By Art Harman, Senior Vice President – Policy, The Conservative Caucus
The Communist revolutionary day of indoctrination known as May Day passed with only some reported violence this year. But the real violence was committed on children.
In California, Chicago, North Carolina and in other school systems, the radical teachers unions got schools closed for the day or otherwise got students and themselves to the demonstrations. No education for the kids — this was a day of Communist and anti-Trump indoctrination that parents would have had little or no right to know about or ability to opt-out their children.
Many children were given hateful signs and t-shirts, and told to chant hateful and threatening slogans about President Trump and our nation. Some videos showed innocent children dutifully repeating the hateful slogans.
This is criminal child abuse. But it’s typical for the current Democrat party. You could say “this is not your father’s Democrat party” — the party of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton.
Behind flowery speeches about ‘fairness,’ it’s all about coercion: respectable-sounding campaign speeches dressing up extremist policies of hate, destroying the American dream, and creating a new generation of brainwashed children who will vote solid Democrat in the future. They won’t understand they are voting for their own oppression.
The protesters’ campaign for a ‘buy nothing day’ of course wasn’t even a microscopic dot on retailers’ books. Any protester who actually obeyed their own propaganda posters either shopped the day before or after. Nobody noticed or cared.
By what right did teachers and schools cancel school and take children to propaganda events?
You know most teachers would not have bussed children to a pro-Trump rally, or even let a student wear a MAGA hat or shirt at school.
Our educational system has been taken over by the most radical activists on the Left.
Approximately 70% of U.S. public school teachers (K–12) are members of a union or employees’ association, with the NEA representing the largest share. The good news is some have been decertified.
The NEA’s 434-Page Activism Manual
The National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers union, showed off their extremist colors in their 434-page NEA 2025 Handbook. It’s not a manual of proper educational techniques but of political activism.
“NEA members are already demonstrating that we will not ‘adjust our behavior’ to fit the cruel, unlawful, and unconstitutional demands of this authoritarian regime. We are rejecting the efforts to censor curriculum. We are marching in the streets. We are joining with parents and allies to promote, protect, and strengthen public education by organizing, mobilizing, litigating, and advocating.”
— NEA 2025 HANDBOOK
The manual also promotes “trans gender transition/support,” “Palestine,” “anti-Zionism,” “racial and social justice,” “undocumented immigrants’ protections,” “Climate and Ecology Justice,” and “opposition to all efforts to shut down the southern border and further limit the right to seek asylum in the U.S. and much more.”
This is what children are being taught.
It’s no surprise that teachers are almost exclusively left-wing today. It’s actually self-selecting: if you’re a conservative and want to teach, you’ll change your mind in your first days at your college. You’ll see the curriculum and the rabid professors with dyed hair, tattoos and piercings. Then you’ll hear the focus on radical ideology and how to get students to obey her ideology — instead of effective techniques to train students how to think for themselves.
Solutions
States and counties must specifically prohibit using children as political pawns. There must be penalties for teachers and administrators who violate the rules and involve students in any political events.
Some states already do.
TEXAS
Certified educators are prohibited from encouraging or facilitating student departures from class or school activities for any form of political activism. Teachers who facilitate walkouts face investigation, sanctions, and potential licensure revocation.
FLORIDA
“Administrators and instructional staff must not encourage, organize, promote, or facilitate student participation in protest activity during the school day. Any such conduct violates professional responsibilities and warrants disciplinary action.” Parents are explicitly told to report school employees who encourage protests.
KANSAS
Students need written parental permission to participate in any protest or walkout during the school day, and must make up the instructional time. Districts face steep fines if staff are found to have encouraged, facilitated, enabled, or failed to discipline students for organized protests/walkouts.
OKLAHOMA
State legislators have warned of possible certificate revocation for violations of compulsory attendance laws and professional educator standards if teachers promote, facilitate, or fail to address walkouts.
Various individual school districts around the country have also adopted restrictions on political advocacy and protests. All must forbid the practice to safeguard our children.
Decertify the Unions
One solution is to oust (‘decertify’) unions from the teaching profession.
Some states and localities have actually decertified or severely weakened teachers’ unions:
Florida: Unions need 60% dues-paying membership or face recertification votes. Automatic dues deduction has ended. Dozens of teachers’ unions have been decertified, liberating tens of thousands of teachers and staff from union coercion. Over 100 public-sector units — including teachers — have been decertified since 2023.
Wisconsin: Union bargaining is limited only to base wages and an annual recertification election is required. Many local teachers’ unions have lost certification, and union membership has dropped sharply. The unions became less powerful.
Iowa and Tennessee: Have also restricted union bargaining rights or added recertification rules.
North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina: Longstanding bans or heavy limits on public-sector and teacher bargaining. Result: their unions have little formal power.
How about your state and city?
“Restoring true, patriotic education in America will take everyone exposing how dangerous the union-ruled educational system has become — and demanding reform.”
Preventing our children from being indoctrinated — whether in the classroom or by being sent to Communist demonstrations — is an important step in restoring our republic.
You Can Help: Action Items
- Attend and speak at your local school board meetings. Demand that teachers be prohibited from encouraging, allowing, or enabling students to skip school for political protests, and from teaching radical politics at all. Study how your schools are failing under extremist teachers, then write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.
- Run for school board yourself — or find a friend who will. It’s not a demanding, full-time position. The reward is assuring that your children — and all others — will get a genuine and safe education.
- Ask state and local officials to outlaw teacher unions. Government workers should never be unionized, and especially none who teach our children.
- Repeal the NEA’s federal charter. The NEA is a ‘federally chartered corporation.’ Its stated purposes in 1906 were “to elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching; and to promote the cause of education in the United States.” It has completely failed. Tell your Senators and Representative to repeal the federal charter granted to the NEA by an Act of Congress in 1906. U.S. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.
— Art Harman, Senior Vice President – Policy, The Conservative Caucus
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About the author: Art Harman is Senior Vice President – Policy at The Conservative Caucus.
About The Conservative Caucus: Founded in 1974, The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization. Under President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus advances free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.
Published May 8, 2026 by The Conservative Caucus.
Peter J. Thomas is a veteran conservative political strategist and seasoned policy expert dedicated to upholding the principles of the Constitution and democracy. As a founder and the chairman of the Conservative Caucus, he has played a pivotal role in promoting and shaping the conservative agenda across the nation for over half a century.