Thread: Nat'l Teacher's union to lobby for in-state benefits/amnesty

NEA Seeks Peace Academy, College, Citizenship for Illegal Aliens
By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
July 03, 2008

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Some of the almost 10,000 members of the National Education Association (NEA) attending the teachers union's annual conference this week in the nation's capital spoke out on the issues they hope their lobbyists will fight for during next year's legislative session, including the establishment of a peace academy, in-state college tuition and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who graduate from high school.

Susie Jablinske, a first grade teacher at Central Elementary School in Edgewater, Md., said children who are in the country illegally should have the same educational rights as American children.

She proposed that the NEA add the following words to its resolution to develop programs to help minority students become college graduates, regardless of immigration status: "Access to higher education and in-state tuition, regardless of immigration status, as well as paths to legalization to undocumented high school graduates," Jablinske proposed.

She said as many as 65,000 graduates from U.S. public high schools are "undocumented," even if they don't know it.

"Many of them actually didn't even know they were undocumented until they started applying for a driver's license or financial aid for college," she said.

Outgoing NEA President Reg Weaver, in an interview with The Hill newspaper in February, said that the NEA - with a membership of 3.2 million - plans to spend $40-$50 million to help get candidates who will help advance its agenda in the 2008 election, including the union's endorsement and support for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

"We plan to be very aggressive," Weaver said in the interview, citing at least 25 House and nine Senate races around the country the NEA supports.

"We also knew that our commitment to public education would require us to employ new strategies in the political arena," Weaver said in his keynote address at the start of the NEA Representative Assembly of delegates on Thursday.

"So we had the courage to create a campaigns and elections department, which helped us win important battles last year in states like Utah, Kentucky, Virginia, Washington state and others," he added.

Members who spoke at a legislative hearing on Wednesday told lobbyists what they hoped would be priorities in the 111th Congress, including the creation of a federal post-secondary institute devoted to peace.

Ken Curtis, a retired teacher from Missouri, said he wanted to amend the NEA's "Good Public Policy" legislative platform to include a "peace" academy that would hold the same status as its military counterparts, including offering degree programs.

"I've had the good fortune in the last four or five years to visit a number of countries, and I'm disturbed about the image the United States has in terms of being an advocate of peace," Curtis said. "We have somehow developed a reputation that we are not a peace-loving country, and I think that this would be a step in the right direction."

Curtis said a peace academy would send the right message to the world.

"Look, we're in favor of establishing a peaceful community worldwide, and we're trying to do that right here in the United States," he said.

The session's moderator agreed it would be a step in the right direction, but that it would most likely take "a new attitude at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" to take that step.

Delegates at the conference elected officers and updated its core mission statement, or Resolutions, on a wide range of educational and other issues, including human rights - a topic addressed by one of the delegates at the legislative session in another proposed amendment of the "Good Public Policy" section of NEA Resolutions.

"The NEA opposes torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of persons in the custody or under the physical control of the United States government, regardless of nationality or physical location," the delegate said.

A 45-page report detailing the NEA's vision for the future of public education also was unveiled at the conference.

"Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020; Achieving a New Balance in the Federal Role to Transform America's Public Schools," spells out that vision, including a condemnation of the No Child Left Behind policy, a cornerstone of the Bush administration.

In the introduction to the report, William Blakely, chairman of the board of the Council on Legal Education Opportunity or CLEO, offered advice to the winner of the 2008 presidential election.

"The National Education Association has taken a bold step and articulated a brave vision for redefining the federal role in education for the next president of the United States," Blakely said.

"(The report) challenges the nation by outlining a vision for educating America's children and assuring the nation will provide 'liberty and justice' for all. Our next president would do well to heed the words and wisdom reflected in this important document," he added.

I was worried that it was the AFT where my sister works.

Maybe we need to explain to these morons with a degree that it is WE that put the money in their check books on Pay Day

What is the "peace" thing. Aren't we suppose to be about education. Things like history, biology, math, English? This is the problem with the NEA. They have lost their way. Unfortunately, they have become powerful and really NUTTY.

At what point did American teachers, who used to be considered members of a profession, come to be considered, and to consider themselves, simply units in an economic mutual-interest union? This seems to be more a European concept than an American one, and seems yet another indicator of how (and why) standards of education have declined so sharply. Meetings of teachers used to be professional gatherings, not political and economic rallies!

Looks like someone has now bought them also . Our Nation is having a very tuff time ,yet they are "Demanding" the very objects hurting our Nation . Something is not right with this picture

She said as many as 65,000 graduates from U.S. public high schools are "undocumented," even if they don't know it.

"Many of them actually didn't even know they were undocumented until they started applying for a driver's license or financial aid for college," she said.

Are you going to tell me that these kids haven't "noticed" that their parents have not been voting or paying taxes?!

It makes you wonder about the quality of the education these kids are receiving if they haven't even wondered about it or asked their parents questions regarding issues such as that.

(Of course, Susie Jablinske doesn't want you to think about that. I think it's called the dumbing down of America. )

National Education Association (NEA) Seeks Peace Academy, College, Citizenship for Illegal Aliens
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They think by keeping kids of IA's in schools, the teachers jobs will be secure? Nahh, the NEA doesn't have an agenda ROFL!!!!

No one's job is secure and members of the NEA had better tighten their belts because their sweet deals are coming to an end. About time too!

They think by keeping kids of IA's in schools, the teachers jobs will be secure?

Exactly my thoughts, Miguelina. And YES, there are plently of teachers in search of a job because of "low enrollment" at some schools.

But guess what?! This is GOOD for American children because it makes the job market for teachers more competitive and THAT IS GOOD for American kids!!

My kids attend public schools and we have that phenomenon happening here. Our principal is extremely PLEASED to report in the newsletter that she has 100 teachers applying for ONE position! I believe that she said that she interviewed fifty teachers for one position. I will verify that, but the number she interviewed was very high! I know that she said that she interviewed at least thirty for one position.

She is very pleased about this and is pleased to let the parents know about it.

I went to the website just yesterday....and it appears that all of the fifth grade teachers have Master's Degrees. I was very impressed with that and obviously pleased.

That's what we want. We WANT Competition so that our kids will have as our principal stated it, "The cream of the crop"