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THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
January 14, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
The National Education Association (NEA) is perhaps the most powerful labor union in the nation, but it is rarely investigated by the major news media. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have attended the NEA's annual convention and expressed their appreciation for the union's political support.
At the NEA's July 1993 convention, President Clinton stated: "I believe that the president of this organization (NEA) would say we have had the partnership I promised in the campaign of 1992, and we will continue to have it.... You and I are joined in a common cause, and I believe we will succeed." A few months later, on December 15, 1993, EDUCATION WEEK reported that "Debra DeLee, the former director of governmental relations for the NEA, has joined the Democratic National Committee as its executive director."
A clear majority of the public school teachers in the nation belong to the NEA. Yet probably very few have known what their own union has stood for throughout the years of the 20th century. The following is a chronology of just a few of the revealing activities and published statements of the NEA during that time:
October 19, 1929---The NEA presents John Dewey ("Father of Progressive Education") with a "Life Membership." This is the same year Dewey published INDIVIDUALISM, OLD AND NEW, in which he proclaimed "We are in for some kind of socialism." And it is the year after Dewey in the December 5, 1928 NEW REPUBLIC praised the Soviet Bolsheviks' "marvelous development of progressive educational ideas and practices" and their counteracting "the influence of home and Church."
1932---The NEA makes Dewey honorary president of its organization, and its Department of Superintendence division publishes its tenth yearbook subtitled CHARACTER EDUCATION. In this yearbook, it criticizes the church for employing "outworn dogmas of the past" and states that "relativity must replace absolutism in the realm of morals" and that "the citizen of the future must be a citizen of the world." - Read More
