ELKO, Nevada – Nevada Policy Research Institute spokeswoman Chantal Lovell recently penned an excellent editorial for the Elko Daily Free Press that highlights an inconvenient truth about teachers unions that many educators remain blissfully oblivious to.


“What many teachers may not know is that their dues dollars are going to support much more than the union’s operating costs. Teachers’ monetary contributions ($770 per year for teachers in Las Vegas) are regularly used to further political and social agendas that may conflict with the personal views and convictions of individual members.”

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Virtually every teachers union in America is joined at the hip with the Democratic Party, which means with each dues payment educators in the Nevada State Education Association and most others are helping to fund organizations and politicians that promote issues like abortion and same sex marriage.

“From Jan. 1 to May 16, 2014, the Nevada State Education Association gave a combined $100,000 to these liberal causes through payments to ProgressNow Nevada and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN),” Lovell wrote.

The NSEA is also a major cheerleader for increasing taxes.

“The union gave money to PLAN and ProgressNow via The Education Initiative Political Action Committee, an organization formed to advocate on behalf of the margin tax, which will go before voters this November,” Lovell continued.

“In the first four and a half months of this year, the National Education Association and the Nevada State Education Association were the only contributors to the PAC, donating a combined $235,000. Since 2012, the unions have donated over $1.9 million to the passage of the margin tax.”

From the teachers unions’ perspective, increasing taxes means increasing school funding, which is the most effective way of transferring money from taxpayers to its members, and eventually union coffers.

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Progress Now, PLAN, and PLAN’s member organizations like Planned Parenthood are the state’s biggest advocates of abortion, same-sex marriage, pro-LGBT policies, and other far left political perspectives.

“The NSEA teacher union’s financial support for controversial, divisive issues may rightly cause members who hold opposing positions to pause before retaining membership in the organization,” Lovell wrote.

In other words, educators who thought their dues dollars simply helped support education causes and union operations should think again. The union might call itself “the voice of education in the Silver State,” but its political spending makes it clear union bosses are reaching their tentacles into all sorts of other political issues.

For teachers who don’t like the union’s brand of left-wing politics, the solution is simple.

“Members who fundamentally oppose the NSEA’s social agenda – or its other unpopular political positions – or wish to drop membership for any reason, may do so by notifying the union (and sometimes their school district) in writing between July 1 and July 15 of the decision to leave,” Lovell wrote.