For the children...

As an educator, I am, thankfully, not mandated to be a part of the NEA. I've long loathed the NEA as a slush fund for the left; having very little directly to do with the education of students or even the welfare of teachers. Their stated mission from their website?

"NEA is 2.7 million members working to provide great public schools."

If the NEA spent money actually working toward that mission, it would indeed be a great organization. But read this:

If we told you that an organization gave away more than $65 million last year to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups, you'd probably assume we were describing a liberal philanthropy. In fact, those expenditures have all turned up on the financial disclosure report of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.

According to the WSJ article, The NEA's expenditures include

• $15,000 to the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that promotes the gay/lesbian/transgender, etc. agenda.
• $5,000 to the National Women's Law Center to fund the printing of handbooks on how to oppose the nomination of Samuel Alito.
• $400,000 to a fund to "protect social security" and oppose privatization of same.
• $500,000 to an anti-charter school group to block the formation of "charter schools" (which, by the way, are also public schools) in Washington State.

And where, pray tell, does the NEA get the bling to perform these fine charitable works?

The NEA is spending the mandatory dues paid by members who are told their money will be used to gain better wages, benefits and working conditions. According to the latest filing, member dues accounted for $295 million of the NEA''s $341 million in total receipts last year. But the union spent $25 million of that on "political activities and lobbying" and another $65.5 million on "contributions, gifts and grants" that seemed designed to further those hyper-liberal political goals.

"Hyper-political-liberal goals" (none of which I agree) that I, as a United States Citizen, would be forced to fund through my NEA dues--which many of my colleagues are--and those dues ain't cheap!

Now, getting back to the mission of the NEA:

"NEA is 2.7 million members working to provide great public schools."

Bullshit.



(Filed under limousine liberals, The Fifth Column)