Posted on 01/08/2003 10:10:01 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
The National Education Association (NEA), just prior to the anniversary of the horror of the Twin Towers attack, urged its members in a directive not to lay blame on Islamic terrorists but instead to lecture students on America's sins. For a day or two, there were some indignant outbursts. But few pointed out the connection between the unconscionable state of American education and the ideological hold the NEA has on our public schools and system of higher education.
Millions of high-school graduates pick up their diplomas though remaining functionally illiterate. Education no longer educates as it once did but indoctrinates in perverse antisocial and immoral values -- frequently attacking our Judeo-Christian heritage. In a country that spends more for education than any other (both gross and per capita), the quality of education is among the lowest in the industrialized world.
The City College of New York (CCNY) and Hunter College, two of New York's public colleges, once had the highest academic ratings in the country, with CCNY requiring a 90-point average for entrance. Then, with "open admissions," those formerly great educational institutions were moved by the politically correct NEA winds -- if you breathed, you were in. The city's foremost elementary- and secondary-school systems now are a jungle and in shambles. Political correctness is the order of the day in academia.
The responsibility is clear. But educationists vehemently deny that the answer lies in the corruption of principles and curricula by teachers' colleges and school administrators -- the wor* of the NEA.
Meanwhile, the NEA's annual budget is well more than $300 million, 10 times that of the entire AFL-CIO. Its membership, roughly 2.2 million, is second only to the Teamsters. Back in the 1970s, it was saying, "We are the biggest potential striking force in the country. We are determined to control the direction of education. We will become the foremost political force in the country." Since then, it thoroughly has infiltrated the U.S. Department of Education. It runs thousands of its members through "political-action workshops," sometimes giving graduate-study credit to attendees. In one election year alone, its political-action committees threw some $250 million into Democratic campaigns.
The NEA has a stranglehold on education and is the most actively radical, extremist and strike-prone union in labor's pantheon. It is employing its dollars and political clout to force Congress to shift control of education away from state and local governments to Washington, easier to manipulate than 50 state legislatures.
The history of the NEA is an interesting one. In 1938, it was an association of educators led by John Dewey. But in that year the Institute for Social Research, founded by the Comintern, appeared on the Columbia University campus, taking over Teachers College, the country's most influential school of education. Better known as the Frankfurt School, it had contributed to the death of the Weimar Republic and its delivery to the Nazis, and then fled to the United States.
In ideology, the Frankfurt School eschewed the economic aspects of Marxism and promulgated a substitute based on Marx's 1843 preachments. Later labeled neo-Marxism, the program called for the destruction of religion, the family, education and all moral values, along with the capture of the intellectuals and the instruments of mass communication such as press, radio and films. To this it appended a new Freudianism, which reduced human relationships to rampant sexuality and the grossest pleasure principles -- a program its secret founder boasted "will make America stink."
The Frankfurt School's program, implemented by the NEA, made the goal of education not to educate the young but to give them an anarchic "self-esteem" and deprive them of any sense of what's wrong or right. The "track" system, whereby the bright students could learn at a faster pace and the less bright at a pace of their own, was abolished, condemning the brighter students to boredom and the slower to frustration. And it preached the alienation of children from parental guidance, urging them to "inform" on their families, as in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
Since the 1940s the NEA, the richest union in the country, has organized an average of 4,000 "political activists" in every congressional district to campaign for its radical program. It has the most powerful lobby in Washington, since teachers are regular voters, which keeps the Democratic leadership in thrall and blocks any legislation that will rescue public education from the pit it was pushed into by the NEA. Its 1970s slogan objectives have been achieved.
The NEA's openly avowed goal today: "To tap the legal, political and economic powers of the U.S. Congress. We want ... sufficient clout [to] roam the halls of Congress and collect votes to reorder the priorities of the United States of America." Democratic candidates see only the NEA's lavish contributions and teams of political organizers.
Meanwhile, the NEA fights the voucher system because it will offer real education to the poor and the lower middle class, which cannot afford to take their children out of the jungles of public education and enroll them in private schools. And it has good reason to: The voucher system will break the NEA's power over public education. That, of course, is what matters to the NEA. And Johnny, who cannot read, remains the victim.
Ralph de Toledano is the dean of Washington columnists and a frequent writer for Insight magazine.
FReegards
The silence of the lambs: McMillan blasts bureaucrats for destroying public education
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: August 15, 2002; Author: Craige McMillanTaking Charge: Let's Stop Aiding and Abetting Academicians' Folly
Source: HOME EDUCATION magazine; Published: July-August 2002; Author: Larry and Susan Kaseman’Open Directory’ --Society/Issues/Education/Education_Reform
Deconstructing Public Education
Source: www.newsmax.com; Published: July 26, 2002; Author: Diane AldenSpecious Science In Our Schools
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: July 9, 2002; Author: Alan CarubaSYMPOSIUM Q: Is the National Education Association Being Fair to Its Religious Objectors?
Source: INSIGHT magazine; Published: June 10, 2002; Authors NO: Stefan Gleason ////\\\\ YES: Bob ChasePublic Sector Subverting Productive Industry
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: May 16, 2002; Author: Henry PelifianHistory of America's Education Part 2: Noah Webster and Early America
Source: Sierra Times; Published: March 27, 2002; Author: April ShenandoahHow Communist is Public Education?
Source: sierratimes.com; Published:March 22, 2002; Author: Chuck MorseHistory of America's Education Part 1: Johnny is in trouble
Source: Sierra Times; Published: March 20, 2002; Author: April ShenandoahAudit rips Georgia schools' curriculum
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Published: March 11, 2002; Author:JAMES SALZERWhy schools fail: Samuel Blumenfeld warns Bush's education legislation is ineffective
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: March 2, 2002; Author: Samuel BlumenfeldPublic School Isn't Like I Remember It
Source: Too Good Reports; Published: February 28, 2002; Author: Phyllis SchlaflyWhat Is Lacking In Our Educational System
Source: Too Good Reports; Published: February 28, 2002; Author: Ben CerrutiThe charade of education reform
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: February 2, 2002; Author: Dr. Samuel L. BlumenfeldAmerican public schools: Working just as designed
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: January 21, 2002; Author: Vox DayHigh Schools Fail Thanks To Grade Inflation And Social Promotion
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: December 5, 2001; Author: Vin SuprynowiczWHY AMERICANS CAN’T READ
Source: Accuracy in Media; Published: December 4, 2001; Author: Reed Irvine and Cliff KincaidThe Failing Teacher and the Teachers' Code of Silence
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: December 3, 2001; Author: Glenn SacksTime for outrage! Linda Bowles reports latest results in America's public schools
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: November 27, 2001; Author: Linda BowlesIlliterate in Boston: Samuel Blumenfeld explains U.S.'s ongoing reading problem
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: July 20, 2001; Author: Samuel BlumenfeldNEA - Let our children go!
Source: WorldNet Daily; Published: June 23. 2001; Author: Linda HarveyCOOKING THE BOOKS AT EDUCATION
Source: Accuracy In Media; Published: June 5, 2001; Author: Cliff KincaidWhy Do Schools Play Games With Students' Minds ?
Source: The Detroit News; Published: April 1, 2001; Author: Thomas SowellThe Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?
Source: http://home.talkcity.com/LibraryDr/patt/homeschl.htm; Author: John Taylor GattoDumbing down teachers
Source: USNews.com; Published: February 21, 2001; Author: John LeoFree Republic links to education related articles (thread#8)
Source: Free Republic; Published: 3-20-2001; Author: VariousAre children deliberately 'dumbed down' in school? {YES!!!}
Source: World Net Daily; Published: May 13, 2001; Author: Geoff Metcalf {Interview}Could they really have done it on purpose?
Source: THE LIBERTARIAN; Published: 07/28/2000; Author: Vin SuprynowiczNew Book Explores America's Education Catastrophe
Source: Christian Citizen USA; Published: April 2000; Author: William H. WildDeliberately dumbing us down (Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America"
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: December 2,1999; Author: Samuel L. BlumenfeldDeconstructing the Western Mind: Gramscian-Marxist Subversion of Faith and Education
Source: www.petersnet; Published: Winter 1997; Author: Frank Morriss
Littleton Crisis to Government Control
The UN Plan for Your Mental Health
NonPartisan Action For a Better Redding
Quality of Education Commentary, Opinion, and Book Reviews
Volume 10 Number 26 Bauman: Home Schooling in the United States
Put off by public schools, more Muslims home-teach
Kansas: adoption by homeschooling parents not allowed unless a top official approves it (my title)
Recall election for school board member accused of improperly promoting bilingual education (CA)
The NEA has become so influential in American society that it has become worthy of regulation in the manner of utilities, the stock market and other unions. The Taft-Hartly Act was passed in the same vain to temper the power of unions.
The NEA, and its elite socialist agenda, is not conducive to the Democrats "progressive" social agenda for the blue collar constituents that the Democrats claim to champion. The NEA is bad for the Democrats and worse for America. Its only purpose is to advance the interests of its own "Nomenclatura", as the article insinuates.
I wish the democrats political power continues to decline as long as they are associated with the incredibly anti-American NEA.
"It’s typical for about half the money the union PACs collect in a cycle to be contributed to candidates or as soft money, while the rest is spent on administration, transfered to other PACs, or carried over to the next cycle. During the 1998 election cycle, NEA spent $1,853,390 in direct contributions. Most of these were in $10,000 chunks to House Democrats..."
"Using the CRP database, EIA constructed a list of the top soft money contributors to state Democratic Party committees for all 50 states. In 25 states, NEA ranked in the top 30 contributors and took first place in four states (Florida, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin)..."
This Week's News: Members File Class Action Suit Against NEA Members Insurance Trust
Internal NEA sources tell EIA that a class action lawsuit has been filed against the union and the insurance arm of its Member Benefits Corporation for failing to distribute a $17.3 million windfall to members who participated in the members-only insurance plan.
NEA offers perks through its Member Benefits Corporation that include credit cards, banking and mortgage services, and insurance. In December 2001, NEA held a group life insurance policy on behalf of some 400,000 members with the Prudential Insurance Company. That month, Prudential converted to a stockholders’ company, a process known as demutualization. It distributed shares of stock to all its policyholders, including some 600,000 shares to NEA that were valued at $17.3 million.
The lawsuit arose from the fact that NEA itself holds the policy, not the individual members who participate. The union therefore felt justified in keeping the Prudential stock proceeds for the Members Insurance Trust itself rather than go through the cumbersome process of distributing payments of less than $40 to each of the member participants. An unidentified member, on behalf of a class of all participants in the NEA insurance program as of December 2001, filed suit in U.S. District Court, seeking distribution of the money to the members.
The National Education Association: Emphasis on the Ass
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The horror has just been surpassed by the NEA.
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