Vanessa

Posted on 11/04/09

It is time for teachers to know how our NEA union has used
us for political gain.

* NEA is America's largest labor union
* Advocates leftist positions on a host of issues,
including abortion, sex education, teen pregnancy, school
prayer, socialized medicine, affordable housing, drug
testing, prisoner rights, bilingual education, global
warming, and health care
* Opposes merit pay for teachers
* Opposes school vouchers
* Ranks among the leading funders of the Democratic Party
* Has contributed vast sums to many leftwing organizations

Based in Washington, DC, the 3.1 million-member National
Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in
the United States. It represents public school teachers and
support personnel; faculty and staffers in colleges and
universities; retired educators; and college students
preparing to become teachers. The NEA’s mission is “to
advocate for education professionals and to unite our
members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public
education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse
and interdependent world.”

The NEA pursues these goals through its 14,000+ local
affiliate organizations (which are active in fundraising,
conducting professional workshops, and negotiating teacher
contracts); its 51 state affiliates (which “lobby
legislators for the resources schools need”); and its
Washington, DC-based national headquarters (which “lobbies
Congress and federal agencies on behalf of its members and
public schools, supports and coordinates innovative
projects, works with other education organizations and
friends of public education, [and] provides training and
assistance to its affiliates”).

The NEA was founded in 1850 as the National Teachers
Association, and adopted its present name in 1857. Promoting
government-owned public schools and “modern” pedagogical
ideas, this union permitted no private school teachers to
join its ranks. These government-owned-and-run schools were
modeled on statist European education in Prussia, and
attracted socialist activist teachers who saw public school
students as perfect subjects for re-engineering society.
That remolding began with the anti-Catholic objectives of
Horace Mann (1796-1859) and expanded to the anti-religious
humanism of John Dewey (1859-1952).

In a 1935 report presented at the 72nd annual NEA
convention, the union's future Executive Secretary Willard
Givens wrote: “A dying laissez-faire must be completely
destroyed and all of us … must be subjected to a large
degree of social control…. The major function of the school
is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to
give him understanding of the transition to a new social order.”

In a 2003 article titled “NEA Hastens Death of American
Education,” veteran journalist Ralph de Toledano wrote that
in 1938 “the Institute for Social Research, founded by the
Comintern, appeared on the Columbia University campus,
taking over the Teachers College, the country’s most
influential school of education.” “Better known as the
Frankfurt School,” de Toledano continued, “… [the Institute]
eschewed the economic aspects of Marxism and promulgated a
substitute based on Marx’s 1843 preachments. Later labeled
neo-Marxism, the program called for the destruction of
religion, the family, education and all moral values, along
with the capture of the intellectuals and the instruments of
mass communication such as the press, radio and films. To
this it appended a new Freudianism, which reduced human
relationships to rampant sexuality and the grossest pleasure
principles -- -- as "an inspiration" to
"every organizer" and "anyone contemplating action in their
community."

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