National Education Association
The National Education Association is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college students preparing to become teachers. The NEA has 2.8 million members and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The NEA had a budget of $399 million in 2023 along with an endowment of $428 million. Becky Pringle is the NEA's current president.
During the early 20th century, the National Education Association was among the leading progressive advocates of establishing a United States Department of Education.
Driven by pressure from teacher organizing, by the 1970s the NEA transformed from an education advocacy organization to a rank-and-file union. In the decades since, the association has continued to represent organized teachers and other school workers in collective bargaining and to lobby for progressive education policy. The NEA's political agenda frequently brings it into conflict with conservative interest groups. State affiliates of the NEA regularly lobby state legislators for funding, seek to influence education policy, and file legal actions.
At the national level, the NEA lobbies the United States Congress and federal agencies and is active in the nominating process for Democratic candidates. The NEA is a major supporter of the Democratic Party.
History
Founding
The NEA was founded in Philadelphia in 1857 as the National Teachers Association. Zalmon Richards was elected the NTA's first president and presided over the organization's first annual meeting in 1858. At the beginning and for its first century of history, it had the character of a professional association rather than a labor union. The NTA became the National Education Association in 1870 when it merged with the American Normal School Association, the National Association of School Superintendents, and the Central College Association. The union was chartered by Congress in 1906.The NEA was never on good terms with the New Deal. Its main goal was for Congress to pass a multipurpose public finance bill that would supplement local property taxes in funding public schools. Some relief money was used to build schools, but the New Deal avoided channeling any of it through the Office of Education. Legislation never succeeded, because it would condone segregated schools in the South and because President Franklin D. Roosevelt rejected any across-the-board program. He believed that federal money should only go to the poorest schools, and none to rich states. The New Deal set up its own separate educational program through the Civilian Conservation Corps and other relief agencies.
From association to labor union
For most of the 20th century, the NEA was dominated by the public school administration in small towns and rural areas. The state organizations played a major role in policy formation for the NEA. Only a small portion of American public school teachers were unionized before the 1960s. That began to change in 1959, when Wisconsin became the first state to pass a collective bargaining law for public employees. Over the next 20 years, most other states adopted similar laws.The NEA merged with the American Teachers Association, the historically Black teachers association founded as the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools, in 1966. The NEA's merger with the ATA, its transformation into a true labor union, and other factors were to greatly change the organization's demographics. In 1967, the NEA elected its first Hispanic president, Braulio Alonso. In 1968, NEA elected its first black president, Elizabeth Duncan Koontz.
After 1957, the NEA began a process that would transform it into an organization representing the teachers in its districts, rather than just the administrators. It came to resemble the rival American Federation of Teachers, which was a labor union for teachers in larger cities. The success of the AFT in raising wages through strike activity encouraged the NEA to undertake similar activities. The years between 1957 and 1973 saw a gradual shift in power to the association's classroom teachers, a tentative embrace of collective bargaining and teacher strikes, and the creation of a political action committee. These changes culminated in a new constitution adopted in 1973. The constitution expelled school administrators entirely and made structural changes to allow the NEA to operate as a labor union.
In the 1970s, more militant politics came to characterize the NEA. Its political action committee engaged in local election campaigns, and the union began endorsing political candidates who supported its policy goals. State NEA branches became less important as the national and local levels began direct and unmediated relationships. The NEA's elected leadership often supported teachers in opposition to school administrators.
Relations with the American Federation of Teachers
In 1998, a tentative merger agreement was reached between NEA and American Federation of Teachers negotiators, but ratification failed soundly in the NEA's Representative Assembly meeting in New Orleans in early July 1998. However, six NEA state affiliates have since merged with their AFT counterparts. Mergers occurred in Florida ; Minnesota, Montana, New York, North Dakota, and West Virginia.In 2006, the NEA and the AFL–CIO also announced that, for the first time, stand-alone NEA locals as well as those that had merged with the AFT would be allowed to join state and local labor federations affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
2024 NEASO lockout
The National Education Association Staff Organization is the staff union representing employees who work for the NEA. In July 2024, NEASO staff members went on a three-day strike protesting what it charged were NEA's unfair labor practices. This resulted in the halting of the National Education Association's annual representative assembly in Philadelphia. The event, which was scheduled to run for four days over the Fourth of July weekend, brings together thousands of educators to vote on the union's priorities, budget, and strategic plan. President Joe Biden, who was expected to address the delegates, canceled his appearance, citing his refusal to cross the picket line.Following the strike, the NEA locked out nearly 300 staff members working at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. These staff members were not paid or allowed to work until August 15, 2024, when NEA and NEASO reached agreement on a new contract.
Composition
According to NEA's Department of Labor records since 2005, when membership classifications were first reported, the majority of the union's membership are "active professional" members, having fallen only slightly from 74% to the current 71%. The second largest category have been "active education support professional" members, with about 15%. The third largest category are "retired" members, which have grown from 8% to 10%. Two other categories, "active life" and "student" members, have both remained with around 2%, falling slightly. These categories are eligible to vote in the union, though the union lists some comparatively marginal categories which are not eligible to vote: "staff", "substitute" and "reserve" members, each with less than 1% of the union's membership. NEA contracts also cover some non-members, known as agency fee payers, which since 2006 have numbered comparatively about 3% of the size of the union's membership.As of 2014 these categories account for about: 2.1 million "active professionals", 457,000 "active education support professionals", 300,000 "retirees", 52,000 "students", 42,000 "active life" members, and just under nine thousand others, plus about 90,000 non-members paying agency fees.
Membership trends
The NEA reported a membership of 766,000 in 1961. In 2007, at the 150th anniversary of its founding, NEA membership had grown to 3.2 million. However, by July 2012, USA Today reported that NEA had lost nearly 0.3% of their members each year since 2010.Following the Supreme Court's 2018 Janus v. AFSCME case, which ended the compulsion of non-union, public employees to pay agency fees, or what are colloquially known as 'fair-share fees,' the NEA's total membership and agency fee payers dropped from 3,074,841 on its November 28, 2017, report to 2,975,933 in its August 31, 2019, report, a total loss of 98,908 dues payers.
Structure and governance
The NEA has a membership of approximately 2.8 million, making it the largest labor union in the United States. The majority of NEA's affiliates are recognized as trade unions, but depending on state law, they may be limited to a professional association. The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. NEA is a member of Education International, the global federation of teachers' unions.Leadership and governance
The Representative Assembly, or RA, is the supreme decision-making body of the NEA, and the largest democratic deliberative body in the world. Over 6,000 elected delegates representing states, locals, and various membership groups convene each summer to deliberate and adopt the objectives, initiatives, and business that guides the Association. RA delegates also elect the union's executive officers and members of the Executive Committee, and adopt the Association’s nearly-$400 million annual budget.
The NEA Executive Committee has nine elected members: three officers and six at-large committee members. President Rebecca Pringle, Vice President Princess Moss, and Secretary-Treasurer Noel Candelaria were elected to three-year terms in 2020, and re-elected in 2023. All Executive Committee positions are limited to two three-year terms. Moss and Candelaria have announced their candidacies for NEA President and Vice President, respectively, in the election scheduled for the RA in July 2026.
Kim A. Anderson is currently serving as the Executive Director, having been appointed in 2019. The Executive Director is a staff position, and is not elected. The Executive Director oversees Association staff and the implementation of business.
The board of directors and executive committee are responsible for the general policies and interests of the NEA. The board of directors consists of one director from each state affiliate, at-large directors for retired members, aspiring educators, higher education, and education support professionals. The board also includes representatives from ethnic minority affairs caucuses, school nurses, and administrators. The Executive Committee consists of the President, Vice President, and Secretary-Treasurer plus six members elected at large by delegates to the Representative Assembly. It acts for the board of directors when it is not in session.