Posted on 08/20/2007 9:42:57 AM PDT by Delacon
Some critics complain that the issue of education has been conspicuously absent from presidential television debates. But Democratic presidential candidates did sound off with their pro-federal government, pro-spending policies at the annual convention of the National Education Association, and the nation's largest teachers union liked what they heard.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., told delegates that she will fight school vouchers "with every breath in my body." Reiterating the message of her book "It Takes a Village," she called for universal preschool for 4-year-olds.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., likewise inveighed against "passing out vouchers." Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., also announced his opposition to vouchers and proposed that the federal government pay college tuition for all students who will work 10 hours a week.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wants to "raise teacher's average minimum wage to $40,000 a year." Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, goes all out for "a universal prekindergarten system that will provide year-round day care for children age 3 to 5."
All Democratic candidates look forward to increased federal control of and spending for public schools. And they all attacked President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law for not appropriating more funds to implement it.
After cheering the promises made by the candidates, NEA delegates buckled down to the serious business of spelling out their political goals, many of which have nothing whatever to do with giving schoolchildren a better education.
The NEA demands a tax-supported, single-payer, health care plan for all residents, a word artfully chosen to include illegal immigrants. The NEA supports immigration "reform" that "includes (note: this is a change from last year's verb "may include") a path to permanent residency, citizenship, or asylum" for illegal immigrants.
For many years, and again this year, the NEA urged a national holiday honoring Cesar Chavez. The NEA must have forgotten that Chavez, a strident advocate for farmworkers, vehemently opposed illegal immigration because he knew it depressed the wages of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.
The NEA supports a beefed-up federal hate crimes law with heavier penalties. The NEA wants federal legislation to confer special rights on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.
The NEA passed at least a dozen resolutions supporting the "gay rights agenda" in public schools. These cover employment, curricula, textbooks, resource and instructional materials, school activities, role models, and language, with frequent use of terms such as sexual orientation, gender identification, and homophobia.
The NEA enthusiastically supports all the goals of radical feminism, including abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, school-based health clinics, wage control so the government can arbitrarily raise the pay of women but not men, the feminist pork called the Women's Educational Equity Act, and letting feminists rewrite textbooks to conform to feminist ideology.
The NEA supports statehood for the District of Columbia. The NEA supports affirmative action. The NEA calls for repeal of right-to-work laws, which allow teachers in some states to decline joining the NEA.
The NEA supports United Nations treaties, especially the U.N. Convention on Women, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Court of Justice. The NEA loves global education, which promotes world citizenship and taxing U.S. citizens to give away their wealth to other countries.
Another NEA favorite is environmental education, which teaches that human activity is generally harmful to the environment and population should be reduced.
Here are some things the NEA opposes: vouchers, tuition tax credits, parental choice programs, making English the official language of the U.S., the use of voter identification for elections, and the privatization of Social Security.
High on the list of NEA policies that actually relate to education is opposition to the testing of teachers as a criterion for job retention, promotion, tenure, or salary.
The NEA reiterated its support for pre-kindergarten for "all 3- and 4-year-old children," mandatory full-day kindergarten, and "early childhood education programs in the public schools for children from birth through age 8." The NEA demands that this "early" education have "diversity-based curricula" and "bias-free screening devices."
The NEA wants the right to teach schoolchildren about sex without any interference from parents, but on the other hand wants its pals in the bureaucracy to regulate all home-schooling taught by parents. The NEA opposes allowing home-schoolers to participate in public school sports or extracurricular activities.
Two of the NEA's favorite words in its resolutions and policies are "diversity," which means teaching that gay behavior is OK, and "multiculturalism," which means stressing negative things about the United States and positive things about non-Christian cultures.
The exorbitant dues teachers pay to the NEA enable its well-paid staff to lobby Congress and state legislatures on behalf of all these goals.
“universal day care for 3-5 yr olds”
IE, forcing women who would choose to stay home with their children out into the work force in order to pay the taxes for this universal day care for women who want to choose to go into the workforce instead of staying home with their kids.
What is wrong with school vouchers?
Every breath in her body? Too bad.
Hillary is right it takes a village...to keep an idiot fully employed.
One more thing: Why not pass a resolution that would require teachers to pass students on to the next grade only when they earned the grades to do so?
Oh brother, could you just imagine the screaming and moaning over that one?
Most school teachers have no idea what they are paying for. I know I have 5 in my family and they are stupid on this subject. If you bring it up they will say but if I do not join the UNION I will have no say in what goes on in my little school. I try to explain it to them but like most people they will not take the time to find out what is really going on. Makes me ill.
She's a fascist, and this would give way to much control to the parents and not to the goverment.
They already have it “free” for those making 200 or less % of the poverty level, children raised by grandparents, foster parents or other relaives and children of military persons. Gawd I am glad this crap was not around when I grew up. I got to stay home until 1st grade (no kindergarden) and it was the most wonderful years of my life.
The NEA is the enemy.
I know a woman who started working as an assistant teacher 4 years ago. Her metamorphosis has been scary:
Year 1: "I'm not joining the union! They're a bunch of leftist creeps!"
Year 2: "I had to join the union. If something went wrong on the playgropund, I could be sued. At least the union would protect me."
Year 3: "I'm not wild about the union, but they look out for me."
Year 4: "The contract says I work until 3 PM. You better believe I'm out the door at 3 PM. I know my rights!"
I didn't see much about effectively teaching correct information and principles to students in there.
I'm sure it was an oversight.
Regardless of the cost, my kids will be homeschooled by their mother and I.
There are ways to reduce the tax burden - too bad we have to jump through so many hoops in order to give our kids what we know is best for them.
Paying tutition to pricate colleges *is* the same as handing out school choice vouchers, but super-trial-lawyer Edwards is too dense to realize his own self-contradiction.
In other words, dems would make it legal that a child could be killed as it comes out of the birth canal but hey wait 3 years and make that same child a ward of the state. Kind of Orwellian dont you think?
Go eat dirt, socialists.
It’s a good thing the homeschool movement has such momentum, or a [possible] president Hillary would shut us all down.
I still look for an attack from the “hate crimes” angle when homeschoolers refuse to teach the homo agenda.
fixed.
“Got to get a conservative GOP prez in 08”. Fixed
Disagree with me if you want. Don’t “fix” my posts. I assert that any GOP prez is better than a dem prez. The NEA is just one of the many reasons for voting GOP in november.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.