The Annual Edition of the Journal of the National Education Association, called “Today’s Education,” is a primary source of information about the radical and comprehensive goals of the NEA. Here are some quotations from the 36-page NEA “Legislative Program,” printed in fine print on lavender paper, in the 1984-85 edition.
The NEA supports a “nuclear freeze with cessation of testing, production, and further deployment” of nuclear weapons. (p. 149) The NEA opposes any U.S. plan or action “that would destabilize Nicaragua.” (p. 184) The NEA urges the use of classroom courses on nuclear war for all grade levels in order to “show the effects of nuclear weaponry and demonstrate strategies for disarmament.” (p. 183)
The NEA “opposes all tuition tax credits at elementary, secondary, or postsecondary levels” and “opposes the use of vouchers in education.” (p. 149)
The NEA supports “enactment of a comprehensive, universal national health insurance system.” (p. 150) The NEA supports repeal of tax indexing. (p. 149)
The NEA supports “equal opportunity and responsibility for women and men in military service.” “Equal responsibility for women,” of course, means requiring 18-year-old girls to register immediately for the military draft, to be drafted if conscription is reimposed, and to serve in combat whether drafted or volunteers. (p. 151)
The NEA “opposes the use of draft registration as an eligibility criterion for financial assistance.” That means that the NEA wants student draft-dodgers to be supported with taxpayer funds. (p. 151)
The NEA “endorses the Peace, Freedom, and Security section of the Democratic Party Platform.” (p. 151) The NEA “commends Walter Mondale for opening the search for a vice-president to women.” (p. 154)
The NEA “condemns any legislation which requires teachers, regardless of experience, to be tested in reading, writing, and mathematics, as well as their major field(s) of certification.” (p. 156) The NEA requests that Presidential appointments of education officials “be made only after screening and approval” by the NEA. (p. 184)
The NEA supports Unisex Insurance plus a program to identify and lobby those insurance companies which helped to defeat Unisex Insurance last year. (p. 154)
The NEA supports “appropriate legal and legislative action to secure equal pay for comparable work.” (p. 156) The NEA supports “job evaluation to raise the pay of those jobs that are presently undervalued” because “the ‘market value’ means of establishing pay cannot be the final determinant of pay scales.” (p. 174)
The NEA wants control of children younger than age 5. It “strongly supports early childhood education programs through the public school system, including child development, child care, and special education. These programs should be aimed at equipping the preschooler for a successful kindergarten experience.” (p. 160)
In regard to sex education, the NEA says that teachers “must be legally protected from censorship” because “it is the right of every individual [regardless of age?] to live in an environment of freely available information, knowledge, and wisdom about sexuality.” (p. 163) The NEA says that teachers and librarians “must have the right to select instructional/library materials without censorship or legislative interference.” (p. 173)
The NEA “supports the right of reproductive freedom for all women” and urges the government to make contraceptives available to everyone. (p. 182) The NEA supports school “courses that provide instruction in the changing role of the family.” (p. 172) The NEA “endorses the use of non-sexist language by all schools.” (p. 162)
The NEA demands that “no person be employed, retained, paid, dismissed, suspended, demoted, transferred, or retired because of race, color, national origin, religious beliefs, residence, physical disability, political activities, professional association activities, age, marital status, family relationship, sex, or sexual orientation.” The NEA supports job preference (reverse discrimination) “to certain racial groups or women or men to overcome past discrimination.” (p. 176)
The NEA brags that it has “over 800 NEA members who lobby their Senators and Representatives both at home and occasionally in Washington.” NEA has an “innovative Lobby-by-Mail Program” which last year “generated over 100,000 postcards to Congress opposing tuition tax credits, giving NEA’s Capitol Hill lobbyists the leverage to seal the defeat [of that bill].” (p. 102)
