May Day, May Day: Teachers and Their Unions Are Trying to Radicalize Your Children
- May 22, 2026
Michael Chamberlain, Townhall
On May 1, thousands of Chicago Public Schools students left class for a special field trip. You see, it was May Day, the communist holiday, and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) had them out to do something called “a day of civic action” to protest the Trump administration and attend political rallies. So rather than not learning in the classroom (just two in five Chicago Public Schools students read at grade level, and one in four have required math proficiency), they were in the streets learning to hate the president.
Maria Heavner, a first-grade teacher at Funston Elementary School, made a video to promote the May Day event for the CTU. The May Day rallies, she says, are “a really cool way for us to show students that they can take their power back.” She didn’t say who had taken power away from the six-year-olds in her charge, or what power first graders are even supposed to have (except the power to better themselves through education, which, as noted above, not many seem to be exercising).
The CTU is a hard-left organization and a political power in Chicago (the current socialist mayor was once a CTU lobbyist). Check out some of the materials it recommends members teach in the classroom. But it hardly stops with CTU. Some school districts in North Carolina and Wisconsin were forced to cancel classes after more than half of their teachers announced plans to play hooky to attend protests.
Across the nation, teachers’ unions and, increasingly, individual teachers have become radicalized. After a part-time teacher from California tried to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April, at least two other teachers were disciplined for social media posts lamenting his failure. When Charlie Kirk was murdered, teachers and school officials did some of the loudest online cheering.
Perhaps it’s because of the water they’ve been swimming in for years: Left-Wing unions, often with the blessing of radical school boards. In Los Angeles, radicals from a Hispanic group that calls itself a “revolutionary organization” are trying to gain seats on the city’s United Teachers Los Angeles. The UTLA infamously demanded conditions such as shutting down charter schools, defunding police, a statewide wealth tax, and Medicare-for-All government-run health care be met before returning to classrooms during COVID-19.