Teachers’ Unions Spent $23 Million Building AI Guidance for the Classroom — A New Report Says It’s Loaded With DEI.
A watchdog report published today by Defending Education — the parental-rights nonprofit formerly known as Parents Defending Education, led by president Nicole Neily — says the nation’s largest teachers’ unions and school-administrator associations are writing diversity, equity and inclusion language directly into their official guidance on how artificial intelligence should be used in K-12 classrooms. The report, “DEI in AI: Unions and Associations,” examines guidance from the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the two national principals’ associations — and finds equity and algorithmic-bias language embedded across nearly all of it.
Fox News ran the findings as a “FIRST ON FOX” exclusive the same morning. “Teachers unions and associations like the NEA and AFT at this point are nothing more than left-wing political operations funneling millions of dollars into promoting divisive DEI and gender ideologies in classrooms,” Defending Education investigative reporter Casey Ryan told Fox. The report’s own framing goes further, arguing the organizations are using AI “as their next frontier to reach school children” and shape “America’s next generation” before parents catch up.
Fox says it contacted all six organizations for comment; none had responded by publication. The dollar figures are not small — the AFT alone has committed $23 million to a new AI training academy for its 1.8 million members, and the NEA’s guidance already reaches 3 million educators nationwide.
- $23 million — AFT's National Academy for AI Instruction, funded by Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic — AFT press release, July 2025
- $15 million — NYSUT's requested funding for AI and media-literacy initiatives — Defending Education, "DEI in AI"
- $1 billion+ — teachers' unions' documented left-wing political spending since 2015, a separate Defending Education finding — background, not AI-specific
- 3M / 1.8M — combined membership of the NEA and AFT, the two unions whose AI guidance the report examined
- 0 of 6 — organizations named — NEA, AFT, CTA, AASA, NAESP, NASSP — that had responded to Fox News' request for comment as of publication
Defending Education has spent several years documenting DEI programming in K-12 and higher education; this is its first investigation focused specifically on artificial intelligence. The organization read through official AI guidance, model board policies, and training materials published by six organizations: the NEA, the AFT, the California Teachers Association, the American Association of School Administrators, and the two national principals’ groups — NAESP for elementary schools and NASSP for secondary schools. Its conclusion is that equity and algorithmic-bias language is not an isolated footnote in any one document — it recurs across nearly every guidance document the organization reviewed.
That video predates today’s report by nearly two months — AFT’s own footage of President Randi Weingarten’s May 27, 2026 National Press Club address on AI and screens, included here as background, not as a response to Defending Education’s findings.
NEW REPORT: AI is coming to classrooms nationwide — but who's shaping how it's used? Our latest investigation reveals how top teachers' unions are pushing to make DEI ideology a core part of AI in education.
The NEA’s sample school-board policy, drawn from its October 2024 AI Task Force report, instructs districts that “AI tools and systems utilized in the District shall undergo regular audits to identify and mitigate biases,” defined as “systemic, unwanted unfairness in how a computer detects patterns or automates decisions.” The same guidance states that AI-informed data “alone should never be used for high-stakes or determinative decisions” without also weighing “equity, diversity, access.” The union’s AI hub describes its entire approach as “grounded in equity, ethics, and educator voice.”
The AFT’s guidance says “technologies must be deployed so that they advance equity and fairness in public education,” warning that AI “has the potential to help personalize instruction” but “without proper guardrails it can perpetuate bias.” A resolution adopted at the union’s 2025 convention goes further, warning that AI “can perpetuate bias, invade privacy, and undermine educational equity, job security and the professional judgment of educators.”
The quotes in this section are taken verbatim from official union and association guidance documents — school-board policy templates, task force reports, published guides. Defending Education’s interpretation of why those documents exist — to “reach school children” and “promote their worldview” — is the watchdog’s characterization of intent, not a claim NEA, AFT, or any of the other organizations make about their own guidance. This page treats the two separately: what the documents say is quoted directly; what the report concludes they mean is attributed to Defending Education.
The principals’ associations use similar language: NASSP guidance instructs schools to “ensure that such tools advance and do not undermine equity given that AI systems are trained on human data that may reflect biases,” while NAESP tells elementary-school leaders to “ask vendors about their efforts to address algorithmic biases that might affect students” because “diverse educators must tap diverse datasets in training AI to ensure true representation.” California’s state guidance, issued through the California Department of Education and endorsed by the California Teachers Association, instructs educators to “approach AI with an equity lens,” arguing that doing so “helps pave the way for a more equitable future.”
The AFT’s largest bet on this front is the National Academy for AI Instruction, launched in July 2025 with the United Federation of Teachers, Microsoft ( $12.5 million), OpenAI ( $8 million plus $2 million in technical resources), and Anthropic ( $500,000) — a five-year, $23 million commitment aimed at training 400,000 teachers. “AI holds tremendous promise but huge challenges — and it’s our job as educators to make sure AI serves our students and society, not the other way around,” Weingarten said at the launch.
The union has since gone further. In a May 27, 2026 address, Weingarten unveiled a 10-point plan — “Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands-On” — that AFT delegates codified into policy at the union’s national convention in Washington on July 17, 2026. It calls for a ban on all screen use below third grade except where required by a disability accommodation, prohibits student-facing AI tools like digital tutors in elementary classrooms entirely, bans AI “companion” chatbots for students under 16, and proposes what Weingarten calls a “Big Tech Tax” — her words: “Tech kingpins and corporations can afford to pay a fair tech tax.”
“I am not calling for a ban on AI or a bonfire of Chromebooks. I am calling for the tech industry to not have this overwhelming influence.”
Randi Weingarten · President, American Federation of Teachers
Smaller sums point the same direction. New York State United Teachers, the AFT’s roughly 700,000-member state affiliate, requested $15 million in February 2026 for AI and media-literacy initiatives, per the Defending Education report. The AFT’s own Innovation Fund has already distributed over $200,000 across 11 districts for AI classroom pilots — smaller money, but evidence the investment runs deeper than one headline program.
National guidance documents are one thing; a May 2026 Federalist investigation, based on records obtained through Virginia’s public-records law, shows what it can look like once it reaches a district. Albemarle County Public Schools’ Director of Equity Education, Ayanna Mitchell, emailed staff a “GenAI Equity Prompt Sheet” on May 21, 2025, instructing them to evaluate any AI tool or policy against questions including “Does this tool or policy reflect the values in ACC, IGAK, and JBA? Anti-racism, cultural responsiveness, and gender inclusivity?” and “Who is assumed to be the ‘average’ learner?” Mitchell wrote that “these prompts are not intended to slow innovation, but to anchor it in justice, empathy, and accountability.”
Albemarle’s Chief Communications Officer, Jason Grant, declined to answer when The Federalist asked whether vetting AI tools through an “anti-racism” framework could itself introduce bias. Defending Education’s Rhyen Staley called it a warning sign of where national guidance leads once it reaches one classroom.
“By only allowing the use of AI and information sources that reflect a leftwing political bias, district administrators are setting a precedent that is harmful to the learning process and neutrality of schools.”
Rhyen Staley · Director of Research, Defending Education
Today’s report sits on top of a broader pattern Defending Education documented separately in April 2026: its DivertED investigation found the NEA and AFT directed roughly $669 million in member dues and PAC contributions to left-leaning political entities and school-board campaigns since 2015 — topping $1 billion with state and local affiliates included. “These entities are a political machine,” Staley told Fox News at the time. That figure is background on the unions’ broader political spending, distinct from today’s AI-specific findings.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon (R) has staked out a different position on AI in the classroom generally. In a May 28, 2026 Newsmax interview, she urged schools to “embrace AI and use it appropriately,” contrasting her stance with Weingarten’s more cautious approach — though no direct McMahon comment on today’s report could be verified as of publication.
'Teachers unions and associations like the NEA and AFT at this point are nothing more than left-wing political operations funneling millions of dollars into promoting divisive DEI and gender ideologies in classrooms,' Defending Ed's @CaseyRyan93 told @FoxNews.
None of the six organizations named in today’s report — the NEA, AFT, CTA, AASA, NAESP, or NASSP — had responded to Fox News’ request for comment as of publication. Every quote in this story comes from each organization’s own published guidance, not from an unnamed source or a leak.
Every quote in Defending Education’s report comes from a document the NEA, AFT, or one of four other organizations published itself — equity audits, bias checklists, and an equity lens are not implied — they are written policy. The AFT has put $23 million behind training 400,000 teachers on it. Albemarle County, Virginia shows what that looks like once it reaches one district’s inbox. None of the six organizations named would say anything about it on the record.
