While much of the nation’s attention over the past few months has centered on mass deportations, conflict in the Middle East, and the controversial “Epstein files,” a pair of Republicans is continuing to focus on American children in American classrooms. Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.) and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) announced new legislation on Wednesday aimed at stripping the National Education Association (NEA), a progressive teachers’ union, of its federal charter. The text of the bill states simply, “Chapter 1511 of title 36, United States Code (which granted a Federal charter to the National Education Association), is repealed.”

Appearing on Wednesday night’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Harris explained that the NEA’s federal charter is “a stamp of approval from the United States Congress.” He continued, “But I think everyone would recognize that the NEA has just gone off the rails, and they have certainly not lived up to what that charter was meant to be.” He added, “I think that the 119th Congress looks at this, and we have an opportunity to strip them of this charter and basically remove Congress’s seal of approval and hold them accountable for the actions that they’ve done.”

Harris said that the NEA “is a leftist, activist political action crowd that is simply funding the left-wing woke agenda, and it’s time for them to be called out.” He continued, “What do we see today? They vote to label President Trump’s policies as fascism. They’ve argued against taking pornographic LGBT books out of their school libraries. Every leftist agenda item you could think of, they have adopted, and that’s what they do.”

Earlier this month, the NEA hosted its annual convention in Portland, promoting a host of progressive policies and agenda items. On Tuesday night’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Educational Freedom Institute director Corey DeAngelis discussed some of the NEA’s recent activities. “None of them had anything to do with education,” DeAngelis said of the NEA’s July resolutions. “Some of their resolutions were so insane. They called to spend thousands of dollars, basically to label their political opponent, Trump, a fascist.” He added, “It gets worse than that: in their resolution, they misspelled the word ‘fascism.’ This is supposed to be the union representing educators, and — you almost can’t make this stuff up — they misspell a word that they’re trying to label the president, the duly elected president of the United States.”

According to leaked NEA conference information DeAngelis published, other resolutions included labeling President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize the Department of Education “illegal, anti-democratic, and racist attempt[s] to destroy public education and privatize it in the interests of the billionaires;” “defend[ing] birthright citizenship” and equating efforts to dismantle birthright citizenship to white supremacy and “Jim Crow” laws; promoting gender ideology in classrooms; and backing “the mass democratic movement against Trump’s authoritarianism and violations of human rights…”

The NEA was founded as the National Teachers Association in 1857 and was awarded a federal charter by the U.S. Congress in 1906. As of 2025, it is the largest single labor union in the country. For roughly the first century of its existence, the organization functioned as a professional association but shifted to functioning as a labor union at the end of the 1950s, as it merged with civil rights-oriented organizations such as the American Teachers Association. In the 1970s, the NEA transitioned to a more politically-active entity, endorsing and campaigning for Democratic politicians and candidates and, through its political action arm, donating to Democrats. From 1989 to 2014, 97% of the NEA’s political donations went to the Democratic Party and Democratic campaigns.

By the end of the 2010s, the NEA had become an explicitly political organization, focusing its activities on progressive activism. In 2021, for example, the NEA passed a resolution supporting the controversial 1619 Project and “oppos[ing] attempts to ban critical race theory” (CRT) in classrooms. The labor union has broadly advocated for implementing CRT in classrooms, instructing children that the U.S. is institutionally racist and white supremacist. Also in 2021, the NEA dedicated $7.5 million to training teachers to promote “racial and social justice” in classrooms, $32.9 million to supporting Democratic campaigns in the 2022 midterms, and millions of dollars to investigating parental rights organizations and other groups critical of CRT and gender ideology in classrooms.