Sunday, January 23, 2005

Letter to the NEA

I sent this letter to the editor of the NEA Today earlier this month. I'll repost it here since I don't expect to see it in their Letters section.

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In the "What Now?" article in the January 2005 NEATODAY, our organization's leadership shows once again how they just don't get it. Three different quotes show this:

1) "NEA Republicans need to become very active in the GOP to change this...party..."
2) "NEA recommended 22 Republican hopefuls for the US House and Senate 'out of a total of 298 candidates'..."
3) "NEA Republicans, who comprise one-third of the Associaton (NEA) membership, need to become more active in the GOP..."

Perhaps NEA Republicans need to become more active in the NEA and help turn it from being little more than a shill for the Democrat Party.

Thank you again, Reg Weaver and the rest of the NEA leadership, for being so partisan, for putting all our eggs in the Democrat basket, that teachers can effectively be ignored by the Administration for another 4 years. Why should the Bush Administration listen to an organization that opposes its every move?

And lastly, quit carping about the NCLB Act. Despite it's few small flaws, it's shining a beacon of light on underperforming and nonperforming schools. For too long those schools, and the disproportionately minority students they served, were ignored by the government, by NEA, by everyone, while their students didn't learn. This law compels us to look at those children--those we claim we want to help the most--and find ways to teach them. I agreed with a quote of Reg Weaver's from another article in the same issue: "It's time to change the focus from defining the problem to doing something about it." That's exactly what NCLB does.

3 comments:

EdWonk said...

Isn't it strange that in this era of electronic and telephone voting that we've never had a chance to vote for a SINGLE N.E.A. officer?

EdWonk said...

I linked this post to one of mine called "Union Nonsense: A California Teacher's Viewpoint." It can be seen here:

http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/2005/01/union-nonsense-california-teachers.html

Darren said...

NEA has *never* supported a Republican for President. This "union" is a PAC--perhaps you're more accurate when you refer to it as a syndicate.

For those of you who do not know, California is *not* a "right to work" state. As such, while union membership is not required, paying union dues *is*! Should you have serious objections to union membership you have only two options: become an "agency fee payer" and pay slightly reduced dues and get none of the benefits or protections of union membership (often including not getting to vote on a new contract!), or you can donate an amount equal to full union dues to a charity approved by the union!

Yes, California is a "blue" state.