Education Liaison: NEA's Political Agenda Is Mere Smokescreen
by Jim Brown
August 23, 2004
(AgapePress) - An education consultant, columnist and reform advocate is criticizing the National Education Association's latest foray into partisan political activism.The NEA has given nearly $2 million worth of teacher's dues to fund attack ads on President Bush's signature education law, No Child Left Behind. The ads, put out by a group called Communities for Quality Education, claim NCLB is under-funded and has forced schools to lay off teachers and push for property tax hikes.
But to that Nancy Salvato of Prism Educational Consulting responds, "Oh, please." She says the NEA is not interested in giving the Bush education plan a chance. "Rather than learn about NCLB and all the good things that it can do for teaching and for education, they'd rather destroy NCLB -- that's what upsets me about it," she says.
The NEA is subsidizing the Communities for Quality Education ads, which claim the Bush education plan leaves "classrooms overcrowded" with "fewer teachers" and "out-of-date books and materials." But Salvato contends the NEA does not "really understand what NCLB is about, and there's just this media blitz to destroy it before it even gets off the ground."
The columnist and educational reform advocate is critical of the NEA's decision to fund the attack ads, and she describes the NEA and their tactics as "akin to ... a terrorist organization." At the very least, she notes, the organization ought to be treated like the political organization it is and taxed accordingly, "but they're not taxed for their political agenda."
"They're a union," Salvato points out, "and their agenda is supposed to be to help teachers, and it's supposed to be to help education. But it's estimated that about 75 percent of the money the NEA collects is used for politics."
Salvato, who is also the educational liaison to Illinois Senator Ray Soden, says the only reason the NEA wants smaller classrooms is so more teachers have to be hired, which means more dues for the powerful union. And, she asserts, the arguments made by their attack ads are merely "smokescreens" to cover up the truth -- that the NEA is harmful to education, and America's schools would be "better off without them."
