Before members of the National Education Association (NEA) gather in Denver next month to choose a new president of the largest teachers’ union in America, they should hear Ann Marie Pocklembo’s story.    

Pocklembo, a New Jersey music teacher who has spent more than 30 years in the classroom, is one of the candidates for NEA president, Sean Spiller. Pocklembo alleges that while Spiller was leading the NEA’s New Jersey state affiliate, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the state union sent more than $40 million in teachers’ mandatory dues to support his run for governor—and did it without her consent.   

I’m a Denver Public Schools teacher who, like Pocklembo, has taught music for close to three decades. When I spoke with Pocklembo recently, I was struck by how familiar her frustration sounded.   

“As we started to uncover all of the possible uses of our dues money, it’s adding up to increasing millions of dollars. . . going toward running politicians instead of running our union,” Pocklembo told me.    

I recognized that feeling. When I joined the NEA’s Colorado affiliate, it felt like a professional organization that was supporting me and looking out for my best interests. But over time, I watched the Colorado Education Association’s (CEA) priorities drift away from the everyday concerns of teachers and students and toward political activism.   

In fact, government records show that the CEA and its affiliated entities have spent millions of dollars in elections over the past decade. Meanwhile, our dues kept going up. Eventually, I was paying about $70 a month at a time when I was trying to make every dollar count. Pocklembo says she currently pays about $1,600 in union dues every year.   

Neither of us thinks we should have to wonder whether the dues coming out of our paychecks are supporting us and our classrooms—or someone else’s political agenda.   

While unions can legally spend on politics, in Pocklembo’s case, New Jersey union officials told her one thing, then did another.   

According to her lawsuit, filed with the help of nonprofit law firm the Fairness Center, the NJEA claimed on its membership materials that donating money to the union’s political action committees was voluntary and separate from teachers’ regular, mandatory dues.   

Despite what they promised, Pocklembo alleges union officials used a super PAC called Garden State Forward to funnel tens of millions of dues dollars to political groups with ties to the NJEA. Ultimately, those groups used teachers’ money to pay for most of the campaign ads, flyers and mailers that blanketed New Jersey in support of Spiller’s campaign for governor—all while many New Jersey educators were struggling to make ends meet.    

“Right now, we’re all struggling to pay our utility bills,” Pocklembo said. “You’re supposed to be working for me. But it’s the exact opposite. I feel like we’re just a money grab to [NJEA officials], and they’re going to do whatever they want with our money.”   

To me, that’s just wrong. When a union asks teachers for monthly dues, it owes them transparency about whose interests it is really serving.   

I left the CEA three years ago because I didn’t feel as though union officials were really serving teachers’ interests anymore. The union seemed focused on ideological trainings, “privilege” workshops, land acknowledgments, and other priorities that I did not believe had anything to do with helping teachers teach, especially as students were struggling with learning loss after COVID.  

Pocklembo’s case is unfolding nearly 1,800 miles from Denver, but Colorado teachers have reason to pay attention: the president of the CEA has endorsed Spiller to lead the national union that CEA members also belong to.  

“I think people just need to look to see what happened in New Jersey, and say, ‘Can something like this happen on an even bigger level?’” Pocklembo told me. “Do we want someone who has had that track record locally here running the entire organization for the entire country?”   

If I were still a CEA member, I know what my answers would be.  

Teachers are not political piggy banks. We are the ones on the ground in the classrooms, working with students, communicating with parents — and dealing with the consequences when unions lose sight of their mission.   

NEA members are coming to Denver to elect a new leader who will speak for millions of teachers. Before they vote, they should listen to one.   

Priscilla Rahn is a Denver Public Schools music teacher and the author of the book Restoring Education in America: An Inspirational Teacher Toolbox.