This summer, the National Education Association will elect a new president to lead its nearly 3 million members. Few organizations have more influence over educators’ lives and livelihoods. That’s why, as a New Jersey teacher suing one prominent candidate for the position, I have a warning for teachers everywhere: choose wisely.
From 2013 to 2025, Sean Spiller helped lead the New Jersey Education Association, an NEA affiliate union that represents me and roughly 200,000 other educators and support staff. Spiller worked his way from secretary-treasurer, to vice president, to president, and left office this past September. To teachers outside New Jersey, his recently announced run for NEA president must seem only natural—the next step for a rising star.
But here’s the truth: Being president of the NEA seems to be Spiller’s backup plan, as his NJEA tenure ended in a political scandal that should make every teacher wary of his concept of so-called “leadership.”
DEMOCRATS TO SKIP TRUMP’S STATE OF THE UNION FOR COUNTER RALLY ON NATIONAL MALL
This past spring, Spiller ran in the Democratic primary for New Jersey governor while serving as NJEA president — as is his right. He did not have the right, as I allege in court, to work with other union officials in a multi-year-long effort to direct more than $40 million of my and my colleagues’ union dues to support his political ambitions.
Spiller’s campaign failed to move the needle — he placed fifth in the primary won by now-Governor Mikie Sherrill — but even if he had succeeded, his run would still have been a betrayal of New Jersey teachers like me.
When I joined the NJEA, I was told that contributing to the union’s political action committee was voluntary and separate from required membership dues. I wanted to fund the union’s collective bargaining efforts, fighting for better wages and classroom conditions, not its political agenda. So, I chose not to check the box to support the union’s PAC.
The union made me think that I had a real choice in the matter. Spiller and other union insiders ignored it. They sent teachers’ dues to a super PAC called Garden State Forward, then routed the money to another political group called Working New Jersey, which then spent millions to support his gubernatorial run.
At the time, Spiller was serving as president of the union, which came with decision-making authority over its affiliated political groups. As I allege in court filings, that means that he was overseeing spending that benefited his own political campaign. The NJEA has rules against conflicts of interest like this. But I believe Spiller ignored those rules, and he also appears to have ignored others.
A New Jersey think tank has asked the state to investigate whether the union broke campaign finance law by having two of its apparently affiliated political groups donate the maximum directly to Spiller’s campaign. And the organization alerted the IRS to what appears to be tax law violations in how the union reported the entities to which it funneled our dues.
I wasn’t the only teacher disturbed by what we were learning. Dr. Marie Dupont, a fellow New Jersey teacher, was just as alarmed by reports that union officials had spent millions in dues to finance Spiller’s campaign. Like many members, we learned about how he spent our money through news reports, social media, whispered conversations in staff lounges, and text chains. There was no meeting, no vote, no email asking whether we supported his campaign, and the use of over $40 million to fund it. No real transparency, at all.
To us, it appears that Spiller valued teachers’ dues, but not our voices.
SOUTH AND LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES BEND TO TRUMP IN MOVES TO CURB SUPPORT FOR CUBA
Dr. Dupont ultimately resigned from the union to protest this lack of accountability. I chose to stay, still hoping the union could correct course.
That divide mirrors the choice now facing the NEA and its 3 million members working in every state in the nation. I believe elevating Spiller and his self-serving, rule-breaking leadership model to the national level would push more educators to exit the union, not because they oppose unions, but because they would feel like pawns in someone else’s political game.
Rejecting Spiller could, instead, signal that the national union prioritizes things such as bargaining over the working conditions of teachers — not politics.
After our repeated demands for transparency went unanswered, Dr. Dupont and I filed a lawsuit with the help of the nonprofit law firm the Fairness Center, alleging that Spiller and other union officials violated the contract they made with us and other members about how our dues would be used.
Spiller and the NJEA responded by filing an anti-SLAPP motion, a legal claim ironically meant to protect journalists and whistleblowers from being silenced in court by large or powerful organizations. We believe there’s nothing frivolous about teachers seeking accountability from union officials — the very people who are supposed to be working for the union’s members, not funding their own personal interests. Thankfully, the court rejected their motion.
TEACHERS UNION INVITES PRO-VIOLENCE ACTIVISTS TO SHAPE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The decision now facing the NEA is about whether teachers will have a real say in decisions made in their name — or whether the kind of “leadership” New Jersey teachers suffered becomes the national norm.
That choice belongs to NEA delegates chosen by teachers in every state. This time, it should be a fully informed one.
Ann Marie Pocklembo is a teacher in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, N.J.
