The #1 priority of the National Education Association – the nation’s largest teacher union – is indoctrinating students with critical race theory. There is no real focus on ‘improving student achievement’ or even ‘better pay for teachers.’ Brainwashing students to believe their country was founded on and remains a nation of white supremacy is their top priority. Americans first must be convinced that our constitutional republic – the greatest nation on earth – is evil and must be replaced with something radically different envisioned by NEA.
Don’t take my word for it; one need only examine the New Business Items and other agenda items at their recently concluded annual meeting to see that harsh reality.
(editor’s note: the original link to information on the NEA site has since been removed by NEA; the current link goes to a document downloaded before they removed it.)
Critical Race Theory is mentioned more than anything else. They want CRT implemented. They propose targeting legislators and organizations that are allegedly “attacking teachers for doing anti-racist work,” and their definition of ‘attacking teachers’ is to dare to object to students being indoctrinated with critical race theory.
Anyone who proposes to ban CRT or the New York Times’ 1619 Project will be put on a list. Critical thinking and having opinions will not be tolerated; those who don’t obey the NEA will pay a price.
Mob rule, attacking police, open borders, and opposing Israel
The second priority of the National Education Association is a collection of positions designed to undermine the founding principles of our nation and remake the United States as a socialist society. A few items come from Bernie Sanders’ free stuff menu, like free college and employer-sponsored daycare. And of course, single-payer health care, which is code for socialized medicine.
The long list of demands that have nothing to do with education includes:
- A state-owned banking system.
- Oppose capitalism, which the NEA calls a form of power and oppression.
- State legislatures “should not implement policies that overturn the will of the voters.” In other words, NEA wants mob rule to take the place of representative democracy.
- NEA wants open borders, calling on the United States to stop turning immigrants away at the southern border.
- They say the United States government should stop arming and supporting Israel, which NEA accuses of “ethnic cleansing” and military repression.
- Mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations before returning to face-to-face instruction in the Fall.
- People should be allowed to vote by presenting a utility bill as identification.
- “Address the issues of police unions” because “no other union represents members who can terrorize, brutalize, or take the life of another person with almost complete impunity.” This one is pretty rich, considering many teachers live in fear of retribution from teacher union bullies.
NEA members also call for reparations, they want long-term capital gains taxed as ordinary income, and they want to “eradicate racist laws, policies, and practices.” They don’t identify any laws, policies, or practices that are racist, perhaps thinking that you are racist if you can’t identify them.
Hypocritical demand for “dramatic funding increases”
There are a few education issues on the National Education Association issue list, but each ignores reality and has nothing to do with improving absurdly low student achievement.
There is the persistent call for “dramatic funding increases” for proven programs and services for low-income students to “eliminate the school-to-prison” pipeline. This one is the pinnacle of hypocrisy, especially here in Kansas. Legislators provided over $5 billion in incremental funding over the last 15 years that was specifically targeted to provide direct services to low-income students and those below grade level. But a recent Kansas Legislative Post Audit report found most of the at-risk funding they reviewed “was used for teachers and programs for all students and did not appear to specifically address at-risk students as required by state law.”
The Kansas NEA chapter doesn’t want targeted funding used for direct services. They lobbied legislators to allow that money to be used for the general education of all students, like teacher pay increases and to hire more dues-paying NEA members.
For the record, there have been dramatic funding increases for public education. According to U.S. Census data, per-student funding jumped 80% between 2001 and 2019, going from $8,521 per student to $15,656; inflation was only 38% over that period. Student achievement, however, is stubbornly flat and low. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows 8th-grade reading proficiency improved from 31% to just 32% between 2002 and 2019 (the test wasn’t given in 2001).
School boards deny they are teaching critical race theory, but they play semantic word games to avoid telling the truth. They know what is going on in their classrooms and they tacitly encourage it by taking no action to stop it.
NEA’s intent on dividing our nation is yet another reason for parental choice legislation. Parents send their children to school to be educated, not indoctrinated.
