We often talk about American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. But the AFT is only the second-largest teachers union. The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest, and its president’s name is Becky Pringle. Let’s just say she’s not a conservative thinker.

Pringle was elected in 2020 “as COVID-19 ravaged Black, Brown, and indigenous communities nationwide,” as her NEA bio colorfully puts it. This is the tenor of all Pringle’s self-descriptions. She is an unapologetic social justice warrior, tilting at every one of its inequitable windmills.

She was also a huge advocate for keeping schools closed during the pandemic. Pringle, along with the AFT’s Weingarten, were solicited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for their opinion as to school reopening. Both Weingarten and Pringle kept the schools closed. Then, when schools eventually reopened, Pringle issued an edict that all kids had to mask, regardless of vaccination status.

That policy was a teachers-union-centered decision, not a child-centered decision, because as national benchmark test after national benchmark test has shown, our children are falling further behind academically. Schools were nominally shut down for the sake of the 8% of public school teachers who were especially susceptible to COVID-19. Pringle herself made $534,243 over the course of the pandemic while keeping schools closed.

You know what schools didn’t have children falling behind academically? The private Catholic schools that continued to meet in person throughout the pandemic maintained their students’ academic achievements.

Part of the key to these private schools’ success is that they didn’t get sucked into the woke leftist wormhole that Pringle and Weingarten are promoting. The Catholic schools stuck to teaching math and reading. Public schools, through the encouragement of the teachers unions, were teaching all about social justice, racial inequities, and climate justice.

There are many reasons children in the public schools are struggling to shrink their academic gap, but the most glaring of all seems to be centered around the message that people like Pringle and Weingarten are promoting: Their education is not important and is easily sacrificed.

Another major reason has to do with the stifling indoctrination of left-wing ideologies that have tainted all learning. Critical race theory has told children that they are victims who can’t help themselves or oppressors because they have a certain skin color. Queer Marxism has served to introduce a destructive new religion into the supposedly “secular” school space. Then there is the constant fearmongering about the world coming to an end due to climate change. The kids are scared, confused, depressed, and learning very little that is good or useful.

You know what causes Pringle and the NEA are supporting? In April, Pringle was speaking at an event called “Summit for Democracy” and called social justice the third pillar of being a teacher. By this, she meant all the stuff listed in the previous paragraph. This summer, Pringle and Weingarten have taken on the “book ban” banner. Pringle and the NEA have included Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo on the summer reading list for educators. These books, at the very least, should not be in the hands of students. Except that the AFT and Weingarten are going around in a bus called the “Banned Book Mobile.” There plainly visible is Gender Queer. This book is a graphic novel that explores gender, identity, and sex. Sex is depicted between an older man and a younger boy. This is a book they want your kids to read, all for the sake of “learning.”

The NEA and AFT are left-wing-captured unions. They set the tone for teachers and administrators, and they are key disseminators of leftist ideology in public schools. Pringle is less discussed than Weingarten, but as the president of the NEA, she is playing from the same playbook and being richly paid for her efforts.