Homosexual agenda
promoted by NEA?

June 21, 2001

With the National Education Association’s annual convention just around the corner, at least one state affiliate is making waves by opposing the union’s proposed new homosexual-rights resolution.

The proposal would consolidate and amend three separate resolutions previously adopted by the NEA – one of the nation’s largest and most powerful unions. Resolutions B-7, B-9 and C-27 all deal with diversity, including the acceptance of homosexuals as public school employees, accurate portrayal of “diverse groups” in curricula and “acceptance and appreciation … of members of diverse populations.”

Known internally as the “New B” resolution, the strongly worded proposal slated to be considered at the NEA’s conference next month reads in its entirety:

The National Education Association recognizes that the complex and diverse needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students; and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender families and their children require the development of programs that promote a safe and inclusive environment.

The Association believes in efforts that provide for:

a. Development of curriculum and instructional materials and programs
designed to meet the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students

b. Involvement of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender educators in
developing educational materials used in classroom instruction

c. Dissemination of programs that support gay, lesbian, bisexual,
transgender, and questioning students and address the high drop-out rate,
suicide rate, and health risk behaviors

d. Recognition of the importance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender education employees as role models

e. Accurate portrayal of the roles and contributions of gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgender people throughout history

f. Dissemination of programs and information that include the contributions, heritage, culture, and history of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people

g. Coordination with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender organizations
and concerned agencies that promote the contributions, heritage, culture,
history, health and care of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.

The proposed resolution was developed by the national NEA resolutions committee, in which all 50 state affiliates are represented. But at least one state affiliate of the NEA has officially opposed the New B resolution. Oklahoma Education Association President Carolyn Crowder told The Oklahoman that other NEA resolutions already address discrimination, while the latest proposal’s wording is “too volatile and could be interpreted as promoting a social agenda.”

At its annual meeting in April, OEA members approved a measure calling for the withdrawal of the resolution before the national convention next month.

“After a thorough hearing on the proposal, they determined the language could give the impression that our organization was going beyond supporting nondiscrimination to supporting a social agenda. Therefore, they took a position as a group to ask the NEA Resolutions Committee to delete the language before it is considered by the NEA Representative Assembly this summer,” Crowder explains on the OEA website.

But the state was outvoted, and the resolution will go before NEA committees the week of July 2-7 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. If approved by committee, the convention’s 9,000 delegates representing 2.3 million union members will vote on adoption of the language, which could be changed during what the NEA describes as a “wide-open democratic process.”

OEA leadership said the process leading up to the convention has been “very fair” and that other state NEA leaders across the nation support her state’s position.

NEA spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons said she is not in a position to know the views state and local affiliates have taken, if any, on the New B resolution. At the national convention, delegates vote individually and not by state or local affiliation, she explained. Any state can move to amend the resolution during the process at the Representative Assembly, and any delegate has a right to speak during deliberations — a process, Lyons said, in which the union prides itself.

Some observers of the NEA, however, believe the union’s leadership is acting contrary to the wishes of rank-and-file members.

“What we have is really the NEA as a national organization going in its own direction and leaving its membership behind,” said Dick Carpenter, education analyst for Focus on the Family.

Carpenter speculated that NEA leadership would say it is merely doing its job – providing leadership on a controversial issue. But he said the union “is pretty out of the mainstream on this issue and on other issues as well.”

The union is “trying to assist homosexual organizations and promoting a particular belief system that is not necessarily widely held in the public and not necessarily even in their own membership,” Carpenter continued.

The fact that a state chapter of the organization has gone public with its opposition to the national group’s proposal “is evidence that they are not representing their membership, clearly,” he said, adding that he gets the impression New B will not pass. “The current language is not great, but the new language is deplorable.”

While the NEA’s resolutions do not directly effect policy changes — they are merely statements of philosophical belief — the union members’ collective might often carries weight in legislative arenas.

Pointing to evidence of that political clout, Carpenter remarked, “There are 2.6 million public school teachers. In the NEA, there are 2.3 million public school teachers. You do the math.”

Additionally, a June 6 report in Education Week explores a new program to implement education policy changes in collective bargaining agreements. The program is being implemented through a pilot project of the Teacher Union Reform Network, which is a network of local teachers unions from the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers. TURN is “aimed at uniting progressive urban labor leaders around a reform-oriented agenda focused on improving student achievement,” according to the Broad Foundation, which is funding the project. Four school districts are participating in the pilot project, including Rochester, N.Y., Montgomery County, Md., Toledo, Ohio and San Francisco, Calif.

According to Education Week, the program has met with resistance. Some rank-and-file union members maintain that teachers’ groups should stick to bread-and-butter issues, and others argue that using contract talks to settle educational policy questions could set a dangerous precedent.

Participants in the new Broad-funded initiative counter that labor agreements already serve as important policy documents by spelling out salary scales and grievance procedures. Plus, because contracts are binding, they can protect a policy agenda from the future whims of local leaders.

But locking public schools into what amounts to a “social agenda” through collective bargaining agreements is a step backwards for public education, many union members and parents believe.

Protesting such an agenda at the NEA’s annual convention will be the California-based Capitol Resource Institute. In conjunction with Focus on the Family, CRI has planned a rally for local protesters and members of the public to take place July 3 outside the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The NEA reviews all of its existing and proposed resolutions at its annual convention, including resolution B-68, which states the union’s position that “home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.” B-68 expresses the “long-standing position of the association,” Lyons told WND in September.
Speaking generally to the issue of public versus private schools, Lyons said, “It’s our feeling that public schools are the best choice for parents. What we want to do is to ensure that that truth is more than our belief — that it is a fact.”

NEA vs. home schools