The National Extortion Association (NEA)

Recently, one of my friends informed me that she would be attending the National Education Association Student Program Conference in Washington, D.C. As the son of two parents who are teachers, I've long held opinions about the NEA. I follow up on the issues in their monthly magazine and have grown increasingly angry at the organization. What follows is my reasons for opposing them.The NEA is the largest teachers union in the country, in a corrupt system. The public education system in our country is doing a horrible job, is unfair, and is unconstitutional.

It's a monopoly. I'll explain what I mean by using an analogy.What would you do if the government came to you and said that you had to shop at Wal-Mart for all of your shopping? You don't like Wal-Mart, and in fact, you like the local grocery store better. Also, say that Wal-Mart costs twice as much as the local grocery store, had worse products, and the products they sold were things you didn't like or want. But, too bad, you have to shop there. You, as an American, would never put up with it. If this scenario really happened, Wal-Mart would be a terrible place to shop. If everyone had to pay and go to Wal-Mart, they wouldn't have any incentive to provide good products. But we aren't forced to go to Wal-Mart: you can go to Kmart, or Target, or whatever. Since you have options, Wal-Mart has to do a good job, or else no one will go there and they'll go out of business.

Now, this analogy accurately describes our public education system. Everyone has to pay money to it, and you don't have any choice. Sure, you can pay to send your kid to a private school; but you still have to pay for the public school system. According to the Washington Post, Washington D.C. public schools spend $12,979 per student. The CATO Institute believes that private schools in D.C. get, on average, about $10,000 less per child. So if you send your kid to a private school, or home school them, you are paying those costs on top of what the public district already gets from you in terms of tax dollars.

To counter this, voucher programs are needed. This means that the parents of a child get that $13,000 and can use it to send there kid wherever they want. This would mean that the public school has to do a better job, or else nobody will go there and will take the money elsewhere. This has been tried in Cleveland and Milwaukee and has worked enormously well (though the parents only get a partial amount of that money to spend at a different school). Naturally, teacher unions and most notably the National Education Association hate this idea. They like the system how it is and insist that districts just need "more money" and they will perform better.

According to UNICEF and other organization, in recent tests America is getting trounced by the rest of the world. In 4th grade, our kids are amongst the top 5 in the world. In 8th, we are middle of the pack. By senior year of high school, we are near the bottom. We are being beaten not only be the Japanese and other modernized countries...but by places like Portugal, Greece, and even some African countries. Keep in mind that we spend more (by far) than any other country in the world. So what's different between us and others? Well...other countries have an education system where you are free to go where you want. Our educational system is like the Wal-Mart I described in my scenario; it is government-run and has no reason or incentive to do better.So that's the argument against public schools in general, but what about the NEA? Besides being against voucher programs, there are many other proposals the NEA supports that are dangerous and just plain bad ideas. This includes tenure and equal pay for equal time. Tenure is ensured after 3-5 years of teaching in a district. It is nearly impossible to fire a teacher after they have gained tenure. In Illinois, where I'm from, the number of public school tenured teachers fired per year since 1985 has never been over 5. It costs over a quarter of a million dollars to fire a teacher in the New York City school district; possibly explaining why some teachers are paid (and given pay raises!) while sitting in jail (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-30-teacher-tenure-costs_N.htm).

Imagine if the businesses in our country ran this way: Work hard for 3 years, and then after that you're guaranteed a job for life, as long as you don't rape a child or kill someone. It would be a disaster. If I owned that business, I couldn't fire anyone. The reason that America has the best and top-performing businesses in the world is because people know that if they don't do a good job, they will lose their job. The opposite of this is true in countries like France, where it is nearly impossible to fire businessmen; and their economy is in the tank.

Equal pay sounds like a good idea. It's the idea that you are paid based on how long you've worked somewhere rather than the value you bring. So gym teachers, math teachers, science teachers, etc. are all paid the same. Can you honestly tell me with a straight face that teaching gym class and learning how to do that is as difficult as math and science? In academia today, we are having a harder and harder time finding math and science teachers. This is because people will teach "easier" subjects and go through schools learning things that aren't as challenging because they are paid the same anyways. To give you an extreme example: Imagine if a company paid the CEO and the janitor the same amount. It sounds good in theory, but in practice is horrible. Everyone would be a janitor, and nobody a CEO. CEO's, much as we like to demonize them, provide a valuable service to the company and only got there because they are so talented.

The NEA also supports "force-fee" initiatives. There are some "right-to-work" states in which teachers don't have to be in unions, but other states follow a "force-fee" standard in which the states' public school teachers are forced to be in a union and pay dues. A teacher in Illinois recently won the TEAI--Technical Education Association of Illinois "Teacher of the Year" award, was an ITEA "Teacher of Merit", and sent a letter of protest to them in the same month. It seems that the NEA has an official position of being "pro-choice" on abortion and this teacher had a problem with them being involved in that issue. How do I know this? Because that teacher is my father. This goes along with the NEA's position of being pro-gay marriage. Now, issues of abortion and homosexuality are complicated and controversial; but come on, should a union dedicated towards teachers really be getting involved in these issues that have nothing to do with education? The NEA sends 99% of the money it gets towards Democratic politicians, and thus supports Democratic positions. It is an endless cycle of unfairness, and children are on the losing end.