Payments from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to the left-wing advocacy organization Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) seem to coincide with anti-school choice reports released by the group, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
Filings from the Department of Labor (DOL) show AFT paid PESP $66,000 from June 2024 to May 2025 for “project expense reimbursement.” In June 2025, PESP released a report fearmongering about the “privatization” of education, claiming it leads “to a host of issues for school districts.”
“Unfortunately, outsourcing roles to private companies weakens the school environment, introducing profit motives to spaces that should prioritize student wellbeing over all else,” the report stated. “Students thrive on stability rather than efficiency – in pursuit of profit, private equity firms tend to increase turnover.”
A second report released in September by PESP attacked the One Big Beautiful Bill for creating a national school voucher program, citing criticisms from Democratic governors that some of the private schools “would reject having an LGBTQ member as a teacher” and that “tax dollars can be used on schools with no record of educating students effectively.”
“Scholarships could be used to send students to religious schools that have more room to discriminate, troubling advocates for the separation of church and state,” the September report reads. (RELATED: Union Gives Teachers ‘Interrupting Whiteness’ Classes And More In Radical Left Training Series)
The report acknowledged that “private schools tend to produce better educational outcomes for students overall” but still claimed “these options are not necessarily better,” insisting the solution was to instead reform public schools. PESP stated that the voucher programs “come at the cost of public school education” and “actually benefit wealthy families more than anyone else.”
AFT and PESP did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Parents, educators, community leaders, and elected officials attend a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to defend public education on February 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for National Education Association)
The nonprofit even failed to justify its main qualm — that the vouchers would ultimately benefit private equity firms — admitting that “the transfer of federal dollars to private equity firms invested in K-12 education is difficult to track,” but still insisted it is “likely to increase after the Big Beautiful Bill goes into full effect.”
AFT has long echoed these claims, actively rallying against school choice initiatives under the rubric of protecting public education. Meanwhile, public schools consistently and dramatically underperform compared to private and charter schools.
“These new filings expose how Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers funneled $66,000 to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project in 2024 and 2025, which then published two reports attacking private investment in K-12 education,” Eric Vetimiglia executive director of Pinpoint Policy Institute, told the DCNF. “This pay-to-play scheme, which has become a pattern for PESP, lets unions launder dues money from America’s teachers to push a political agenda aimed at sabotaging school choice. All the while, PESP hides the fact that the union is footing the bill!”
A 2024 study revealed that school choice programs can actually help lessen the achievement gap between low-income students and their peers, finding that student performance rose in every reviewed city with a majority of low-income students when 33% or more are enrolled in charter schools.
A separate report released in August and shared exclusively with the DCNF found that Wisconsin’s school choice programs produce better educational outcomes for students with less money per pupil.
AFT previously paid PESP a total of $132,000 from July 2023 through June 2024 for “project expense reimbursement.” Shortly after, AFT released a report on “Managing Labor Risks in Private Equity” that cited PESP, and was then amplified by PESP. The report called on public pension fund trustees to ensure private equity firms promote worker unionization and entertain contract negotiations, adding that a failure to implement these “responsible workforce labor standards” would “create acute labor risk for investors.”
PESP has an even longer track record of accepting donations from unions and shortly thereafter publishing reports that seem to benefit the donor, according to the Washington Examiner. The outlet found similar examples of PESP working with the Writers Guild West, United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union.
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