NJEA: Teachers First, Kids…Non-Existent
Over at BigGovernment.com, Kyle Olson has an interesting post about the NJEA and their strategy during the recent election. Knowing that there was little enthusiasm for a second Corzine term, the NJEA embarked upon a strategy of solidifying its base and wooing women. The strategy, of course, dealt not with how the NJEA would actually help educate kids but focused on issues like ‘health care and family leave.’
An interesting document found its way to my inbox last weekend. It was a PowerPoint presentation of an analysis done by the New Jersey Education Association, regarding its efforts to re-elect Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine.
The document can be found at NEAexposed.com.
Citing “Electile Dysfunction,” meaning the polls were telling them that voters, including teachers, weren’t as enthusiastic about Corzine as they would like, the union’s Director of Government Relations, Ginger Gold Schnitzer, proposed a double-dose remedy: “A robust member-to-member campaign,” followed by “an independent communications campaign to inoculate the public.”
The first dose of the union’s plan was to appeal to its members. The radical community organizer Saul Alinsky taught the NEA that the trick to “organizing people is to appeal to their self-interest.” Thus, the union promoted Corzine’s pro-union “accomplishments,” like investing $3 billion into public pensions, increasing school funding, increasing school construction, expanding pre-kindergarten programs, opposing school vouchers, and providing free medical benefits for teacher for life.
Oddly, the union didn’t cite any accomplishment that actually helped students.
To “inoculate” the public, the union targeted women under 45. It purchased advertising on cable channels typically watched by women, like the Food Network, HGTV, Lifetime, TLC, Bravo and a few others. Even though the ads were purchased by an “education” organization, they focused completely on issues they thought would sway women to Corzine, like health care and family leave. The ads also directed viewers to a website operated by a group called “NJ Kids and Families.”
How heartwarming, not to mention completely phony.
We all know Corzine went down to defeat November 3. But the New Jersey teachers’ union held its head high in one aspect - it successfully tore Christie down in the eyes of women under 45.
According to polling conducted in August, 36% of women under 45 favored Corzine while 32% supported Christie. But at the polls, following the advertising blitz, 54% of that demographic went for Corzine while 41% voted for Christie.
This leaked analysis underscores the fact that teachers unions are inherently political organizations that put the interests of their members first. And kids? Heck, what do they have to do with schools?
Of course, none of this should come as a surprise. While there are many teachers out there who care very much about educating kids, the same can not be said of the union that represents them. This story demonstrates quite clearly that the NJEA has little, if any, interest in providing kids the best possible education. Its main motivation is growing its ranks and greedily trying get their hands on every taxpayer dime it possibly can.
As a strong free market supporter, I do not see anything wrong with people getting together to support causes of their choosing.
Consequently, I would want the same ability to promote my own causes.
Of course, there are two problems.
(1). Legislators give power groups an influence that is stronger than the best interests of the general public.
(2). The electorate does not vote for candidates who would prevent big money influences from taking over the Government.
November 28th, 2009 at 5:37 pmThe problem with unions is not that people have banded together, or that the legislagture has not decided which power groups really have the best interests of the public at heart.
The problem with unions is that they use the force of law to compel employers to negotiate with them. Just as employees should have the freedom to band together, an employer should have the freedom to refuse to deal with them.
Also, in the context of public sector unions such as the NJEA, the whole Leftist premise underlying the need for special privileges for unions – namely that unelightened employers will not treat their employees fairly – is by their own definition not existent. Public sector unions should be abolished immediately based on the Leftists’ justifications for unions in the first place.
As for money influences and power groups having disproportionate influence in politics, that is a RESULT of government being too big – not a cause. As one of Richard’s quotes states, when legislators have the power to buy and sell favors, the first thing to be bought and sold is the legislature.
November 28th, 2009 at 7:16 pmMike P. wrote:
“Of course, none of this should come as a surprise. While there are many teachers out there who care very much about educating kids, the same can not be said of the union that represents them. This story demonstrates quite clearly that the NJEA has little, if any, interest in providing kids the best possible education. Its main motivation is growing its ranks and greedily trying get their hands on every taxpayer dime it possibly can.”
This is yet another illustration of the inevitable disconnect between the consumer of a good/service and the payor of the service as happens under any third party payment system. The seller (here, the NJEA) seeks to please the person paying him (the government that pays its salaries) rather than the people consuming the services (the students, and their parents).
Just as a public option in education has led to terrible results for our schools, a public option for health care will lead to terrible results for the medical and the pharmaceutical industries.
November 28th, 2009 at 9:15 pmEd….You said…
“The problem with unions is that they use the force of law to compel employers to negotiate with them.”
I say…..
Exactly my point. Who creates the laws and who elects those lawmakers? Freedom of assembly must be absolute. But, so must an employer’s ability to manage a company.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:51 pmKeep up the union bashing. There are more of them than there are of you, which is why your candidates more often than not end up on the scrap heap.
November 29th, 2009 at 6:29 pmSterling:
Keep up the appeasement. Before you know it you’ll blend with all of “them” so well that you’ll be indistinguishable. And the ironic thing is that it is the appeasers who more often than not end up on the scrap heap – after selling everyone else out for a nickel.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:02 pmEd Says: “Just as a public option in education has led to terrible results for our schools, a public option for health care will lead to terrible results for the medical and the pharmaceutical industries.”
Let me get this straight: you are against public schools?
November 30th, 2009 at 7:37 amG. Constanza asked me:
“Let me get this straight: you are against public schools?”
I am against the government forcibly taking all children from the ages of 5 (or younger) through 18 and indoctrinating them with what the government believes is true/false and right/wrong.
Government has no business (literally) entering the marketplace of ideas, which should be left free for individuals to pursue truth without the imposition of any government orthodoxy.
When the government imposes such orthodoxies on adults, it is called censorship.
When the government imposes such orthodoxies on children, who are not capable of knowing any better, it is much worse than when it does so to adults.
So yes, I am against the public schools, just as I am opposed to the Hitler Youth. Public schools are the hallmark of a totalitarian state that seeks to indoctrinate its people with the government’s truth and values – and public schools start this process by seizing the minds of our children and forcibly indoctrinating them with the government’s propoaganda.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:24 amEd Says:
“I am against the public schools, just as I am opposed to the Hitler Youth”.
Im going to leave the uselessness of comparisons like that to people interested in getting on the early train to Godwin-ville. All aboard, folks.
That said, in a world without at least a certain level of public education, how is the “marketplace of ideas” supposed to function? It assumes a basic set of skills in the “consumer”; literacy and numeracy, for starters. Without public education, a number of citizens in our republic are left without the ability to participate in an informed manner. You think this is a good thing?
November 30th, 2009 at 10:16 amIf the standard is whether “a number of citizens in our republic are left without the ability to participate in an informed manner,” then the public schools are a miserable failure that need to be abolished immediately.
I am not opposed to education, quite the opposite. I am opposed to government control of education. Truth and values should be determined by the free exchange of ideas and values in the marketplace – not by government diktat.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:34 amWithout the basic skills that elementary education provides, you don’t even get into the “marketplace”, as your left without the ability to compare one idea to another. If public schools have failings, they are to be remedied, but if you abolish them, what are you left with?
Religious schools? No potential for indoctrination there, thats for sure.
Private schools? Yes, lets limit access to the “marketplace” to those that can afford it. Fine idea.
Home Schooling? Fine idea, but you are delusional if you think it is a practical possibility for the majority of Americans.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:42 amThere is potential for indoctrination in any educational setting. By definition, the students do not know what is true and what is false, so the educators always have the possibility of indoctrinating the students. The issue I have raised and which you ignore for obvious reasons is whether the government should ever have the power to indoctrinate anyone, let alone young children.
It is up to parents to take an active enough role in their children’s upbringing and education to prevent them from being indoctrinated. But even the highest level of oversight by a parent does not foreclose the possibility. However, the danger from government indoctrination is orders of magnitude higher than from any private actor. You simply dismiss that issue without addressing it due to your obvious ideological support of government schools.
And as far as the marketplace issues that you raise, you should spend a little time learning about free market capitalism before jumping into a deep debate on the issue lest you get in over your head. Even with today’s heavy tax burdens employers today spend countless billions of dollars training and educating their employees so that they have the skills that are necessary to compete in the marketplace – skills that should have been taught in the public schools but were not.
Under free market capitalism, it is in the interests of rich and greedy capitalists to have educated workers doing work for them – because an educated worker produces a lot more than the slave labor that socialists advocate. So capitalists have plenty of incentive to VOLUNTARILY establish and fund education for everyone. It is not an accident of history that capitalism wiped out slavery everywhere the industrial revolution spread – or that it was the capitalist North that fought a Civil War to eradicate slavery in the fedual, agrarian South. Capitalism is the only social system that creates an incentive for everyone to want everyone else to be better and better – but that system is antithetical to the one characterized by the guns socialists point at people to create things such as public schools in education or public options for health care.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:59 amNicely put, Ed.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:07 amThanks, Di Marco.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:28 pmYou folks are pathetic.
March 30th, 2010 at 9:29 pm