An education professional publication, Education Week, recently completed a national survey to take a political snapshot of America’s educators.
Key results show that:
29% consider themselves “Liberal” or “Very Liberal”
27% consider themselves “Conservative” or “Very Conservative”
41% consider themselves Democrats
27% consider themselves Republicans
50% voted for Hillary Clinton
29% voted for Donald Trump
8% did not vote for any candidate for president
66% have contacted an elected official in the last year
33% feel their union mostly or completely does not represent their political views
See the full survey report here.
Meanwhile, journalist Rishawn Biddle recently completed an analysis of the National Education Association’s (NEA) recent annual financial report to the Department of Labor. His summary shows how one-sided and Left-leaning its expenditures are.
Likewise, the NEA and state affiliates supported Hillary Clinton with millions of dollars through contributions to electioneering organizations, campaign staff, member communications and voluntary political action committees.
Three thoughts come to mind about this study.
First, the union executives want to pretend their agenda represents the one voice of educators, but the poll shows differently. Teachers are a diverse group with wide-ranging views. Many also would eschew political activism of any sort, preferring to focus on their profession of serving students.
The union marketing machine blasts strident, far-Left advocacy and electioneering, but only 5 percent of teachers consider themselves “very liberal.” Put another way, the same number of educators voted for Donald Trump (29%) as those who consider themselves liberal or very liberal (29%). Yet those running the union choose the agenda and spend millions of dollars on very liberal causes and campaigns.
Second, the hundreds of thousands of Trump-supporting educators are having their civil rights violated when they are forced to fund Hillary Clinton. Private organizations should not have the power to end someone’s career if they don’t fund a radical political agenda they don’t agree with.
This fact has been consistently affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the union is obligated to give these teachers their money back (learn how to get the refund here). It may be that the clunky refund process is found unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court when it considers the Janus v. AFSCME in 2018, and teachers will get to choose.
Third, public education as a monolithic enterprise is operated by those with a world view which is growing less representative of the people whose children are taught in those schools. In the past, public educators worked very hard to teach a neutral world view, but recently the NEA has sought to leverage its monopoly by indoctrinating in the name of “social justice” as it defines the term.
The union’s massive spending to block education options for families certainly is motivated by its organizational financial interests in dues cash flow. But could it also have something to do with preserving the power to stamp its ideology on the next generation?
