NEA: “Educators for Obama,” our “knight in shining armor”
Phyllis Schlafly writes for Eagle Forum:
The most powerful union of government employees is the National Education Association (NEA), which held this year’s annual national convention as usual over the Fourth of July weekend, attracting 9,000 delegates. To no one’s surprise, it resembled a re-election campaign rally for Barack Obama, with the pressure on delegates to identify themselves as EFO (Educators for Obama).
Many delegates wore Obama campaign buttons and T-shirts and sported banners with messages such as “You are our knight in shining armor.” The official NEA Convention newspaper called “RA Today” featured a very political full-page endorsement of Obama headlined “Do your part and pledge to be an educator for Obama today!” . . .
The NEA convention passed its usual scores of anti-parent, anti-school-choice, pro-feminist, pro-homosexual resolutions that morph into the NEA’s Legislative Program. This authorizes the highly-paid NEA staff to lobby Congress, state legislatures, education departments, and school boards to adopt NEA policies. . . .
We can get a look at NEA’s political clout by reading a Memorandum distributed to the delegates by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. It reveals the amount of money available in the NEA Ballot Measures/Legislative Crises Fund in the current year, projecting $26,939,129 by the end of the year.
Already this year, the NEA powers-that-be have approved $270,000 to four state affiliates to use in ballot measure campaigns, $7,163,492 in assistance to 17 state affiliates for legislative battles, and $2,500,000 for lobby-campaign efforts related to the congressional reauthorization of federal education appropriations.