Jul 24, 2026 · 11 min · 8 segments
Director of Research and Government Affairs, Maxford Nelsen, is the investigator behind the explosive story of the American Federation of Teachers spending $1.4 million of member dues on President…
Maxford NelsenGuest
Siena RoseHost
I mean, the Teacher Freedom Alliance is like the newest part of this, but TFS has been around for a few years.
Well, it's been really cool to watch the Summit grow and Teach Your Freedom Alliance expand.
It was still internal and in-house in the last couple of years with Ryan coming on board and taking the leadership role at the organization.
It's its own independent, freestanding legal entity, still obviously supported by the Freedom Foundation.
But it's been really cool to see more people attending the events, more vendors, more interest I think in education reform across the country in the last few years.
So really the time was right for an organization like this to come on the scene and it's grown rapidly and I think it still has quite a lot of room to grow ahead.
We've had, what was the number that's been thrown around? 16,000 teachers have left their unions and joined the Teacher Freedom Alliance.
That sounds about right, and I'm sure there's quite a few more teachers than that that we still have yet to reach.
What's the conversation like here? I feel like we've been talking to some people, and it's interesting that there's a lot of truth being spoken about what's actually happening, a lot of education about the issue with teachers' unions, but there's a lot of optimism.
There's a greater appreciation in recent years by many educators, particularly on the right, into just how bad things have gotten in public education and the extent to which the progressive values and worldview have infiltrated public education.
In Trump's second term, I think people are realizing maybe it's a little safer than I thought it was to come out and express my views.
I mean, the Teacher Freedom Alliance is like the newest part of this, but TFS has been around for a few years.
Well, it's been really cool to watch the Summit grow and Teach Your Freedom Alliance expand.
It was still internal and in-house in the last couple of years with Ryan coming on board and taking the leadership role at the organization.
It's its own independent, freestanding legal entity, still obviously supported by the Freedom Foundation.
But it's been really cool to see more people attending the events, more vendors, more interest I think in education reform across the country in the last few years.
So really the time was right for an organization like this to come on the scene and it's grown rapidly and I think it still has quite a lot of room to grow ahead.
We've had, what was the number that's been thrown around? 16,000 teachers have left their unions and joined the Teacher Freedom Alliance.
That sounds about right, and I'm sure there's quite a few more teachers than that that we still have yet to reach.
What's the conversation like here? I feel like we've been talking to some people, and it's interesting that there's a lot of truth being spoken about what's actually happening, a lot of education about the issue with teachers' unions, but there's a lot of optimism.
There's a greater appreciation in recent years by many educators, particularly on the right, into just how bad things have gotten in public education and the extent to which the progressive values and worldview have infiltrated public education.
In Trump's second term, I think people are realizing maybe it's a little safer than I thought it was to come out and express my views.
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