Sunday, July 23, 2006

The NEA: Who Is This Setting The Agenda For Our Public Schools?

Since we are talking about the future of millions of our children directly affected by the NEA, we hope you will study the material available in this email carefully and forward it to others. Every person, especially every parent of children in public schools, needs this information.



When we learned about the NEA plans to approve homos*xual marriage, we alerted our supporters. Following our making the resolution public, the NEA promptly removed it from their web-site. Our efforts upset NEA president Reg Weaver so much that he attacked AFA in a speech to the 9,000 delegates at the convention.




Background On The NEA:



To understand why the NEA is more interested in pushing a liberal social agenda than making sure our children can read, write and do math—and why public education is in the mess it is in-please read some background by clicking here.



Here are a few of the actions which the NEA approved at their meeting in Orlando.




NEA overwhelmingly passed a resolution (B 10) endorsing g*y marriages and adoptions in states where they're legal. Click here and read the first three paragraphs.



NEA recommended that g*y, l*sbian, bis*xual, and transg*nder issues be required content for teacher credentialing. (Teachers would be forced to undergo sensitivity training concerning homos*xuality before they could be certified to teach.) Here is the wording of the resolution: "That NEA advocate for the inclusion of G*y, L*sbian, Bis*xual, and Transg*nder issues in the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) teacher education program review process." NEA has already contacted NCATE about this.



NEA voted to replace the word "tolerance" toward homos*xuality with "acceptance and respect" in union policies. The author of New Business Item 52 used this rationale: "We should teach acceptance and respect, not tolerance, of those who are different from us wherever appropriate." (The NEA is saying that "tolerance" of the homos*xual lifestyle isn't enough, that homos*xuality must be accepted and respected.) Click Here for more information.



NEA refused to pass an amendment (I 24) designed to protect students against s*xual misconduct by teachers. The amendment read "To protect the rights of all students, the Association believes s*xual contact between education professionals and minor students is unacceptable." The NEA refused to pass the amendment and referred it back to the Resolutions Committee. Many feel that the NEA refused to pass the amendment in order to protect teachers who have s*x with students.



The NEA has been less than honest in dealing with this situation. Andy Linebaugh, a spokesman for the NEA, told Cybercast News Service that "leadership of the NEA has no interest in advancing a position on same-s*x marriage."



NEA president Reg Weaver, in a release posted on the website of its Kansas affiliate, said the AFA had engaged in a "malicious e-mail campaign distorting the facts related to proposed amendment changes." Like Linebaugh, he added that "the NEA has no position on same-s*x marriages, and leadership is not seeking to establish such a position."



On the NEA homepage on July 19, there was a message pertaining to the NEA's support of homos*xual marriage.



"A smear campaign launched by the American Family Association asserted that the National Education Association was set to 'endorse homos*xual marriage' at the 2006 Representative Assembly. Either the group is intentionally misleading the public, or didn't bother to check their information, but NEA has no plans to endorse same s*x marriage and never did."



However, just weeks before the statements by Linebaugh and Weaver denying that NEA had taken a position, the NEA was a signatory on a letter to U.S. Senators strongly opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment. So when Linebaugh and Weaver said that the NEA has taken no position, they are being less than honest. The NEA opposed the constitutional amendment making marriage legal only between one man and one woman. That is their position as indicated by signing the letter.



The California Teachers Association, NEA's largest state affiliate, endorsed homos*xual marriage in 2004.








NEA Running Stealth Campaign Again Public School Reform:

Here is another example of how the NEA works. Shortly after the convention in Orlando, USA Today in an article (July 11, page 9D) reported: "The nation's largest teachers union has spent more than $8 million in a stealth campaign against President Bush's education reform law, paying for research and political opposition in an effort to derail it, according to a Washington think tank that supports the law...the National Education Association (NEA) has given at least $8.1 million to education, civil rights and policy groups that have opposed or criticized No Child Left Behind, Bush's far-reaching and controversial effort to reform public schools."




Many members of the NEA are not aware how the NEA is using their dues to promote leftwing politics. They can drop their membership in the NEA and secure many of the same benefits by joining other professional organizations which offer the same benefits. The Association of American Educators is one. You can visit them on the web at http://www.aaeteachers.org. Also, Christian Educators offers many of the same benefits. Their website is http://www.ceai.org.



Take Action:
1. Send your email to the NEA. Express your disappointment that they are putting a political agenda ahead of the education of our children.

2. Please forward this to other parents and educators so they will have this information.