WASHINGTON — Last February Secretary of Education Rod Paige
used the inflammatory and inappropriate term “terrorist
organization” to describe the National Education Association.
Perhaps he should have called them a “far left group.” It might
have been only slightly less inflammatory, but it would have been
far more accurate.
Last Wednesday the NEA hosted a conference call to launch a new
coalition called “National Mobilization for Great
Public Schools.” It is motivated by the need to make education “a
higher priority across this nation” because “we’re failing to
provide too many children with the basics,” according to the
coalition’s website. The coalition plans to host over 3,000 “house
parties” across the nation on September 22 to make educational
issues a major election issue.
The other coalition members include some of the usual suspects:
NAACP National Voter Fund, and the United States Hispanic
Leadership Institute. However, the NEA is now working with groups
much further on the left: MoveOn.org, ACORN, and Campaign for
America’s Future.
No description of MoveOn.org is necessary for regular readers of
this site other than a reminder it was the organization sponsoring
the political ad contest that included two ads comparing Bush to
Hitler.
ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)
was founded by George Wiley whose claim to fame during the 1960s
was to instigate poor single women to engage in sit-ins at welfare
offices to end “oppressive” welfare eligibility restrictions.
According to writer Sol Stern, Wiley’s aim was “to flood the
welfare system with so many clients that it would burst, creating a
crisis that, he believed, would force a radical restructuring of
America’s unjust capitalist economy.” ACORN continues Wiley’s proud
tradition of confrontational tactics. Several years ago, ACORN
members protested Baltimore’s lack of service to poor neighborhoods
by dumping garbage in front of city hall and conducting a profanity
laced demonstration in front of the mayor’s house. ACORN is the
group most responsible for imposing living wage laws in many of
America’s cities, and it’s currently conducting a sustainable
development campaign that, by limiting the growth of the suburbs,
would make it more difficult for people to flee the high-tax
cities.
The other organization involved is Campaign for America’s
Future, whose co-director Robert Borosage was formerly president of
the leftist Institute for Policy Studies. CAF hosted the Michael
Moore speech during the Democratic Convention and has accepted
about $300,000 in contributions from George Soros. During the
conference call Borosage even unintentionally admitted that some of
the members of this coalition were from the far left. In response
to a question about how this coalition could contend that it was
bipartisan, he let slip, “I think you’ll see that by the time we
finish this coalition very mainstream groups [will be] joining it,
it’s just the mainstream groups it takes longer to get through
their process.”
The coalition certainly isn’t about any new policy directions.
Borosage claimed that schools face new challenges including
overcrowded schools, significant restraints on and cuts in
education spending, and soaring college tuition costs. These new
challenges could be cured with some old remedies. “Our schools need
adequate and equitable funding, qualified teachers, and
technology,” said Reg Weaver, president of the NEA. Borosage added,
“Children need adequate nutrition, health care, and accessible and
affordable pre-school.” “Teacher and parents aren’t magicians and
we can’t magically prepare our children without the needed
resources,” concluded Pat Boone (no, not that Pat Boone),
vice president of the New York chapter of ACORN
Also speaking at the conference call was Coy Marquardt,
introduced as a teacher from Iowa City, Iowa, and an NEA member. It
wasn’t a surprise to find out that he is also pretty politically
active — he’s currently secretary of the Johnson County Democrats
— given his ability to reiterate the boilerplate against No Child
Left Behind:
“My school achievement will be based on one
standardized test, focused only on reading and math. I learned that
all schools must meet the definition of ‘adequate yearly progress’
on this standardized test or it becomes a failing school. I learned
that if a school is labeled as failing they will not get any
additional funding to help them achieve, but rather be punished or
worse yet shut down.”</ BLOCKQUOTE>
The solution, according to Marquardt, is to evaluate schools on
“several forms of assessments like graduation rates.” Weaver also
chimed in at this point saying, “We want more flexibility in
definition of ‘adequate yearly progress.’ And more flexibility in
terms of defining what a certified, qualified teacher is.” In other
words, make the standards more nebulous so that it is easier for
schools to evade the sanctions under No Child Left Behind.
No, the purpose of the coalition is mobilizing the grassroots to
pressure politicians to spend more money on public education. NEA
has joined with far-left groups like MoveOn.org, ACORN, and
Campaign for America’s Future because they have demonstrated their
ability to organize activists. “The centerpiece of this is really
the new citizen activism that started to express itself this year,”
said Borosage. Joan Blades of MoveOn.org stated, “We’re going to
give politicians the support they need to [advance our goals].
We’ve seen that local organizing, coming together and going
national is just incredibly powerful.” Later she added, “There are
a lot of politicians that would absolutely love to do more for
education but they can’t do it without political capital which
grassroots support [can provide].”
Rallying activists outside the confines of a tired Democratic
Party is surely the aim of the NEA, and they will achieve it even
if it means associating with groups of the far left. Indeed, the
NEA seems unconcerned about this. According to Weaver, “I’ve always
said we will work with anybody that has goals and objectives of
increasing support for quality education.”
Perhaps these are desperate times for the NEA. It faces not only
a new testing regime that penalizes failure but also expanding of
school choice programs from vouchers, charter schools, and tuition
tax credits. The NEA is determined to fight reform, even if it
means getting in bed with some far left organizations. Desperate
times call for desperate measures.
