TACTICS

Because of the strong influence of organized labor in public education, the system has turned from student-focused to labor-focused.

A perusal of the average school employee contract is evidence of that.

The NEA and AFT have turned rating "educational quality" into the welfare of school employees.

Both the NEA and the AFT have devised and adopted tactics to squelch sensible, meaningful reform that may negatively impact school employees.Read more at the Opposing Reform page of this site.

Saul Alinsky

The National Education Association's local affiliates have devised strategies directly out of radical organizer Saul Alinsky's book. In fact, the NEA lists Alinsky as "Recommended Reading." It can also be seen in PDF format, should the union remove the link.

The Public Service Research Foundation issued a newsletter calling former NEA official John Lloyd one of the NEA's "golden boys" and a UniServ director. Lloyd was "what the NEA wanted at that time -- a very vocal, if not aggressive, bargainer/spokesperson on teachers' rights," according to the newsletter, which is also provided in PDF format, should the link disappear.

When asked about the NEA's note-worthy training program, Lloyd responded:

Oh sure. To understand NEA -- to understand the union -- read Saul Alinsky. If you read "Rules for Radicals," (Saul Alinsky's bible of radical organizations) you will understand NEA more profoundly than reading anything else. Because the whole organization was modeled on that kind of behavior which was really begun when NEA used Saul Alinsky as a consultant to train their own staff. That's a very important thing to understand. You cannot possibly understand NEA without understanding Saul Alinsky. If you want to understand NEA, go to the library and get "Rules for Radicals," by Saul Alinsky. Then you will understand the NEA.

With regards to Alinsky's tactics being applied to the school setting, Alinsky said:

Many Liberals, during our attack on the then school superintendent, were pointing out that after all he wasn't a 100 per cent devil, he was a regular churchgoer, he was a family man, and he was generous in his contributions to charity. Can you imagine in the arena of conflict charging that so-and-so is a racist bastard and then diluting the impact of the attack with qualifying remarks such as 'He is a good churchgoing man, generous to charity, and a good husband'? This becomes political idiocy.

Learn-USA.com provides a training document from the NEA on applying Alinsky's tactics to public education, entitled "Alinsky for Teacher Organizers."

So just what do the NEA's affiliates do to block reform, prevent the practice of hiring private companies to perform non-instructional services, such as janitorial work, food service, or transportation?

They will picket outside school board meetings or at board members' employers. They will start recall campaigns against board members that don't vote the way the union would like them to.

The tactics used in Michigan by the Michigan Education Association, one of the NEA's most advanced and powerful state affiliates, have been chronicled on the Tactics page of MEAexposed.com.