Posted on 07/05/2004 12:52:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The head of the National Education Association opened the largest school union's annual convention yesterday with a call for public school teachers and employees to mobilize politically to help defeat President Bush this fall.
"I know that if we put forth our best effort, we are going to win," Reg Weaver told a cheering audience in a 30-minute speech in which he criticized Mr. Bush and Education Secretary Rod Paige.
"Our 2.7 million members can be the 'X-factor' in this election. We and our pro-public-education allies can and will make a decisive difference," he said.
The convention votes tomorrow on the NEA's endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The Massachusetts senator is scheduled to address the convention tomorrow.
The union is collaborating with the liberal organization MoveOn.org to coordinate nationwide political "house parties."
The parties, described as "the largest mobilization for education ever" are being organized nationwide to plan political rallies, register voters, set up meetings with congressional candidates, "and design a program to make sure your parents, teachers and community members will get to the polls in November," according to brochures distributed to 10,000 NEA delegates at the Washington Convention Center.
The union had sign-up cards for the house parties, and NEA political action committee staffers recruited delegates all day yesterday to participate and make political donations in an adjoining cafeteria.
At about 2 p.m. yesterday, screens and TV monitors throughout the convention floor flashed the names of five leading states — California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Washington — whose delegates had ponied up a total of $1.57 million to date in political contributions.
The sign-up brochure described as sponsoring "partner organizations" ACORN, the Campaign for America's Future and MoveOn.org.
"We thought it was an activity that could galvanize our members to help fix and fund [the] No Child Left Behind [Act of 2001]," Mr. Weaver told The Washington Times during a convention recess.
"I'm trying to activate our members. I'm about mobilizing and stimulating our folks" so that the school union's political activism "takes center stage" for the remainder of the presidential campaign, he said.
Yesterday, union officials distributed 10,000 fliers to individual state caucuses informing them that filmmaker Michael Moore's anti-Bush film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," would be shown to delegates in the convention hall tomorrow immediately after Mr. Kerry's speech.
The announcement of the showing and the strongly anti-Bush tone of the convention brought grumbling from Republican members, who make up more than one-fourth of the union's total membership.
One such member, Sissy Jochmann from the Pennsylvania delegation, called the Moore film "vicious" and said she would publicly call for "a timeout" if union leaders and members continued "bullying us with all their anti-Bush and anti-Republican rhetoric."
Even liberal political commentator Christopher Hitchens, who was an Oxford University friend and roommate of President Clinton's during the 1970s, has described "Fahrenheit 9/11" as "a big lie and a big misrepresentation."
The film claims that terrorist Osama bin Laden's family had a close business relationship with Mr. Bush's family and that the wars to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq were motivated by greed.
Mr. Weaver defended NEA's showing of the film, which the flier said was donated by Mr. Moore so the union could raise more political funds. Delegates have been asked to contribute $20 to the NEA PAC to see the film.
"Some delegates from Wisconsin were sitting around at dinner the other night and said, 'Wouldn't it be great to have [the film] at the NEA Representative Assembly,' " Mr. Weaver said.
"People contacted members of the California delegation. The next thing I knew, we got it. It's voluntary. If people don't want to watch it, they don't have to," the union president said.
In his speech, Mr. Weaver repeated his complaint that the administration has refused to accept NEA positions and "the expertise that this organization brings to the table."
Mr. Weaver chastised the administration for "broken promises" to fully fund the No Child Left Behind law. "This administration wants to cut you off at the knees, and then blame you for not being able to walk," he said.
He attacked government spending for the military action against deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"For what we have paid for the war in Iraq, we could have paid for 17,066,831 children to attend Head Start; provided health insurance for 51,741,858 children; hired 2,299,310 additional teachers; paid for 3,061,859 four-year scholarships to a public university," he said.
And he repeated the NEA's attack against the administration's federal school-reform program that was enacted by a bipartisan congressional majority.
"There is no way around it: No Child Left Behind forces us to spend money we don't have, on programs we don't need, to get results that don't matter."
Republicans have disputed the NEA's claims regarding underfunding of the Title I school program for low-income school districts, saying federal spending has increased 51 percent since Mr. Bush took office. Title I spending was $8.8 billion in the final Clinton administration budget and is $13.3 billion this year.
But the NEA is nonpartison, you know.
Just ask them.
His personal turf is academia, but I believe it all starts first at home, then in primary and secondary school. I admit though that college professors are openly leftist and definitely anti-Republican. However, students routinely choose their college. This isn't true for primary and secondary school, since most parents aren't about to buy one school for the price of two.
The only answer is to abolish public schools. That's the goal we should strive for. It would likely reduce leftist indoctrination and would DEFINITELY improve the quality of education.
I've been wondering if the union has been spending dues money buying tickets to this. Inquiring minds want to know...
???Hummmmmm...like educating teachers so they can educate your children...being forced to spend money on students? Why I never heard of such a silly thing! The NEA oposes Ron Paige because he nailed that organization and called it what it is and he is right!
The NEA is akin to the Brown Shirts of Germany, it is a political arm of Socialism.
This is FR. You're allowed to say, "lies."
Our tax dollars should not support this DNC political organ. If this union had to depend on truly voluntary membership and dues they would vanish, and they should.
You can't do anything about it . We have what is called a "closed shop"!! If you don't pay the full dues because you don't want to belong to the union you still have to pay 85% because they do all the barganing for you . On top of that you become a sitting target for a toilet fish principal or supervisor if you don't have union representation.
I did not infer that YOU were the problem ..Also you can't quit . Look up what closed shop means . On top of that, if you don't have the union representation you are a sitting duck for stupid administrators who salivate at the chance to cut the ranks of teachers that have my core values .
I was the county treasurer for the union for seven years. It really pi$$ed them off when I would be at the officer's table durinf monthly meetings and had copies of Limbaugh's books sitting in front of me ..
This constitutes a tacit endorsement by Kerry of the Goebbels-like propaganda that Moore has made. The depths to which the Democrats will go to regain power remain unplumbed.
And just remember this. The same lockstep leftist loonies who will be watching Moore's crap at the NEA convention are teaching your children or grandchildren. Thank goodness my kids are homeschooled!
You're right. It is well past time for the Republicans to start playing hardball with this domestic axis of evil.
Why has it not become obvious to you that you need to teach somewhere else or to find another line of work entirely ?
Obviously, Flyer, you do not understand how employment in school districts works. Many schools are closed shops and you have no choice but to join the union - or not teach. When you just spent $40,000 in college tuition in training to be a teacher , that is an impossible choice.
So you say "quit" - if a teacher with more than a year or two of experience quits they will not be hired by a different district because they are too expensive. Because of the union rules, we cannot negotiate to take a smaller salary just to get hired. We carry our longivity pay with us. This is the rule that keeps many military spouses from teaching.
Since administrators jump on conservative teachers like a chickens on bugs, conservative teachers are very quiet.
BUT - we can donate time and money privately and that is where teachers need to get active. We can volunteer at phone banks to help get the word out about President Bush. We can work out of our homes anominously. Just contact your local Bush headquarters and explain your situation!!!!
Get creative out there teachers!!!! We must stand up to the NEA and AFT and the Kerry Campaign!!!!
Now wait just a minute here and think this through
With a few exceptions Americans support
prayer in schools
the phrase "In God We Trust"
Christmas displays in public places
Christmas carols in schools
Life starting at conception
It's the double standards that just get ya isn't it?
The "No Child Left Behind Act" does not fund the typical liberal causes (gayness, feminism, racism, new math, new "english"); it funds for solid academic subjects. If schools wish to do these other programs (conflict resolution, cooperative learning, etc.) -- the schools have to come up with the funding themselves. So. Hard core solid subjects is "programs we don't need", "spending money we don't have" (for programs liberals and marxists wish to teach YOUR children); "to get results that don't matter" (feelings are far more important than knowledge or literacy).
Sure, I tried to bring up "literacy" issues, the important of science.. however, what I got in response from these teachers on the subject of math/sci/literacy required my very best poker face to listen to. Mind you; I'm repeating the hearsay of these teachers. And this is what they were told by their "leaders".
Sending our kids to these union schools is no better than having them attend radical Muslim indoctrinations at the local Mosque.
The fact that they are showing and implicitly praising Michael Moore's modern equivalent of Triumph of the Will is icing in the cake, if any be needed, that the NEA is both corrupt and dangerous. And I have a practical suggestion to approach that problem. FreeRepublic should make a special effort to invite into our discussions people who are public school teachers and who see the danger that the NEA represents to all of us.
Congressman Billybob
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