The NEA Would Rather Organize Democrats than Classrooms

At their convention earlier this month, the National Education Association (NEA) — the nation’s largest teachers union — elected a team of social justice advocates, experienced agitators, and associates of the Democratic Socialists of America as their new leaders.

Along with the fresh faces, the union also passed a broad swath of amendments, resolutions, legislative initiatives, and new business items. The content varied from an amendment endorsing bell-to-bell bans on students using their cell phones in classrooms, to a directive mandating that the union develop resources to combat conversion therapy for LGBT teens, to a new program encouraging union-friendly educators to run for political office.

The NEA also hosted a series of workshops about “organizing for power,” which focused on combatting “disinformation,” promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and working with friendly legislators in the pursuit of social justice.

Taken together, the NEA’s latest flurry may seem like a grab-bag of progressive political initiatives packaged with education reform branding. To some extent, it is a grab-bag of progressive political initiatives packaged with education reform branding. But what it reveals is that the NEA has been a political machine for so long that they no longer seem to understand why they exist.