My state banned CRT and gender ideology in schools. Am I covered?
No, and this is the finding that should change how you spend your Tuesday nights. Corey reported that in red states with those bans in place, teachers admit on undercover video they still teach it once the classroom door closes. A ban is a piece of paper. A parent paying attention is the enforcement mechanism.
Isn't the union just advocating for its members, like any union?
Then explain the staffing numbers. Enrollment fell 750,000 while staffing rose 600,000, concentrated in administrators and support staff rather than classroom teachers. Corey's description is that it stopped being a teachers' union and became an administrators' union. The dues math explains the behavior better than the advocacy story does.
Why does an AI partnership worry you more than a curriculum fight?
Because a curriculum can be read aloud by a parent at a board meeting. A model's weighting cannot. A Washington Post analysis measured a substantial lean in one widely deployed system. My concern, stated as mine, is not only what children are taught — it is that children who ask a machine first may never build the habit of forming a view at all.
What does the Janus decision actually let a teacher do?
The 2018 Supreme Court ruling means no public employee can be compelled to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Roughly 200,000 teachers have left the NEA since. Templates exist, and the Teacher Freedom Alliance provides donor-funded liability coverage for teachers who leave.
Where should a parent with limited time actually spend it?
Past the school board, at the superintendent's office and the contracts. The board meeting is where the argument happens; the procurement document is where the outcome is decided. Read one contract. It will teach you more than a year of arguing on the internet.
Watch the full episode on Rumble: https://rumble.com/v7d67hi-mel-k-and-cory-deangelis-the-clear-and-present-danger-of-the-teachers-union.html
For my readers – Yes, we used AI to turn this episode into something readable for you. My team reviews everything first and does their best to sound like me. If it doesn't, that's fair, the robots aren't perfect…yet. If you want the real thing – unscripted, unfiltered, and exactly how I said it – that's what the full episode is for. You can always find it here [https://rumble.com/v7d67hi-mel-k-and-cory-deangelis-the-clear-and-present-danger-of-the-teachers-union.html]