Throughout 2022, teachers unions across the country turned their attention to initiatives such as gender identity educational materials and reading lists promoting political protest.

The nation's largest teachers unions, National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), as well as their local chapters, have focused on integrating gender identity and Critical Race Theory (CRT) lessons into the classroom. In 2022, teachers unions promoted LGBTQ ally badges, created ads labeling parents as extremists and published summer reading lists promoting books about kneeling for the national anthem.

"Teachers' unions are one of the country's largest special interest groups pushing progressive politics," Brigette Herbst, senior organizing director at Americans for Fair Treatment, a group focused on educating employees on their rights within unions, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. "The NEA and AFT combined spent over $100 million on political activities last year. Teachers are tired of being pawns in the unions' political game and more of them are leaving their unions every day. We have members all over the country who are standing up to a union that pushes politics that they don't agree with."