LAKE PLACID, N.Y. – Labor union critics are calling out American Federation of Teachers union president Rhonda Weingarten for her hypocritical take on education … again.

Weingarten led a recent protest outside t a pro-charter school conference in Lake Placid last week to bemoan special interest groups that she claims are corrupting New York’s education system, according to Labor Pains, a blog about Big Labor.

“Are you willing to fight for great neighborhood public schools?” Weingarten reportedly asked her adoring fans.

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One protester apparently received Weingarten’s message loud and clear, and yelled out from the crowd that the public education system is “being hijacked by special interests and money,” Labor Pains reports.

It’s an ironic statement considering the outsized political and financial influence of organized labor unions in New York and other states. Across the country, the AFT and its affiliates pour millions into misleading advertizing with the goal of steering the public toward the union’s more-money mentality.

A recent example cited by Labor Pains was a $500,000 media campaign devised to help elect union-friendly candidates to the Buffalo public school board. New York State United Teachers, a AFT state affiliate union, vastly outspent other independent candidates, but was only successful in electing one of three of its endorsed candidates, WIVB.com reports.

The message that resonated with Buffalo voters? That parents should have the same influence on public schools as union bosses.

“I’ve always seen the parents, they put them in the peanut gallery and they don’t let them participate,” Patti Bowers Pierce, a winning Buffalo candidate not endorsed by the union, told the television station. “I’m going to move right away … to give the District Parents Council a seat at the board just like the union has a seat at the board.”

In Buffalo, where there are no schools in good standing, parents and taxpayers are apparently waking up to the AFT’s toxic influence and voting accordingly. But, as Labor Pains points out, the AFT’s political power extend far beyond local school districts, and the union spends a lot of money to keep it that way.

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“Weingarten has a long history of hypocrisy when it comes to money in politics,” according to the site. “At the federal level, AFT has funneled more than $1.9 million in campaign contributions this election cycle, in addition to $1.4 million spent on lobbying.

“In New York state in 2013, the NYSUT and New York City’s United Federation of Teachers spent nearly $5 million lobbying in Albany,” Labor Pains reports.