Like NJ, States With Powerful Teachers Unions Have Weaker Student Recovery from the Pandemic, Yet They Spend 70% More on Education
June 9, 2026Well, It looks like Sunlight was right all along. The NJEA is losing members and current leadership’s actions appear to confirm it. We previously estimated that the NJEA had lost about 10% of its members since the 2018 Janus decision and believe that the Spiller scandal likely worsened the outflow. Of course, we wouldn’t have to estimate membership declines by extrapolating from outside data sources if the NJEA would simply say what its actual membership levels are, but (conspicuously) they will not. But NJEA leadership recently proposed amendments to the NJEA bylaws to strengthen efforts to recruit and retain members. We think that speaks volumes about what’s really going on. Perhaps some intrepid reporter can ask the NJEA what their membership levels are and we can put an end to the guesswork.
Teacher anger over the lack of transparency during the Spiller scandal. Sunlight has documented the NJEA’s lack of transparency towards its own members. The prime example was leadership’s hiding the truth about spending $45 million of teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues on former-President Sean Spiller’s vanity run for governor. Sunlight heard directly from teachers and there were several news reports that when teachers finally learned the truth about $45 million of their dues wasted on Spiller’s failed run, they were angry. One courageous teacher started an online petition calling for transparency that garnered over 2,000 signatures and two teachers filed a lawsuit against Spiller and the NJEA.
Added to NJEA membership losses. Sunlight believes that the Spiller scandal likely caused the NJEA to lose members, which would have added to the pre-existing outflow of members since the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision. The NJEA has long been opaque when it comes to its actual membership level. On its website, it claims 200,000 members but NJEA officers have publicly acknowledged that the number is now “nearly” 200,000. Sunlight analyzed the NJEA’s dues revenues and local membership levels and estimated that the NJEA has lost about 10% of its members since Janus, which would place membership in the 180,000-185,000 range. The Spiller scandal likely made that worse.
Post-Spiller, new leadership, new optics. Thus it should be little surprise that newly elected, post-Spiller leadership appeared to recognize the damage from the lack of transparency and anger surrounding the Spiller scandal. With great fanfare, “member voices,” “transparency,” and “honesty” were new leadership’s announced priorities, along with a new strategic plan and mission statement. Leadership even embarked on a statewide campaign to inform members “how your dues work for you.” New President Steve Beatty spoke of how leadership would:
“look in the mirror and honestly assess ourselves — our practices, our processes, and be honest in how we move forward — gaining member trust and buy-in …”*
Sunlight believes a lot of this is pure optics. After all, new leadership has never come clean about the Spiller scandal, preferring to pretend that it never happened. Nor has there been any accounting of how the record-shattering $45 million was spent. And leadership continues to conceal its spending of dues on politics.
But leadership’s concern about declining membership appears to be very real. New leadership is currently undertaking concrete steps to strengthen the NJEA’s recruitment and retention of members. In the June 2026 NJEA Review , the Executive Committee proposed amendments to the NJEA bylaws to direct the NJEA Delegate Assembly’s Membership Committee “to align with … the current membership landscape [emphasis added].” The amendments include:
- Regularly assess the relevance, inclusivity, and effectiveness of current membership and dues structures to ensure alignment with member needs;
- Implement dynamic recruitment strategies, emphasizing member value and collective strength, while actively working to retain and engage members long-term;
- Collect, analyze, and utilize membership data to … identify opportunities for growth, and develop targeted strategies to expand the membership …;
- Coordinate with county and local membership chairpersons, offering resources and guidance to help them implement effective strategies for member engagement and retention; and
- Advancing and sustaining the strength, growth, and engagement of the membership.
Looks like Sunlight was right. We believe that this confirms that Sunlight was right: the NJEA is losing members. Its lack of transparency, waste of members’ highest-in-the-nation dues, and inattention to teachers’ real concerns are driving teachers away. The Spiller scandal likely made that worse. Now it appears new NJEA leadership is desperately trying to reverse that trend.
*See the October 2025 NJEA Review (which can be found on the NJEA website).