Teachers union calls for defeat of Bush
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The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published July 5, 2004

The head of the National Education Association opened the largest school union's annual convention yesterday with a call for public school teachers and employees to mobilize politically to help defeat President Bush this fall.
    "I know that if we put forth our best effort, we are going to win," Reg Weaver told a cheering audience in a 30-minute speech in which he criticized Mr. Bush and Education Secretary Rod Paige.
    "Our 2.7 million members can be the 'X-factor' in this election. We and our pro-public-education allies can and will make a decisive difference," he said.
    The convention votes tomorrow on the NEA's endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The Massachusetts senator is scheduled to address the convention tomorrow.
    The union is collaborating with the liberal organization MoveOn.org to coordinate nationwide political "house parties."
    The parties, described as "the largest mobilization for education ever" are being organized nationwide to plan political rallies, register voters, set up meetings with congressional candidates, "and design a program to make sure your parents, teachers and community members will get to the polls in November," according to brochures distributed to 10,000 NEA delegates at the Washington Convention Center.
    The union had sign-up cards for the house parties, and NEA political action committee staffers recruited delegates all day yesterday to participate and make political donations in an adjoining cafeteria.
    At about 2 p.m. yesterday, screens and TV monitors throughout the convention floor flashed the names of five leading states -- California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Washington -- whose delegates had ponied up a total of $1.57 million to date in political contributions.
    The sign-up brochure described as sponsoring "partner organizations" ACORN, the Campaign for America's Future and MoveOn.org.
    "We thought it was an activity that could galvanize our members to help fix and fund [the] No Child Left Behind [Act of 2001]," Mr. Weaver told The Washington Times during a convention recess.
    "I'm trying to activate our members. I'm about mobilizing and stimulating our folks" so that the school union's political activism "takes center stage" for the remainder of the presidential campaign, he said.
    Yesterday, union officials distributed 10,000 fliers to individual state caucuses informing them that filmmaker Michael Moore's anti-Bush film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," would be shown to delegates in the convention hall tomorrow immediately after Mr. Kerry's speech.
    The announcement of the showing and the strongly anti-Bush tone of the convention brought grumbling from Republican members, who make up more than one-fourth of the union's total membership.
    One such member, Sissy Jochmann from the Pennsylvania delegation, called the Moore film "vicious" and said she would publicly call for "a timeout" if union leaders and members continued "bullying us with all their anti-Bush and anti-Republican rhetoric."
    Even liberal political commentator Christopher Hitchens, who was an Oxford University friend and roommate of President Clinton's during the 1970s, has described "Fahrenheit 9/11" as "a big lie and a big misrepresentation."
    The film claims that terrorist Osama bin Laden's family had a close business relationship with Mr. Bush's family and that the wars to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq were motivated by greed.
    Mr. Weaver defended NEA's showing of the film, which the flier said was donated by Mr. Moore so the union could raise more political funds. Delegates have been asked to contribute $20 to the NEA PAC to see the film.
    "Some delegates from Wisconsin were sitting around at dinner the other night and said, 'Wouldn't it be great to have [the film] at the NEA Representative Assembly,' " Mr. Weaver said.
    "People contacted members of the California delegation. The next thing I knew, we got it. It's voluntary. If people don't want to watch it, they don't have to," the union president said.
    In his speech, Mr. Weaver repeated his complaint that the administration has refused to accept NEA positions and "the expertise that this organization brings to the table."
    Mr. Weaver chastised the administration for "broken promises" to fully fund the No Child Left Behind law. "This administration wants to cut you off at the knees, and then blame you for not being able to walk," he said.
    He attacked government spending for the military action against deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
    "For what we have paid for the war in Iraq, we could have paid for 17,066,831 children to attend Head Start; provided health insurance for 51,741,858 children; hired 2,299,310 additional teachers; paid for 3,061,859 four-year scholarships to a public university," he said.
    And he repeated the NEA's attack against the administration's federal school-reform program that was enacted by a bipartisan congressional majority.
    "There is no way around it: No Child Left Behind forces us to spend money we don't have, on programs we don't need, to get results that don't matter."
    Republicans have disputed the NEA's claims regarding underfunding of the Title I school program for low-income school districts, saying federal spending has increased 51 percent since Mr. Bush took office. Title I spending was $8.8 billion in the final Clinton administration budget and is $13.3 billion this year.

Copyright © 2004 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

Reply 1 - Posted by: carver chilcott, 7/5/2004 2:01:28 AM NEA opposes Republican president who supports education reform. Big surprise there.

Reply 2 - Posted by: Cameron, 7/5/2004 2:19:30 AM NEA is an extortionist organization which should be brought to court under the RICO Act. When I was a teacher in PA, I wasn't forced to actually join the Union, but I had to pay dues whether or not I was a Union member. The dues were taken from my check like a tax. They were doing it for THE CHILDREN.

Reply 3 - Posted by: ProudVet, 7/5/2004 2:20:39 AM The NEA should not be a tax free organisation. I have had to deal with them since 1966. Albert Shanker led the teachers in NYC to go on strike. I've had no respect for them since. What they want ranks higher than teaching kids.

Reply 4 - Posted by: po_dog, 7/5/2004 2:20:51 AM I really don't know where to begin with this article. There's almost too much to comment on.

Reply 5 - Posted by: Joe Friday, 7/5/2004 2:26:14 AM These are vile and parasitical members of a union that has taken over our public school system. Their main concern is their own survival and monitary gain from we the people! Kerry must be defeated and the NEA brough to justice!

Reply 6 - Posted by: Cato the elder, 7/5/2004 2:42:39 AM Keep giving 'em hell, Rod!

Reply 7 - Posted by: wilarrbie, 7/5/2004 2:53:33 AM By golly, we could have done LOTS of things with the money we've spent on the war against terror! Let's see what numbers I can pull out of my bu... er, hat. Yes, my hat. We could have cured leprocy. We could have sent 10,362,000 children to 6 Flags over St. Louis, We could have served two million hot dogs to homeless folk, we could fill the Grand Canyon with peach Jello. How about building 3000 tent cities with hot and cold running welfare agents to serve the homeless, or maybe 5000 AIDS free bath houses next to pot smoker safe houses. We could resuce 12 million baby seals.....And we can all be first in line to criticize GWB when the next attack comes.

Reply 8 - Posted by: MsCharlotteVale, 7/5/2004 2:54:07 AM The teachers unions have said it's all about the teachers (teachers get money, tenure and benefits no matter how incompetent they are) and not about the children. I've been to the NEA website and it was scary. Ever wonder why all unions are pro-dem and anti-Republican? Unions are big PACs, appealing to the common man and woman, hahaha. In exchange for dues, the heads of the unions stay in pricey hotels, first class all the way. I've paid my dues for a union gal to pay $19 for a BLT and iced tea in NYC. hahahaha.

Reply 9 - Posted by: plaid, 7/5/2004 2:54:49 AM Union thugs usually act this way when you tell them they need to do their job.

Reply 10 - Posted by: DontTreadOnMe, 7/5/2004 3:00:01 AM Didn't one of Bush's cabinet members jokingly say the NEA was a terroist organization? Looks like he was telling the truth.

Reply 11 - Posted by: Publius3457, 7/5/2004 3:15:06 AM As a NYC high school math teacher, let me just say this: I will do what I can to defeat the NEA and re-elect President Bush.

Reply 12 - Posted by: learner, 7/5/2004 3:48:25 AM They are burning in hell as we speak. It must truly suck to have such hatred. Just wish that GW could fire them like Ronald Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers. We would probably get a better core of teachers.

Reply 13 - Posted by: arikari, 7/5/2004 4:42:22 AM Support your public schools, oh yeah. Many of these bozos will be in Boston in a few weeks.

Reply 14 - Posted by: maryclaudia, 7/5/2004 4:48:35 AM My oldest friend is in education but is not a union member. She says they are all swamped by "Bush's No Child Left Behind" program. I told her don't blame him; Ted Kennedy wrote the thing.

Reply 15 - Posted by: ramona, 7/5/2004 5:13:04 AM I too had to pay (un-) ''fair share'' dues to the NEA thugs for 3 years. I have zero respect for this organization, the leaders and the sheople who rally so mindlessly around it. BUT: There are numerous legitmate reasons to criticize Rod Paige and Co, The views of this administration on research are primitive, for one thing, and there is a sycophantic cabal of so-called researchers running the show at OERI, aided and abetted by Reid Lyon over at NIH. They have wasted hundreds of million dollars on promoting and profitting from idiotic programs that their own research shows to be ineffective. THAT SAID: I will still vote enthusiastically for Bush/Cheney and hope for significant change in the next term. The GOP is, after all, the party of Optimists,,,, Ramona (the Pest)

Reply 16 - Posted by: pineledger, 7/5/2004 5:27:52 AM I had an experience similar to Cameron's, above, and though I was not dunned (I did not join the union, though was constantly harrassed to do so) for dues to a union I didn't belong to, I did notice one important common feature of the union's leaders. They were the WORST teachers and the biggest goldbricks in the school, and they had the biggest mouths. Some role models they were. The NEA should not be a tax-exempt institution, since it traffics in politics.

Reply 17 - Posted by: ProudVet, 7/5/2004 6:01:06 AM #11 - My experience with the NEA started as a freshman at Brooklyn Tech.

Reply 18 - Posted by: mary ellen, 7/5/2004 6:25:11 AM I also had to pay union dues although I did not want to join the union. I was told that because I would "enjoy" the benefits I had to pay whether I joined or not.