National Education Association: Bastion of Radical Liberal Extremism

Recently, questions have been raised about the recommended reading on the National Education Association‘s website. This is only the latest in long line of criticism levied at the teachers union. The NEA has long been criticized by those on the right as a stalwart liberal institution that focuses more on leftist policies than education.

The NEA is one of the top 10 organizations in America to give money to political candidates. For instance, looking at the decade, the NEA sent money out overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates. The following figures are the percentages for each year given to Democrats:

2008: 91%

2006: 88%

2004: 91%

2002: 91%

2000: 91%

This is actually DOWN from the Clinton years when Democratic support did not drop below 95%. Since 1990, the NEA has averaged to give a staggering 93% to candidates. And this only covers election years.

For the House of Representatives, the NEA allocated funds to 218 Democratic Representatives to only 28 Republicans. In the Senate 23 Democratic Senators received money to 3 Republicans. Those 3 Republicans received a grand total of $9,600, John McCain’s Senate campaign received the majority of the money. These figures are from 2008, when McCain was mainly running for President, not Senate. He received $7,600 of that $9600, meaning the NEA gave $1,000 a piece to the other Senators. Contrast that with the nearly $275,000 the Democrats received. In case you were wondering, that averages out to nearly $12,000 per Democratic candidate for Senate.

The top Democratic Senators? Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Obama received close to $87,000 to Hilary’s nearly $40,000. (All above monetary figures from Open Secrets).

The NEA has also pushed against many reforms attempting to place merit systems in place. This is despite stories coming out like the situations in Los Angeles. The NEA has been a vocal opponent of voucher programs. Even Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, blasted the NEA’s stance on the matter:

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions today, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principles could fire bad teachers.

Jobs compared schools to businesses with principles serving as CEOs.

“What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?” he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

“Not really great ones because if you’re really smart you go, ‘I can’t win.’”

[...]

“This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

NEA does not stop at merely supporting candidates. The NEA has openly supported far left ideologies.

First the NEA openly came out in July of 2009 and supported what it termed: “LGBT rights.”

The National Education Association adopted two resolutions calling for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights at its annual conference last week.

The resolutions say that the organization opposes the “discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples and its belief that such couples should have the same legal rights and benefits as similarly-situated heterosexual couples.” They also call for the “passage of a federal statute prohibiting federal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.” The NEA also committed itself to supporting the enactment of LGBT equality at local, state and federal levels.

Back in 2005, journalists called the NEA out for dumping $65 million into Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International (among others).

In 2001 the NEA had voted to decide whether the “NEA should formally support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender curricula in public schools.” In other words, the government would take over what children would learn on the matter…

Conservative and Family groups have also charged that:

NEA convention resolutions repeatedly demand that the schools be permitted to determine (without parental approval) what is taught in sex-ed programs. The NEA resolutions demand that school programs include information on “diversity of sexual orientation and/or gender identification.”

The NEA has also stepped into the Health Care Debate. Claiming to that “NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and other labor leaders have concluded a days-long intense negotiation with the White House” on the matters on the Health Care Bill.

The NEA came out strongly for universal health care coverage, a public option, that should in NEA’s words: “should not be delayed but established immediately and should be an integral part of any health care reform initiative.” The NEA even has a Health Care talking points page that reads like the President’s teleprompter:

• Health reform should guarantee a choice of plans and providers through a private health insurance plan, including one that an employee may currently have through his or her employer, and a public health insurance plan option.

• The public health insurance option will compete with the private insurance industry in terms of cost and quality.

• This choice is a fundamental feature of an American solution for health reform and another critical piece of cost control.

Perhaps the NEA should look back in their textbooks to the 1970′s price controls on energy, specifically petroleum to see how well cost controls work.

This brings us to the latest excursion into extreme liberalism that the NEA has involved itself in: radical organizing and activism.

The NEA would like its members to become well acquainted with the writings and works of, not the founders or any other famous political mind, but Saul Alinski. Alinski is famous for his book: Rules for Radicals. The NEA  openly praises Alinksi for his words, efforts, and beliefs. They then push their members to do the same saying:

They are forced to positive action only in spite of their desires …

• “The American Radical will fight privilege and power whether it be inherited or acquired by any small group, whether it be political or financial or organized creed.
• “He curses a caste system which he recognizes despite all patriotic denials.
• “He will fight conservatives whether they are business or labor leaders.
• “He will fight any concentration of power hostile to a broad, popular democracy, whether he finds it in financial circles or in politics.
• “The Radical recognizes that constant dissension and conflict is and has been the fire under the boiler of democracy. He firmly believes in that brave saying of a brave people, “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!”
• “The Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people.
• “That is the reason why Radicals, although frequently embarking upon revolutions, have rarely resorted to personal terrorism.”

Alinsky practiced what he preached.

The NEA, the Union that represents teachers responsible for educating the children of the nation openly endorses the tactics of this man.

The NEA uses its member’s dues to push their radical agenda using radical ideas to get their goals. Not every teacher is anywhere near as liberal as the leaders of this group. But those claiming to represent the NEA are funding its efforts to bring its own idea of a revolution to America. The top brass of the NEA lives well off of the backs of its members and shapes society from that seat.

There should be no surprise when the NEA fights off attempts to regulate and hold its members and organization accountable. To regulate them would hinder their radical ideas and actually force them to represent their members, not their own interests. It is shameful that an education system in America is driven not by thought of educating and creating better students, but by partisan political interests.

The results on education of this politicization is sobering. Without a way to hold these groups accountable, they will continue to do and teach as they please.