National Education Association - Criticism

Criticism

Substantial criticism has been leveled against the NEA and other teachers unions for allegedly putting the interests of teachers ahead of students and for consistently opposing changes that critics claim would help students but harm union interests. The NEA has often opposed measures such as merit pay, school vouchers, weakening of teacher tenure, certain curricular changes, the No Child Left Behind Act, and many accountability reforms. In a 1999 interview, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan said that "ever since the judges have gotten heavily into education, and the National Education Association has gotten into control of that Department of Education, test scores go down, there’s violence in classroom, things are going wrong". David Frum has correlated the drop in student achievement since the 1960s with a simultaneous increase in teacher pay and recruitment of less-qualified teachers, beginning in the 1970s. Frum writes: "The inept and lazy gained a huge new increment of job security. Assignments would be distributed by seniority, rather than skill."

Apple Inc. CEO, Steve Jobs, has criticized the NEA and other teacher unions for its lack of support for voucher programs, merit pay, and the removal of bad teachers. On February 17, 2007 at an education reform conference in Texas, Jobs said, "What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?”

With the recent scrutiny placed on teacher misconduct, regarding specifically sexual abuse, the NEA has been criticized for its failure to crack down on abusive teachers. From an AP investigation, former NEA President Reg Weaver commented, "Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations." He then refused to be interviewed. The Associated Press reported that much of the resistance to report the problem comes from "where fellow teachers look away," and "School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals."

Also criticized is the NEA's alleged "goal of changing public opinion on homosexuality, starting with the youngest generation," according to a former chairman of the NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus. Some critics believe the NEA promotes a gay rights agenda, especially since the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 2005 case Fields v. Palmdale School District. The court in that case ruled that parents' fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children "does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door,"( a line specifically stricken from the record, 447 F.3d 1187)and that a public school has the right to provide its students with "whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise." NEA states that it does not “encourage schools to teach students to become gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered (GLBT),” but the Association does believe that schools should be safe for all students and advocates that schools should raise awareness of homophobia and intervene when GLBT students are harassed."

NEA has come under fire for taking advantage of laws in some states that compel, under certain conditions, membership in the association. In a case brought before the U.S. Supreme Court (Davenport v. Washington Education Association) on behalf of 4,000 Washington State teachers who are not NEA members but are nonetheless forced to pay NEA dues, the Court partially addressed the issue of collection and use of dues by unions such as the NEA.

The leading critic of NEA from the left is Dr Rich Gibson, whose article on the NEA-AFT merger convention in Cultural Logic outlines a critique of unionism itself.