NEA’s March: Out with a Sham

With the sincerity of an elixir hustler, NEA boss pretends to be objective about the 2016 election.

The National Education Association is serious about the 2016 presidential election. The union is serious about every election of course, but this time the union’s leader is actually asking for input from viable candidates even if they haven’t announced their intention to run. Last week, NEA President Lily Eskelsen García told reporters, “We have 3 million members who want desperately to know what the candidates have to say to really, seriously improve public education. We intend to activate those 3 million members, the parents, even the students.”

But – to quote Hillary Clinton – what difference at this point does it make? Or at any point. We already know which party the NEA (and the American Federation of Teachers for that matter) is going to sink millions of dues-payers dollars into. I mean really – does anyone believe that NEA is going to support Scott Walker, whom the union links with the dreaded Koch Brothers every chance it gets? Or, do you think in your wildest dreams, it would endorse Chris Christie, a man NEA repeatedly refers to as a bully? What about Jeb Bush, a man who often clashed with teachers unions when he was governor of Florida? Yes, the same Bush who referred to public school systems as “government-run unionized and politicized monopolies that trap good teachers, administrators and struggling students in a system nobody can escape.” Of course not. NEA will not endorse any Republican for president. Period. Never mind Mike Antonucci’s report that an internal 2005 NEA survey – consistent with previous results – found that its members “are actually slightly more conservative (50%) than liberal (43%) in political philosophy.” You would never know that from the lopsided way the teachers unions spend their political bucks.

In the 2014 election cycle, the two teachers unions spent between $60 million and $80 million –more than in any other year ever – almost exclusively on Democratic candidates. Going back in time, we see that from 1989-2014, NEA spent $88 million on political donations to Dems while giving only $3 million to Republicans. AFT was even more one-sided. During the same period, it spent $69 million on Dems and just $350,000 on GOPers.

So that leaves us with Democratic candidates, which include former Maryland Governor and rain-taxer Martin O’Malley, perennial foot-in-mouther Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth (Dances with Wolves) Warren, who insists she is not running. And then there is independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who, as a socialist, is unelectable. And finally we have Hillary. Despite the troubling server-scrub incident and a burgeoning collection of clumsy gaffes that make Joe Biden look polished, HRC is still quite popular with many true-believing Clintonistas. And should she decide to run, she will get the NEA and AFT endorsement as well as a bundle of their spending money as sure as night follows day

It has been pointed out that Hillary will have some conflicts to deal with if she is the candidate. As noted in a New York Times piece, she could face some sticky moments as the teacher union candidate and as one who is looking for big donations from rich Democrats who happen to favor the reforms that the teachers unions despise. But Hillary, like her husband, is a master of “triangulation,” or as it is sometimes referred to, “speaking out of both sides of your mouth.”

Maybe instead of polling candidates, NEA should survey its 3 million members to see who they think the best choice would be, but then again that would be a waste of time. The elite know best. No matter what the rank-and-file thinks, Hillary, should she run, will have the full force of the nation’s teachers unions behind her. Republicans need not apply.

Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.