NY Teachers’ Unions Are Failing Students and Fleecing Taxpayers

By Joe Palaggi

Teachers’ unions once had a clear mission: fight for fair wages, protect classroom conditions, and give educators a voice. That mission was honorable. But in 2025, it’s no longer what drives them. Today, America’s largest teachers’ unions operate less like advocates for workers and more like entrenched political machines — siphoning taxpayer money while delivering little for students.

A recent watchdog report revealed that the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have funneled nearly $50 million since 2022 into left-wing advocacy groups and political campaigns. These are organizations funded by dues from teachers, many of whom may not share those political views. Worse, this money is spent far from the classroom, while education outcomes stagnate.

Nowhere illustrates the damage more clearly than New York. The Empire State spends more per student than any other, $36,293 per child in the 2024–25 school year, nearly double the national average. Total education spending has ballooned to $89 billion annually, up 21 percent in just four years. Yet student achievement in math and reading remains flat, and in many districts, it’s declining.

Where is all that money going? Straight into salaries, pensions, and perks pushed by powerful unions. The average teacher salary in New York reached $92,696 in 2024, the second-highest in the country. And thanks to Albany’s union-backed “hold harmless” law, districts keep receiving the same state aid even when enrollment drops. That means fewer students but no cuts in funding,  bloated budgets locked in by law. Taxpayers shoulder the burden while schools face no pressure to adapt or improve.

Between 2012 and 2022, inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending jumped 41 percent — from under $20,000 to nearly $30,000. The payoff? No measurable improvement in student results. What unions defend as “investment” in education looks more like insurance for payrolls and pensions.

Meanwhile, unions spend millions to elect the same politicians they later “negotiate” with across the table. That’s not collective bargaining — it’s collusion. Taxpayers aren’t represented in that deal, yet they’re the ones footing the bill.

The imbalance is staggering. Only 10 percent of U.S. workers belong to a union. In the public sector, it’s over three times higher, and in New York, it tops 20 percent — the highest in the nation. That outsized power allows unions to dictate education budgets and block reforms, even as enrollment declines and families flee public schools.

Unions still have a role to play as workplace advocates. But their political clout has outlived its usefulness. It’s time to cap their campaign spending, require transparency on how dues are spent, and scrap wasteful rules like “hold harmless” that protect adults at the expense of kids.

New York proves the point. When unions run the schools, students and taxpayers always come last.