The public education landscape is a bit of a minefield these days.
Inflation is blowing up school budgets. A new education tax credit that will direct federal tax dollars into private schools goes into effect in January. At the same time, the Trump administration is dismantling the Department of Education brick by brick.
Enter Princess Moss, the new face of the nation's largest labor union, the National Education Association. Its membership includes 3 million teachers and public workers from every state.
"Public education is under attack," she says. "Our students are under attack. The very foundation of this democracy is public education — that is under attack."
Her vision for the NEA — what she calls "resistance to renaissance" — has some markings of past leadership. It puts things like professional autonomy and community organizing front and center, but there is one stark departure she wants for the union.
"I want us to become our own political authority," Moss says. "Meaning that we're not aligning ourselves with a political party."
"I know this can work because I've done it before"
Princess Moss grew up the daughter of two school bus drivers in Spotsylvania County in rural Virginia. She recalls many teachers from her childhood who inspired her to pursue a career in schools. But her second grade teacher, Lucy T. Lewis, stands out. Moss remembers Lewis telling her she was smart back in 1968, even after she misspelled the word refrigerator in front of the entire class.
"I wanted to be just like Mrs. Lewis," she says. "Where you could help students learn and help students be the best that they could be even if they made a mistake every now and then."
Moss went on to work as an elementary school music teacher for more than 20 years in a neighboring county. Along the way she rose up the ranks in state union leadership, presiding over the Virginia Education Association from 2004 to 2008 and eventually moving up the ladder at the NEA. Moss now takes on the challenge of navigating a difficult political climate over her three-year term as president.
"We are the experts," she says. "We want to be at the decision-making tables."
One lesson she brings from her time in Virginia is that when she focused on the issues, there were allies to be found in unexpected places.
At the time, Virginia had a Democratic governor and Republican-controlled general assembly. She worked on building coalitions across the aisle and emphasized that public education is for everyone. With the midterms rapidly approaching, Moss said she's bringing that mentality to the NEA.
"Talk about your students"
"We're telling our members: 'Talk about your students. What do your students need?'" she says. "Don't make it a Democrat or Republican issue."
Michael Petrilli, the president of the right-leaning think tank the Fordham Institute, isn't quite so convinced: "Look, that would be a huge departure for the NEA," he says. "They have been stalwart supporters of the Democratic Party and vice versa."
In 2020, the NEA recommended Joe Biden for the office and in 2024 issued a formal endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Petrilli has long held reservations about the nation's teachers unions, saying their positions often block meaningful changes to teaching and perpetuate strict salary rules that can make it hard to recruit and fill certain jobs. But he says he's open to seeing where things go this year, especially with many state-level races leaning in the direction of the union's longtime allies — Democrats.
"This is going to put the unions in a very good position to be able to drive education policy," he says. "I think this is the question: What are they going to do with that power? What are they going to push these Democratic governors to get done?"
Even with Democrats favored to win some races and continued criticism of the union from some Republicans, Moss says she's focused on building a broad coalition of support for public schools.
"The bottom line is that we will work with those who want to put public education first," she says. "No matter what the political party, no matter what your inclination."
