A new list from a teachers’ union in Ohio highlights the serious issue that students are rarely among the priorities for U.S. educators nowadays. Everything is about the educators’ salary, ideology, and political influence.
On Thursday, the Ohio Education Association issued its list of top priorities, none of which seem to have to do with students’ grades and learning:
BREAKING: Ohio teachers union reveals their Top 5 Priorities.
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) August 21, 2026
Students didn't even make the list. pic.twitter.com/wpougthrzm
The thing is, this is not an issue specific to one teachers’ union or one state. It is a problem across the entire United States and in practically every public school district. The capabilities, skills, future, morals, and knowledge of students are never the priority. Our education system has become one geared toward making money, exerting influence, and spreading woke ideology, not about actually teaching young Americans.
BREAKING: The Columbus Education Association (@ColumbusEA), a teachers' union in Ohio, is encouraging teachers to join an in-school anti-ICE protest called the “Minneapolis Solidarity Day of Action” tomorrow.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 29, 2026
They want teachers to push political activism on students, including… pic.twitter.com/bNRkR99vxD
The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University acknowledged earlier this year that there is a "generation-long decline" in American test scores, across demographics, with reading scores down in 83% of school districts and math scores down in 70% of school districts compared even just to a decade ago. The COVID-19 lockdowns, which the teachers' unions enthusiastically supported and attempted to prolong, simply exacerbated the problem. In fact, it's longer than one generation — the scores have been dropping and the quality of education declining ever since the Department of Education came into being. Many of the current teachers had substandard educations themselves.
The Department of Education was founded in 1980. We spent 1 trillion dollars on education and test scores have been declining. pic.twitter.com/lZwvxkoKAd
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 20, 2025
Related: Education Department Overhauls Accreditation System to Pitch DEI, Lower Costs
In the 19th century, teachers without college degrees in one-room schoolhouses were teaching higher-level math and requiring much higher-level literature and history than most college graduates could handle in the present day. The issue isn't money or "affordable healthcare" or collective bargaining rights, no matter what the Ohio Education Association claims. This issue is ignorant activist teachers, federal government meddling, Marxist infiltration of educational accreditors and schools, low standards, and, of course, a lack of focus on what is good for students.
🚨 CRAZED TEACHERS' UNION BOSSES TAKE AIM AT COMPANIES DITCHING DEI
— Will Hild (@WillHild) September 3, 2025
Fringe left-wing activists, like @AFTUnion boss @RWeingarten, are now attacking companies for complying with the law, dropping their discriminatory DEI initiatives, and focusing on serving their customers.… pic.twitter.com/lG80d7UmZ9
Gone are the days of educators like Laura Ingalls Wilder and Booker T. Washington, who wanted students with practical skills, critical thinking, and minds steeped in the examples and thoughts of Western civilization's and the Bible's great heroes. Most teachers don't even read Shakespeare, Vergil, Longfellow, or Newton, so why would their students? Many professors and teachers struggle with basic math, so how can they teach students? Most teachers don't have high standards for themselves, so why would they have them for students?
Unless teachers begin to make students their primary priority, U.S. education will continue to go down the toilet.
