Teachers' Pets

A WSJ editorial today raises some legitimate issues about how the NEA spends its members' dues:

If we told you that an organization gave away more than $65 million last year to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups, you'd probably assume we were describing a liberal philanthropy. In fact, those expenditures have all turned up on the financial disclosure report of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.

This is sad, but true, which is why I'm involved with creating Democrats for Education Reform:

It's well understood that the NEA is an arm of the Democratic National Committee. (Or is it the other way around?)

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Teachers' Pets
WSJ editorial, January 3, 2006; Page A24

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113626112121536210.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

If we told you that an organization gave away more than $65 million last year to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups, you'd probably assume we were describing a liberal philanthropy. In fact, those expenditures have all turned up on the financial disclosure report of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.

Under new federal rules pushed through by Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, large unions must now disclose in much more detail how they spend members' dues money. Big Labor fought hard (if unsuccessfully) against the new accountability standards, and even a cursory glance at the NEA's recent filings -- the first under the new rules -- helps explain why. They expose the union as a honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students...