The said Constitution shall be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

The National Education Association is a pretty powerful lobbying group. That's actually how they explained to me that I should be a member. I've spoken with them every spring since I started teaching. I was very impressed this year with the ability of the NEA rep to look me in the eye and keep a straight face when answering questions like "Why is the average salary of an NEA employee roughly twice that of the average teacher salary?" (It's because they work so hard, by the way.)

The website Teachers-vs-Union appears to be advocating simply that teachers be given the choice of whether to join the NEA. Since I work in a Right-to-Work state, they aren't talking about me. People sometimes forget (or never knew) that membership in the NEA is not forced on teachers in every state – though they are in most cases. According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (here);

Roughly two-thirds of K-12 public school teachers nationwide, including union members and nonmembers alike, are forced to accept an "exclusive" teacher union agent as their spokesman in contract negotiations.

And in many union-stronghold school districts, either the mammoth, 2.6 million-member National Education Association (NEA) union or the equally power-crazed, 1.2 million-member, AFL-CIO-backed American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union wields monopoly control not just over teachers, but also over other school employees, including teaching aides, nurses, guidance counselors, librarians, bus drivers, and even principals.

I love the language - nothing says objective and non-partisan like the use of the phrase "power-crazed". But when they're opposing the NEA, they're still going to be the good guys. Consider:

Union officers attending the NEA's summer 2000 convention passed a resolution acknowledging that union policy "opposes providing additional compensation" for hard-to-fill teaching positions in critical subject areas like math and science. The NEA brass also snubbed talented, hard-working teachers in all subject areas by declaring their categorical opposition to "any . . . system of compensation based on an evaluation of the education employee's performance."

Of course we should pay more to fill positions that are hard to fill. Supply and demand! Why do brain surgeons make more than grocery baggers? The same reason that hard-to-fill teaching positions should be paid more than those positions that are easy to fill.

(Oh, Wulf, you’re just saying that because you teach in a hard-to-fill position! Um, no… if my goal here was to make more money, I’d be leaving teaching for private industry. I mean, I’d love a raise – who wouldn’t? I am just saying that my argument here is not based on having a dog in the fight. If I were that type, I wouldn’t be a teacher to begin with.)

Personally, I don’t like national unions of any kind. When the NEA advocates federal policy, it is highly unlikely to represent most of its members accurately. Despite the lefty stereotype, teachers are pretty evenly split along party lines, as much as the rest of America (see that beautiful pie chart again). The NEA buys itself trouble by advocating positions that are not directly related to education and teacher contracts. How representative of NEA members was it really, when the union took a stand to support gay marriage? I mean, I’m all for it, but there is no reason to believe that most teachers are, or that they want their union dues to go toward any advocacy either way on the issue.

The farther afield the NEA strays, the more they look to be partisan hacks whose time is spent making excuses for their own existence and expansion – wasting money and clout that could be benefiting children instead of the NEA staff. I highly doubt I am the only teacher to make the connection – especially with that billboard truck parked right outside the national convention.

Thanks to Cato@Liberty for sharing the initial story.

For more on Right to Work laws, see here.