Posted on 09/24/2007 8:55:38 AM PDT by ProCivitas
Some critics have complained that the issue of education has been conspicuously absent from presidential television debates. But the Democratic candidates did sound off about their pro-federal-government, pro-spending policies when addressing the annual convention of the National Education Association, and the nation's largest teachers union liked what they heard.
Senator Hillary Clinton told the NEA delegates that she will fight school vouchers "with every breath in my body." Reiterating the message of her book It Takes a Village, she called for universal preschool for four-year-olds.
Senator Barack Obama likewise inveighed against "passing out vouchers." Former Senator John Edwards also announced his opposition to vouchers and proposed that the federal government pay college tuition for all students who will work ten hours a week. Governor Bill Richardson wants to "raise teacher's average minimum wage to $40,000 a year." Rep. Dennis Kucinich goes all-out for "a universal prekindergarten system which will provide year-around daycare for children ages 3-5."
All Democratic candidates look forward to increased federal control of and spending for public schools. And they all attacked George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law for not appropriating more funds to implement it.
After cheering the promises made by the Democratic candidates, NEA delegates buckled down to the serious business of spelling out their political goals, many of which have nothing whatever to do with giving schoolchildren a better education.
The NEA demands a tax-supported single-payer health-care plan (socialized medicine) for all residents (a word artfully chosen to include illegal aliens). The NEA supports immigration "reform" that "includes [note: this is a change from last year's verb "may include"] a path to permanent residency, citizenship, or asylum" for illegal aliens.
For many years, and again this year, the NEA urged a national holiday honoring Cesar Chavez. The NEA must have forgotten that Chavez, a strident advocate for farm workers, vehemently opposed illegal immigration because he knew it depressed the wages of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.
The NEA supports a beefed-up federal "hate crimes" law with heavier penalties. The NEA wants federal legislation to confer special rights on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.
The NEA passed at least a dozen resolutions supporting the gay rights agenda in public schools. These cover employment, curricula, textbooks, resource and instructional materials, school activities, role models, and language (with frequent use of terms such as sexual orientation, gender identification, and homophobia).
The NEA enthusiastically supports all the goals of radical feminism, including abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, school-based health clinics, wage control so the government can arbitrarily raise the pay of women but not men, the feminist pork called the Women's Educational Equity Act, and letting feminists rewrite textbooks to conform to feminist ideology.
The NEA supports statehood for the District of Columbia. The NEA supports affirmative action. The NEA calls for repeal of right-to-work laws, which allow teachers in some states to decline joining the NEA.
The NEA supports United Nations treaties, especially the UN Convention on Women (CEDAW), the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Criminal Court. The NEA loves global education, which promotes world citizenship and taxing Americans to give away our wealth to other countries. Another NEA favorite is environmental education, which teaches that human activity is generally harmful to the environment and population should be reduced.
Here are some of the things the NEA opposes: vouchers, tuition tax credits, all parental choice programs, making English our official language, the use of voter ID for elections, and the privatization of Social Security.
High on the list of NEA policies that actually relate to education is opposition to the testing of teachers as a criterion for job retention, promotion, tenure, or salary.
The NEA reiterated its support for pre-kindergarten for "all three-and four-year-old children," mandatory full-day kindergarten, and "early childhood education programs in the public schools for children from birth through age eight." The NEA demands that this "early" education have "diversity-based curricula" and "bias-free screening devices."
The NEA wants the right to teach schoolchildren about sex without any interference from parents, but on the other hand wants its pals in the bureaucracy to regulate all homeschooling taught by parents. The NEA opposes allowing homeschoolers to participate in any public school sports or extracurricular activities.
Two of the NEA's favorite words in its resolutions and policies are diversity (that means teaching that gay behavior is OK), and multiculturalism (that means stressing negative things about America and positive things about non-Christian cultures).
The exorbitant dues that teachers pay to the NEA enable its well-paid staff to lobby Congress and state legislatures in behalf of all these goals.
So Democrats want to help the poor and disadvantaged except when it comes to education?
Our public schools are rapidly becoming socialist indoctrination centers run by government bureaucrats who are largely unaccountable to the parents whose tax dollars fund them. At the same time, there are many fine, dedicated educators in our schools who love academic freedom and truly want to teach kids to think for themselves. I wish they would fight harder against the tyranny of the NEA.
90% of the NEA agenda has absolutely zero to do with Teaching and/or education, and what little that does has to do with Education is gonna harm if it ever gets passed.
“But I thought their goal was “we just want to be treated like everyone else.” Now the NEA wants them to get “special” - i.e. unfair to heterosexuals - treatment???”
Just another in a long line of disjointed, blind hypocrisy from the left.
90% is too low of a figure, its closer to the truth that they care 0% about real education
Schlafly is excellent.
Jimmy Carter created the Dept. of Education as a campaign promise to them, effectively giving them a Cabinet post.
“...Hypocrisy...”
Thanks. I recognized the symptoms, but the word was escaping me! ;o)
The NEA is the most dangerous group in America, because it gets to twist our children’s minds from a very young age (an age they now want to expand to include the date of birth).
Please, folks, send your kids to private schools or homeschool them. But, for their sake, and the sake of the future of this country, please keep them away from the marxist ideologues who are the NEA.
The NEA was never about education; it was always about teachers.
Yet another reason to homeschool.
ping.
What does any of that stuff has to do with teachers, except for the vouchers perhaps.
PING!!!!!!!
Read it. What doesn’t scream “Leave me alone with your kids to do what I want, make them into good little socialists, and have no consequences for whatever I do in the classroom” ? And oh by the way, I need more money to do all this.
From the article:
The NEA calls for repeal of right-to-work laws, which allow teachers in some states to decline joining the NEA.
I happen to live in one of those states.......
This does not begin and end with membership in the NEA. Forced union membership happens in many segments of the workforce.
According to some figures I read this summer, nearly 2/3rds of the money that goes into the NEA's pockets comes from states where teachers are required to join the union. Change states to 'right to work' and cut the NEA, the AFL/CIO, the Teamsters, and all other unions at the knees. Their power will vanish within months.
No, the Dems position is entirely consistent. There is no need to add the "except".
They always want to help the poor and disadvantaged... to continue to be utterly dependent.
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