Public education in Wyoming is at a crossroads. Funding is up, test scores are plummeting, and classrooms are increasingly breeding grounds for progressive social advocacy and indoctrination. For many parents today, public schools seem to bear little resemblance to the ones they attended as children.
There are good reasons for thinking schools no longer reflect or foster Wyoming values.
The truth is that out-of-state influences like the Wyoming Education Association (WEA) have long shaped how our schools operate and what gets taught in them. In spite of its homegrown-sounding name, the WEA’s true allegiance is to its parent organization, the D.C.-based National Education Association (NEA). The NEA is one of the most notorious progressive lobbying organizations in the country, with a sordid history of bankrolling Democratic Party candidates, fighting for school closures and mask mandates, undermining parental rights, and promoting transgender ideology.
If Wyoming’s public schools feel unfamiliar, it’s because the NEA, through the WEA, has been driving education policy in the state for decades—driving it, that is, right off a cliff.
Here’s what to know about the WEA and NEA.
What is the WEA?
The WEA is one of the most powerful lobbyists in Wyoming. It is a left-wing advocacy group that claims to represent Wyoming school teachers and staff but is in reality beholden to the NEA, the D.C.-based teachers union and progressive advocacy organization.
What is the connection between the WEA and the NEA?
The WEA is the state affiliate of the NEA, and WEA members gain simultaneous membership in both. WEA members also pay dues to the NEA and select delegates to attend the NEA’s Representative Assembly.
The NEA is the largest teachers union in the country, and the only one in the country with a federal charter. Congress has granted charters to a small number of widely known nonprofits over the years, including the American Legion and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The designation of a federal charter brings with it a degree of prestige. Congress granted the NEA a charter in 1905 to “elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching” and “promote the cause of education in the United States.”
Clearly, the NEA has strayed far from its original purpose, raising questions about why it continues to hold a federal charter. Today, the NEA cares much more about recruiting teachers to indoctrinate students into becoming social justice warriors than the cause of educational excellence.
The NEA is unapologetic about its values, and a thorough review of the disastrous policies it has supported would fill an entire book. The NEA raised $27 million in 2024 to support Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign and help elect congressional, state, and local Democrats. The NEA was one of the loudest voices calling for closing schools during the COVID-19 pandemic—and keeping them closed (while shelling out over $500,000 a year to its president, Becky Pringle). Recent NEA training materials insist “Republicans in state legislatures have increasingly turned to anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation as a powerful complement to their arsenal of racist dog whistles used to whip up fear and consolidate power.”
The WEA serves as a conduit for the NEA’s left-wing values, conveying them straight from D.C. into the schools in your community. The WEA’s Safe & Just Schools initiative (about which more below), for example, is based on the NEA’s Just & Equitable Schools campaign. There’s little daylight between the two organizations, which explains why the WEA is such a reliable voice for progressivism.
How does the WEA influence education policy in Wyoming?
The WEA attacks lawmakers who break with its radical legislative agenda to stand with Wyoming families. Using spin and deception about voting records, the WEA floods mailboxes with misleading ads during campaign season.
One tool the WEA relies on to influence politics is its legislative scorecard, which it uses to reward obedient lawmakers and penalize conservatives who support families and traditional values.
Additionally, the WEA, through its PAC, intervenes in elections, endorsing and funding favored candidates and blasting conservatives who refuse to go along with its agenda.
What does the WEA stand for?
The WEA says its mission is to “promote the cause of public education and improve the quality of teaching and learning,” but this bland mantra obscures the organization’s relentless opposition to parental rights, conservative values, and educational excellence. A more accurate and honest mission statement would be the following: “The WEA promotes public school bureaucrats and fashionable left-wing causes at the expense of families and students.”
Here’s a partial list of the WEA’s stances:
- More funding—always: The WEA’s goal is to extract more money from taxpayers, while at the same time shielding the education system from accountability. WEA lobbying has resulted in a 25% increase in per-pupil spending since 2011—even as Wyoming 8th graders’ proficiency in reading has plummeted by as much as 24% in the same timeframe.
- Bureaucratic bloat: The WEA claims to champion teachers, but between 2010 and 2024, Wyoming teacher salaries increased by a mere 5%. Meanwhile, the number of non-teaching staff (administrators, guidance counselors, etc) has exploded, expanding at almost three times the growth rate of teachers. So, where is all that extra funding going? Not to teachers. While teacher salaries have been nearly stagnant, and non-teacher staff have gobbled up much of the taxpayer funding, tax records show the WEA’s Executive Director’s salary increased from $129,284 per year in 2011 to $175,528 per year by 2023. That’s an increase of over 35%, even as teachers are barely getting a 5% raise. Obviously, WEA leadership is being rewarded for increased bureaucratic bloat over student excellence and teacher compensation.
- Limiting options for families: If there’s one thing the WEA hates, it’s the idea of parents sending their kids to schools outside of the public education system. That’s why the WEA sued to shut down Wyoming’s Education Savings Account (ESA) program, which provides participating families with up to $7,000 for approved educational expenses, such as tutoring services, homeschooling textbooks, private school tuition, and more. Contrary to the WEA’s duplicitous assertions, the ESA program does not take money from the public school budget.
Click here to read more about the WEA’s lawsuit against the ESA program.
- Opposing homeschoolers’ freedom: In 2025, the WEA opposed HB 46, known as the “Homeschool Freedom Act.” HB 46, which was signed into law in February, is a pro-education freedom bill that gives parents more control over their children’s education and helps them get relief from unnecessary administrative bureaucracy. The WEA said “those families that have not homeschooled well, will necessitate a remedial action in schools that takes a significant amount of work.” Yet the WEA has no comment on the 70% of 8th grade public school students who aren’t proficient in basic math.
- Supporting radical gender ideology: Also in 2025, the WEA opposed HB 32, the “What is a Woman Act.” The law, which went into effect without Gov. Gordon’s signature, recognizes and establishes in statute commonsense definitions of “male” and “female.” While every five-year-old understands the distinction between men and women, the progressive activists at the WEA want to sow gender confusion and allow boys to enter girls’ spaces in schools (the WEA opposed a bill that would prohibit boys from playing on girls’ sports teams in 2023). The WEA said, “The bill ignores modern science and the growing knowledge around gender, sex, and gender identity.”
- Full-throated social justice advocacy: The WEA’s Safe & Just Schools initiative provides free training to Wyoming educators on the finer points of “implicit bias” and “the social justice umbrella.” In one training in particular, the WEA says “participants will explore their social identities and use them to relate to the experiences of other marginalized outside groups” and cover topics like “LGBTQ+ issues in education, gender fluidity, pronouns” and more.
The WEA is out of touch with what Wyoming parents expect of their schools
Honor Wyoming recently conducted a statewide poll of parents on public education, asking them to grade their public school experience on important criteria like curriculum quality, communication, student career readiness, and whether their values are respected in the classroom. Parents noted the following areas in which the education system has fallen short:
- Bloated, unresponsive administrative class and poor leadership
- Misallocated resources and overburdened teachers
- Fatigue with social advocacy and indoctrination
- Ineffective discipline policies and disruptive behavior
The WEA has done nothing to reverse these detrimental trends—indeed, it has worked to exacerbate them.
Click here to read more about our education survey.