Teachers’ unions have long been controversial in the United States, especially now that the polarized debate about American public education is front and center.

The most prominent teacher union in the United States is the National Education Association (NEA). Furthermore, NEA has affiliates throughout the country. In Alabama, it is known as the Alabama Educational Association (AEA), which has been active in the state for over 165 years but has existed only in its present form since 1969. The Association and Joe Reed, head of the all-black Alabama Teachers Association, merged to create the modern AEA, which has been entrenched in Alabama politics ever since.

At one time, the political clout of the Hubbert-Reid partnership was unmatched in Alabama, and neither hesitated to use it.

But they may have had a blueprint for gaining political power.

The AEA’s parent organization, the NEA, goes back even further. It was founded in 1857 as the National Teachers Association. Its purpose was to “enhance the character of the teaching profession, promote its interests, and advance the cause of public education in the United States.”

Membership is open to “gentlemen who regularly teach in a public or private elementary school, college, or university, or who are regularly employed as tutors, editors of educational journals, or superintendents of schools. was limited to gentlemen who were

In 1866 women were allowed to participate. Finally, in 1870, the organization’s name was changed to the National Educational Association, and its membership included “all persons who were in any way connected with the work of education”.

The late Samuel Blumenfeld, who wrote extensively on education, phonics, and illiteracy in American education, also wrote the full article on NEA. “NEA: A Trojan Horse in American Education”, first published in 1984, dealt with the NEA’s ideological underpinnings and its development into political lobbying.

“The NEA’s dominant position in the Democratic Party has already made the party effectively a prisoner of the far left,” Blumenfeld wrote. “And there are a lot of liberal politicians who like what teachers are doing because it serves their political ambitions. Meanwhile, public schools are collapsing and academic standards are at their lowest. of students graduate from high school and are functioning, illiterate thanks to widespread educational fraud in America’s public schools. We receive a lot of propaganda from

Some have been critical of the NEA’s historical relationship with socialism as a political ideology, and with prominent socialists such as John Dewey, Michael Harrington, and Michael Chase.

The NEA’s perceived friendliness to aspects of Soviet communism has also been criticized. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the NEA’s biggest rival in history, has also been critical of the NEA in the past. But the two have become partners in recent decades. In an undated brochure, the AFT claimed that the NEA had harmed legitimate democratic unions by supporting a more radical ideology.

“The Communist government sees a great propaganda coup to persuade the world to accept fake ‘trade unions’ as ‘true representatives of the workers,'” the AFT pamphlet said. “When the NEA agrees to establish ties with these groups and conduct official correspondence with them, it works right into the propaganda operations of these totalitarian governments….these The NEA’s cooperative activities with the so-called “members” of the union have a very negative impact on the cause of freedom and efforts to build truly free and democratic unions. “

The political arm of the NEA raises even greater concerns than the ideological leanings of its members. NEA spend We spend millions of dollars each year on lobbying and millions on political contributions. The nature of the NEA’s cash flush makes its political leanings all the more concerning due to the NEA’s ability to lobby effectively.

According to Alex Newman, author of Educator Crimes: How Utopia Uses Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children, the NEA is “communist, collectivist, socialist, Humanism, globalism and other dangerous “isms” that threaten individual liberty. “

2004, then-U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Page condemned The NEA as a “terrorist organization”.

Page later apologized for his poor choice of words, but the NEA’s “Washington Lobbyists” campaigned for “sabotage scare tactics” against what was then called the “No Left Behind Act.” claimed to be

“The NEA is perhaps America’s most intellectually dishonest organization,” writes Blumenfeld. “It is a union, a professional organization, and a political party. Its purpose is to administer the legislature, the 50 state legislatures, the Democratic Party, the curriculum of all public and private schools, and the teaching profession as a whole. Interest is subordinated to its radical political and social objectives.”

To contact the author of this article or to comment, please send an e-mail craig.monger@1819news.com.

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