As Dropout Nation noted last month, the past few weeks haven’t been so sweet for Hillary Clinton or supporters of her as-yet-announced campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Last night’s report by the New York Times that the former First Lady and Secretary of State used her personal e-mail address to handle government business — and avoid federal transparency laws such as the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act — once again brought up longstanding accusations that she (along with her husband) play fast and loose with the law, always has something to hide, and are constantly engaged in political gamesmanship. That the news comes on the heels of revelations that the foundation she controls with the former president has taken millions in donations from foreign governments — especially during her tenure as the figurehead of the State Department — and questions about the fundraising tactics of groups supporting her presidential run makes the news about her e-mail-gaming even more controversial.

But for school reformers and others, the big question that must be confronted lies not with Clinton’s penchant for avoiding transparency, but with what steps she would take on federal education policy if she wins the White House next year. Alyson Klein of Education Week detailed some of those issues in a piece published today. But a full consideration of Clinton’s policy stances may mean paying attention to Clinton’s ties to the American Federation of Teachers and its goal of halting systemic reform.

As Dropout Nation reported in October, the nation’s second-largest teachers union gave $250,000 to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, one of Hillary’s (and Bill’s) non-explicitly political ventures, and $200,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative. The donations make AFT a pauper among the foreign governments, corporation, and business players who have poured more than $2 billion into the Clinton philanthropies since the former president left office 14 years ago. But given that reformers have given nothing to the Clinton empire, it puts the union in a prime position to lobby Hillary and Bill. In fact, AFT President Randi Weingarten took advantage of that opportunity last month when she made an appearance with former President Clinton at Clinton Global Initiative’s annual winter meeting in New York City.

But the ties between AFT and the Clintons extend beyond last year’s donations. Weingarten’s former top assistant Hartina Flournoy (who sits on the Democratic National Committee) now serves as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. A longtime confidante of Hillary’s, Flournoy’s now-official presence in the Clinton world gives Weingarten an important emissary on the union’s behalf. There’s also longtime Democratic Party powerhouse Donna Brazile, another Friend of Hillary, who now co-chairs the AFT’s front group, Democrats for Public Education with a group that includes Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (who formerly co-chaired the Congressional Black Caucus, a longtime beneficiary of AFT largesse, and herself has collected $35,000 from the union during her career). Brazile will certainly play a major role in Clinton’s election campaign, and will likely whisper in her ear on Randi’s behalf.

The ties between AFT and Clinton Inc., even extend to other political players. The AFT has paid $378,833 to political consultancy Adelstein Liston, which helped the union back Clinton’s 2008 Democratic president nomination run. Some of AFT’s vassals also have strong ties to the Clinton universe. This includes Schott Foundation for Public Education, whose president, John H. Jackson, served as a senior policy advisor to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights during the last years of the Bill Clinton presidency; and Center

Given the strong ties between AFT and Clinton Inc., as well as the union’s past support for Clinton’s unsuccessful run for the Democratic nomination against Barack Obama seven years ago, reformers can’t help but wonder how much sway the union will have if Hillary wins the White House.

Certainly Bill’s record on systemic reform — including an effort to implement teacher certification in Arkansas and passing the Improving America’s Schools Act (which helped advance efforts that led to the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002) — is solid. But while Hillary helped Bill out on some of those efforts, she is her own person. Hillary’s ties to Peter and Marian Wright Edelman (for whom she worked during her days at the Children’s Defense Fund) may be helpful to reformers, especially if their son, Jonah (the founder of Stand for Children) gets into her ear. But given that the ties between the Edelman family and the Clintons were strained in the 1990s after Bill signed welfare reform legislation, that’s not a relationship that can be counted on.

The presence of former Center for American Progress boss John Podesta as chairman of Hillary’s unannounced presidential campaign also offers promise for the movement. After all, CAP has been one of the foremost backers of systemic reform among centrist Democrats — even though it also collects money from AFT and NEA; Podesta still chairs the outfit’s board. But with Flournoy and Brazile in Hillary’s ear, Podesta may not have enough pull on behalf of reformers. Besides, he will be a tad too busy orchestrating Clinton’s presidential run to help as much as the movement may want. Of course, never forget that some of the movement’s leading lights, including Andy Rotherham of Bellwether Education Partners, were also key players in Bill’s administration, the now-defunct Democratic Leadership Council, and the Progressive Policy Institute.

Considering the hits Hillary is taking right now, she faces some tough odds of winning the presidency. She may not even be able to hold off a still-unlikely challenge from Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (who has declined the chance to run in spite of enthusiasm from progressives in the Democratic Party base). [AFT, along with National Education Association, will likely face questions about its campaign finance tactics, further complicating its efforts.] But reformers currently at the helm of education policymaking within the Democratic National Committee need to come up with a strategy to hold off AFT’s efforts to return traditionalists back to top position. And fast.

Chances are that the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are likely happy that they aren’t facing the kind of scrutiny greeted upon likely presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or her fellow Democrats. Which given the Big Two’s oft-strained ties of mutual convenience to the Democratic National Committee, should be considered a public relations miracle.

Over the past few weeks, media outlets such as the Washington Post along with groups such as Center for Public Integrity have raised questions about the fundraising practices of the foundation founded by former U.S. Secretary of State and her husband, the former President of the United States. This includes questions about whether the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has inadvertently helped foreign donors such as Canadian financier Frank Giustra (with help from banking giant HSBC) circumvent the tax laws of their respective countries, as well as whether the companies and foreign governments are circumventing campaign finance laws (and looking to win help from Hillary if she wins the White House) by donating to Clinton’s nonprofit machine.

Concerns about the appearances of impropriety (which are always worse than reality) have become so great that the New York Times demanded the Clinton Foundation to reinstate a ban on foreign donations that was in place during Hillary’s tenure as head of the nation’s chief vehicle for foreign policy. [The Clinton Foundation says it is more-transparent about its fundraising activities than other nonprofits.]

But a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission last week against the Democratic National Committee as well as Clinton’s unsuccessful run for president seven years ago and that of President Barack Obama raises the possibility that the campaign finance and political spending practices of the Big Two teachers’ unions may come under real scrutiny from federal officials, conservative-leaning advocates, and the school reform movement itself.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust alleges in its 109-page complaint that the DNC, Democratic political campaigns, and progressive outfits such as the notoriously-shadowy Democracy Alliance, through the efforts of former Clinton Administration honcho Harold Ickes’ Catalist LLC and NGP Van (which manages the DNC’s databases), are sharing voter lists, fundraising information, and other data for their congressional and presidential election campaigning. By selling such data at below-market rates to political campaigns and to advocates alike — as well as through the presence of prominent Democratic Party in financing Catalist and Democracy Alliance — Democrats are essentially coordinating political and advocacy activities.

Such coordination between 501(c)3 nonprofits (which are supposed to be focused on pure advocacy), Super-PACs, 501(c)4 groups, and political campaigns (the latter three engaged in explicit political campaigning) is a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which is supposed to be a firewall against such activities. There’s also the possibility that such coordination may also violate federal tax laws, especially since 501(c)3s are restricted from anything other than advocacy. [The fact that much of political advocacy ends up resembling lobbying in practice is another matter entirely.]

For now, neither NEA nor AFT have been named by FACT in its complaint. But the two unions have plenty to sweat about. After all, as Dropout Nation reported in November, the Big Two have spent the past few years building close ties to Democracy Alliance, which has worked aggressively to dodge the firewalls between advocacy and political campaigning.

NEA Executive Director John Stocks, a longtime player within Democracy Alliance, took over as its chairman last year, and has stepped up the union’s support of the group’s network of progressive advocacy groups. NEA has poured $794,728 into Democracy Alliance and its direct affiliates between 2009-2010 and 2013-2014, according to Dropout Nation‘s analysis of the union’s filings with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Meanwhile AFT has become tied to Democracy Alliance. Last year, the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, and her top assistant, former Service Employees International Union honcho Michelle Ringuette, became Democracy Alliance members. AFT also poured $90,000 to the group as well as its Texas Future Project. Given the AFT’s longstanding efforts to co-opt progressive groups, AFT will likely give even more money to Democracy Alliance this fiscal year.

But for NEA, the risk of scrutiny doesn’t just lie with the Big Two’s ties to Democracy Alliance. NEA has spent $2.1 million with Catalist between 2009-2010 and 2013-2014; it also spent $614,746 with NGP Van between 2010-2011 and 2013-2014. Based on NEA’s relationship with Catalist and NGP Van, along with the union’s ties to Democracy Alliance, the union could end up being ensnared in a future FEC complaint.

AFT has less exposure because much of the focus of its political spending is targeted toward state and local campaigns. But given that the union is also devoting its member dollars to players within the wider Democracy Alliance network — including an affiliate of the Nation and progressive think tank Demos — questions can be raised about whether it is coordinating advocacy and explicitly political campaigning.

The bigger questions for AFT lie in its giving to the Clinton’s collection of charities. As Dropout Nation reported in October, AFT gave $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation and $200,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative (whose operations are managed by the Clinton Foundation, according to its filings with the Internal Revenue Service). One can easily surmise that AFT is using its contributions to purchase Hillary Clinton’s support for its agenda — and to fight off the dominance of reformers in Democratic Party politics. Considering the scrutiny on the Clinton’s charities, you can expect Hillary’s team to play down any ties between the union and her apparatus, and even go further in embracing her husband’s legacy in advancing systemic reform. Which could mean that AFT has spent money for nothing.

But let’s keep it real: NEA and AFT often blur the lines between advocacy and explicit politicking. As Dropout Nation Contributor Dmitri Mehlhorn and others have noted, the Big Two have long used so-called member communications and other union activities to command rank-and-file members to engage in advocacy. There’s also the contributions made by the two unions to supposedly like-minded groups, including progressive outfits such as Center for Popular Democracy’s Action Fund, civil rights groups such as the League of United Latin American Citizens, and education players such as the Schott Foundation for Public Education and its Opportunity to Learn Action Fund. As seen late last year, when LULAC and Schott signed up onto NEA’s and AFT’s effort to weaken the No Child Left Behind Act’s accountability and testing provisions, the two unions count on these outfits to carry its water inside city halls, statehouses, and on Capitol Hill.

Reformers, along with conservative groups (including right-to-work outfits), can easily point to how NEA and AFT blur the lines between advocacy and politicking. Especially for reformers, the political nature of Big Two spending allows them to point to this reality: That classroom teachers, most of whom are forced by state laws and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education to pay into NEA and AFT in the form of dues and so-called agency fees (which are essentially dues), are subsidizing political activities with which they may not support in violation of their First Amendment right to free speech. This is a point U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Allito made in his decision last year in the case of Harris v. Quinn; it will likely come up again this year if the high court takes up Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, in which a group of Golden State teachers are seeking to end the ability of NEA and AFT affiliates to forcibly collect dues from their paychecks.

Given the FACT complaint, expect reformers, movement conservative groups, and even good government types to submit NEA and AFT spending to further scrutiny. This year may turn out to be even worse for the Big Two teachers’ unions than the last.

There are a few reasons why affiliates of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers continue to cling on to declining influence over education policymaking. One lies with state laws and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which allow for the unions to forcibly collect dues and so-called agency fees from teachers regardless of their desire for membership — and then deploy them for explicit and implicit political activities. Then there’s also state laws forcing districts to bargain with NEA and AFT locals; the collective bargaining laws, along with the campaign dollars the two unions deploy, essentially give union bosses a level of influence over districts that supersedes that of the voting public.

Then there is the ability of NEA and AFT locals to get activists among the rank-and-file (along with even principals, especially those in unions) to advocate on their behalf before families and children from within their classrooms. This is especially effective because there are still many parents who trust what their teachers tell them, and thus, can easily end up working on behalf of NEA and AFT locals unless they understand the politics at play. Which is what teachers’ union bosses count on. While districts occasionally have rules in place to restrict such politicking, the reality is that teachers’ union bosses (including so-called chapter leaders working part-time in schools while serving as classroom teachers) can effectively work around those rules to engage in the kind of advocacy that would get district bureaucrats in hot water.

So no one should be surprised that the AFT’s Big Apple local, the United Federation of Teachers, has allegedly been caught engaging in such activity as part of its effort against moves by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his school reform allies to expand school choice and transform the Empire State’s public education systems.

As detailed today by New York City Parents Union President Mona Davids in an e-mail to Big Apple Chancellor Carmen Fariña, Eugenia Montalvo, the principal of one school, P.S. 106 in the Bronx section of the city, took time yesterday during her morning announcements to read a UFT flier asking children and families to join teachers and members of the American Federation of State County and  Municipal Employees’ District 37 in wearing red this coming Friday and every Friday thereafter in protest of Cuomo’s reform efforts. This, by the way, would clash with the elementary school’s uniform colors of blue and white.

Lobbying by NEA and AFT bosses in schools such as P.S. 106 in New York City’s Bronx borough is often a regular occurrence.

Given that Davids and other parents (along with Campbell Brown’s Partnership for Educational Justice) are tangling with the AFT local in court over ending New York State’s near-lifetime employment and teacher dismissal laws, this politicking didn’t exactly go over well with her. That such a move also violates the Big Apple’s rules on politicking in school buildings also made Montalvo’s move a problem. When Davids asked Montalvo why she read the flyer, the principal said she did it at the request of the UFT’s chapter leader on campus. Today, the chapter leader, Penny Block, expressed shock and dismay that Davids had the temerity to complain about this advocacy.

Certainly the politicking is bad enough given that UFT activists aren’t exactly giving all sides of the story. But it is even worse in the case of P.S. 106, because it isn’t exactly a high-quality school. Just 20 percent of students met New York State’s standards in reading on the most-recent round of exams; this is ten percentage points than the average for the Big Apple as a whole. Politicking against reform is the last thing either Montalvo or Block should be doing.

Davids has since demanded Fariña to issue a warning to principals and teachers reminding them to not advocate politically in classrooms. Not that such a move will likely work. For one, Fariña and her boss, Mayor Bill de Blasio, have long ago proven that they will do UFT’s bidding whenever possible. Especially since both the mayor and the union have joined common cause in opposing any kind of systemic reform that benefits the children the district serves.

Secondly, even if Fariña issues the order, UFT’s mandarins can find other ways of politicking within classrooms. [Update on February 6: As Carl Campanile of the New York Post reports today, UFT is also lobbying parents on the district’s education councils to join their effort.] Of course, this is fine with the union so long as rank-and-file members are doing its bidding. Not so much when they go astray, as some teachers did last September when they wore NYPD t-shirts in solidarity with officers and their union, the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association against the UFT’s partnership with Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network against police brutality.

What reformers and families can do is what Davids has done: Publicize these acts of politicking — and remind parents that they must be skeptical of anything told to them regarding education policy by anyone within districts and schools. The movement must also work harder on the ground in communities, especially with the churches, community organizations, Parent Power groups, and impromptu leaders that serve families, to neutralize the advantage exploited by UFT and other locals.

Featured photo: Don’t expect New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to do anything about politicking in classrooms by UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s mandarins. Photo courtesy of the Daily News.

The National Education Association will do anything — and spend as much as possible — to defend the failed policies and practices within American public education that help fill its coffers to the tune of $385 million a year (as well as keeps its affiliates in the money). This includes hiring public relations strategists and political consultants to help it change the conversation about the educational inequality perpetuated by Zip Code Education policies such as zoned schooling (as well as the continuing use of property tax dollars to fund traditional districts and restrict school choice), as well as by near-lifetime employment laws and teacher dismissal laws that deny high-quality teaching to our most-vulnerable children. These firms, including campaign strategy powerhouse Donna Brazile’s eponymous firm and polling outfit GBA Strategies, collected some of the $132 million in forced teacher due payments NEA spent in 2013-2014.

Which is why your editor isn’t surprised that NEA, with the help of pollster Celinda Lake’s eponymous firm and longtime progressive communications adviser Anat Shenker-Osorio, has issued some talking points to its leaders and most-rabid rank-and-file members advising them to avoid using words such educational inequality in their efforts against systemic reform. [Conor P. Williams of New America Foundation has his own thoughts.] After all, by even mentioning the word inequality — a word that has become associated with the school reform movement and its mission of building brighter futures for kids — NEA players (along with their colleagues at the American Federation of Teachers) essentially remind families and others that the nation’s largest teachers’ union is one of the key players in continuing practices and systems that have denied high-quality education and choice to all children.

But in the process of attempting to engage in double-speak, NEA may end up hurting its own cause — and advance the very systemic reforms it opposes.

If NEA rank-and-filers members use the union’s preferred phrase of “Living in the right zip code” in place of inequality, as the union and its advisers suggest, they will help reformers point to the absurdity of the traditional district model and Zip Code Education policies that restrict families, especially those from poor and minority backgrounds, from accessing high-quality schools no matter where they live. NEA leaders will then have to explain why their affiliates, along with that of AFT,  fight vigilantly throughout the nation against the expansion of public charter schools and other forms of choice that have proven to improve graduation rates for black and Latino children. They will also be on the defensive as reformers point out how NEA affiliates essentially defend school residency laws that have put parents such as Kelley Williams-Bolar into prison for the laughable offense of “stealing education” that their children deserve. And the union itself will have to explain how its units, with those of AFT, work together with traditional districts to oppose any overall of school finance systems that will lead to dollars following children out of failure mills and warehouses of mediocrity to any high-quality school, public, private or charter, that provides them with teaching and curricula they need. None of this will improve NEA’s low public standing or that of AFT.

By telling activists to use terms such as “Education Excellence” instead of school reform, NEA is helping them highlight the union’s role in perpetuating the failures of American public education. After all, such a discussion will then point to the fact that one out of every three fourth-graders — including one-in-two who are black and Latino — are functionally illiterate thanks in part to the unwillingness of NEA affiliates and other traditionalists to meaningfully overhaul how we recruit, train, compensate, and manage the performance of teachers working in our classrooms. How can an NEA leader talk about excellence and defend teacher dismissal processes that allow New York City teacher Ann Legra to stay in the classroom despite six years of evidence showing her unsatisfactory performance? How can a traditionalist defend policies that protect criminally-abusive teachers such as now-former L.A. Unified instructor Mark Berndt? NEA may want to stay away from any talk about excellence.

Then there is the instruction from NEA that its activists should substitute talk about accountability and “research-driven practices” with chatter about “Getting serious about what works”. Such conversations will lead to a few questions. Ones such as why is NEA’s Louisiana affiliate suing the Bayou State for funding charters that have helped spur improvements in achievement of New Orleans kids? Or why the union, along with the AFT, is continuing its jihad against Teach For America, which has proven to be better in training aspiring teachers than traditional ed schools the union supports? At the same time, NEA activists will have to explain why they and their union have done little to put an end to practices that don’t work. This includes the overuse of out-of-school suspensions and other forms of traditional school discipline, which have been proven to actually put more kids on the path to dropping out into poverty and prison.

Put simply, NEA is getting shoddy word-smithing and dime-store propaganda for the $170,080 in member dollars it paid to Lake’s firm. This isn’t shocking. Because NEA only tested these messages out with 424 of its members instead of with the wider public, it never bothered to step outside of its own group-think. After all, if it dared to even talk to actual families and communities, the union would have to change its tune.

Meanwhile NEA is harming its political and financial position by not discussing some important matters: The union’s unwillingness to embrace Parent Trigger laws and other Parent Power measures that allow families in Adelanto, Calif., and Anaheim to take over and overhaul failing schools within their own communities. Its failure to acknowledge that the union’s old-school industrial union model fails to serve the needs of younger teachers (who make up the majority of the union’s rank-and-file) seeking the kind of professionalism that will both elevate teaching and ultimately help the children they serve. The union’s silence about evidence from the last election cycle that its defense of policies and practices that fill its pockets (for which it spent $41 million) is being rejected by increasing numbers of voters and politicians. And NEA’s reticence about how it belies its claims of being a bastion of modern progressive thinking with every act in defense of its revenue.

By expending so much effort on political obscurantism, NEA is essentially exposed its own intellectual and moral bankruptcy as well as that of its traditionalist allies. More importantly, by trying to steer the conversation away from the economic and social inequality it helps perpetuate, the union also betrays its primary concern for keeping its coffers filled at the expense of the children, families, and communities for which it proclaims concern. This includes the children from Latino and black households that look like NEA President Lily Eskelsen-Garcia and number two leader Becky Pringle.

This will result in NEA losing even more influence over education policy in the coming years — and even more lost cash from teachers, especially when the U.S. Supreme Court finally rules that it and other public-sector unions can no longer take cash from their paychecks regardless of their desire for membership.

All in all, the NEA’s chatter points will do more for reformers, children, families, and communities than it will for itself.