Becky Pringle entered her final year as president of the National Education Association this weekend, exhorting the teachers’ union’s 2.8 million members to “show up with courage in the midst of exhaustion.”
As Pringle nears the end of her second and final three-year term, she is spearheading widespread political and legal battles against both the Trump administration and conservative state policymakers. She has vowed to organize more teacher activism on issues such as school funding and privatization, as well as support for at-risk and immigrant students.
This year, NEA leaders condensed normal business during the union’s annual four-day representative assembly July 3-6 in order to hold a day of training for members about how to organize and build allies for public education funding and support, as well as teacher labor issues.
Pringle, 70, taught middle school science in Pennsylvania for more than three decades and served on the union’s state and national affiliates’ boards of directors before taking the helm of the NEA in 2020. She spoke to Education Week about her focus for the coming year, from political advocacy to bringing more teachers into the union.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How have recent Trump administration and GOP actions affected your approach to this year’s representative assembly?
I put a proposal to the delegates [to end the convention with a day of advocacy training], because we have to continue to learn and grow. I intentionally called it the Day of Teaching and Learning and Organizing for Power. Our delegate leaders who have been doing this kind of organizing and mobilizing work will be presenting those sessions ... whether they’re teachers or education support professionals or higher ed., retired or aspiring educators.
We’re going to be doing learning series throughout the year, ... particularly targeting a diverse group of our members. We’re a very diverse organization, and I mean that in every way. In race and economic status, in geography, in political ideology, we are very diverse. We want to make sure that in every community within the NEA that they are prepared to lead.
NEA has been fighting private school choice efforts, but we now have a federal voucher program. How does that change your strategy?
We’re not done yet. Now, we know who did it [voted for the federal voucher program], and we’re going to hold them accountable. The focus will be on winning back the [U.S.] House in 2026.
Now, we have a [private school choice] law in place, but we were actively involved in how that law evolved. I think you saw [the federal tax credits] go from as much as $100,000 per person [who donated to groups that give out tuition vouchers] to $1,700. That’s a huge difference. We fought hard to get that into that place because we may not be able to stop it, but can we slow down the impact? That will make a big difference in how many students will be impacted and how many schools will be impacted.
Our ultimate goal is to change the law—and the only way we can change the law is to change the lawmakers.
The Supreme Court significantly limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions against executive policies. How does that affect the NEA’s ongoing lawsuits?
We have been working in collaboration with other unions and civil rights organizations in a strategic way for the hundreds of lawsuits that have been brought [against federal education policies].
The NEA has been really thoughtful about the words we use and how we’re inclusive of our members’ stories tied to real impact. The language that we use in the filing of the lawsuits, we believe will help to sustain [them]. [NEA and its allies] are all being really thoughtful about that, individually and collaboratively with each other.
But I always say, it’s why we can’t stop with litigation—because the Trump administration has made it clear it’s not going to stop.
The Supreme Court also ruled that parents with religious objections can opt their children out of particular lessons. How will this affect lesson planning and instruction?
I taught for 31 years, so I know exactly how that’s going to impact them: Teachers will be at a loss for what they can and cannot do. ... It’s untenable.
Imagine a teacher hearing that and thinking, “Oh my God, wait a minute, I’m going to be held responsible for every book? … Am I gonna be fired?”
I spoke with the president of our local union in Montgomery County [in Maryland, which is the district at the center of the lawsuit]. Montgomery County has committed to not walk away from this commitment to social justice. They’re trying to figure out how we make sure students have access to a complete learning, be it history or current events, and making sure that everyone, all of our students, feels safe.
Montgomery County has been really ahead of others in working with their process and their policies around curriculum to protect themselves and their teachers from this federal edict.
How do you plan to get more teachers who are early in their careers engaged in the union?
We are absolutely focused on attracting young [people] into a career in teaching … and we need to keep them, because we know in some areas we have more of a retention problem than in attracting them to the profession. Unfortunately, we see a disparate number of teachers of color, particularly Black teachers, who leave the profession in the first five years.
But I will tell you, young teachers who get involved in the union are more likely to stay because they believe that through the union, they can find the professional respect and power they need, so they can be seen as the professionals they are and stand up when they’re not. So we’re particularly focused on making sure that from our aspiring educators to our early-career educators, we are providing them opportunities to lead early on in their career, so that they can see how change is made and know the power and strength of a union.
Read more from Education Week’s coverage of the National Education Association’s 2025 representative assembly.
Here are the NEA’s priorities: Delegates for the largest teachers’ union voted on a host of new business for the year ahead, including measures focused on President Donald Trump’s K-12 initiatives.
“We’re not done yet": NEA President Becky Pringle, who is nearing the end of her final term in office, shared her focus for the coming year. Read the interview.
Outreach toward Republican members: The NEA, a largely liberal organization, is working to find more common ground with conservative teachers and communities. Here’s why.
Engaging new teachers: The NEA is also making strides to better engage early-career teachers.
Meet the Education Support Professional of the Year: The 2025 NEA award went to Andy Markus, an assistant facilities manager in Utah who found a way to get students to stop vandalizing and take pride in their school.
