Schoolteachers may be "underpaid," but National Education Association bosses scraped up $13 million in union dues to spend on social and political causes.
The NEA's financial disclosure report for the 2009-2010 fiscal year showed that the union gave $250,000 to Florida's FairDistricts ballot initiatives (Amendments 5 and 6). The union also donated $203,500 to its Florida Education Association affiliate and $66,400 to the FEA Advocacy Fund.
Nationally, the NEA's $13 million contribution total was about half the amount it distributed last year, but more than in 2007-08, according to an analysis by the Sacramento, Calif.-based Education Intelligence Agency.
EIA noted that the union's donations ranged from $2.125 million to a California ballot initiative campaign, down to smaller grants to groups such as People for the American Way, Media Matters and Netroots Nation -- all left-leaning organizations.
Netroots Nation, which received $15,000 from the NEA, describes its mission as "amplifying progressive voices by providing an online and in-person campus for exchanging ideas and learning how to be more effective in using technology to influence the public debate."
Media Matters ($100,000) calls itself a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."
People for the American Way ($64,538) was founded in 1981 by Hollywood producer Norman Lear, the late Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan and a group of business, civic, religious and civil rights leaders "disturbed by the divisive rhetoric of newly politicized televangelists." The group frequently joins the ACLU in waging court battles against religious expression.
Among the NEA's list of 130 recipients, large disbursements went to other self-styled "progressive" causes: America Votes ($300,000), Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate ($200,000) and Health Care for America Now! ($450,000).
While NEA contributions continued the previous years' pattern of leaning to the left, a handful of more mainstream groups received funds as well. Among them: Baptist Center for Ethics ($20,000) and the Children's Defense Fund ($5,000).
Educational groups were sprinkled throughout the donation list, though social and political causes predominated -- including gay/lesbian organizations and more than a dozen minority advocacy coalitions.
Large chunks of union dues funded specific state political campaigns -- all of which called for more government spending.
In addition to the $2.125 million pumped into the campaign to maintain corporate tax rates in California, "Yes on 744" received $1.758 million to push for more teacher hiring in Oklahoma and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, through "Coalition for Our Communities," received $625,000 in its fight to retain the state income tax.
In its analysis, EIA omitted FEA spending on media buys or payments to pollsters or consultants that had no obvious ideological component. Nor did the list include donations from the union's federal PAC, a separate entity funded through voluntary means.
Sunshine State News' request for comparable data from the Florida Education Association was not available by deadline
Click on the attachment below for the NEA's list of 130 recipient organizations.
--
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or (772) 801-5341.
