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Notes on the 2022 NEA convention; “enemies list”

Mike Antonucci:

I provided in-person gavel-to-gavel coverage of every National Education Association Representative Assembly from 1998 — the year of the failed merger attempt with AFT — through 2016. NEA denied me a press credential thereafter due to my partnership with The 74, which they said “does not meet journalistic standards as a credible news outlet.”

In truth, it was a bit of a relief. The convention was tedious and became more and more stage-managed as the years went on. It was also an expensive trip and a week of little rest and bad food.

Thanks to Terry Stoops of the John Locke Foundation and his sources, we now have a complete list of the new business items NEA delegates are debating this week. For this first time, the union has seen fit to hide this information behind a firewall, making it available only to the delegates themselves.

You can take a look at Terry’s Twitter threadto see the items he highlighted, but I’ll point to these few for now:

NBI 15 – The latest in a long history of creating enemies lists (this one from 1998):

“NEA shall compile research to create fact sheets about the largest 25 organizations that are actively working to diminish a students’ right to honesty in education, freedom of sexual and gender identify, and teacher autonomy.”

NBI 31 – The return of merger!

“I move that the NEA create a committee and a plan to work with AFT to strongly consider a national merger of the two education unions.”

NBI 37 – Another in long history of fringe NBIs that never pass from activists in the Oakland Education Association:

“The NEA will work with state affiliates to support a national policy of mandatory masking and COVID vaccines in schools, as well as high-quality virtual education for immuno-compromised students and all families who want it by publicizing successful virtual education programs in public schools throughout the nation in existing media outlets.”

NBI 44 – Offers sample contract language to institute bereavement leave for “pregnancy loss and failed fertility treatments.” Doesn’t open can of worms by including bereavement leave for abortions.

NBI 63 – More sample contract language, this time suggesting “mother” be replaced with “birthing parent” and “father” with “non-birthing parent.” The NBI’s sponsors will need bereavement leave when this gets voted down.

NBI 77 – Wrote about this when the California Teachers Association sent it to committee. Now it’s aiming for nationwide application:

Summary:

The purpose of the four-day assembly is to elect officers, approve the union’s budget and set national policy for the coming school year. In practice, however, the agenda is largely decided by the union’s executive officers, staff and 172-member board of directors. The election results are usually a foregone conclusion, and the budget is always approved with no alterations.

Where the delegates get their say is in the introduction, debate and votes on “new business items.” These are actions that are “specific in nature and terminal in application, shall concern issues beyond one affiliate and shall not call for NEA to do work that is already in progress.” It takes just 50 delegate signatures on a petition to get an item to the floor for debate and vote.

The focus of these items runs the gamut, from battling institutional racism to supporting a national opt out/test refusal movement to calling for Arne Duncan to resign as President Barack Obama’s secretary of education. Many have no relation to education or labor at all.

Though approval of new business items is the expressed will of the delegates, execution of the actions demanded usually falls very short of impactful. The 2021 assembly debated 66 items. Of these, 11 were ruled out of order or withdrawn. Ten were voted down. A full 22 were referred to an NEA standing committee without a recommendation. That left only 23 that were approved. Of those, nine called on NEA to use its print and social media outlets to publicize something.