The National Education Association, the union representing school teachers, wants Joe Biden and Congress not only to pack the Supreme Court with liberals, it seeks the same for lower federal courts.
The union also is asking Washington to deliver “new funding,” cancel teachers’ debt, solve “racial inequities” and repudiate “white supremacist culture.”
“And that’s just the start,” the organization says in its “Policy Playbook” for the new Congress and White House.
The report is expected to be closely studied by Joe Biden’s transition team, which sought the NEA’s endorsement, noted Paul Bedard in his “Washington Secrets” column for the Washington Examiner.
Democrats have vowed to pack the Supreme Court in response to President Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett just before the election. Trump also has appointed more than 200 conservative judges to lifetime posts on lower federal courts.
The NEA wants “additional judgeships [added] to the federal district and circuit courts” filled by “people of color, women, LGBTQ people, those with disabilities, immigrants.”
The Supreme Court needs to undergo a “rebalance” to “reflect the diversity of the modern United States,” the NEA contends.
It lists 27 issues that government should address, providing specific “solutions.”
“Smaller class sizes, professional pay, social and emotional learning, child nutrition – it’s all on the table,” the teachers say.
The union seeks essentially to eliminate standardized testing and make charter schools more like public schools. Its 3 million members want more money for feeding children at school and smaller class sizes, which would increase the number of teachers.
Community college should be free, and there should be no costs for the “first four years at all public higher education institutions,” the teachers insist.
Congress also should provide “at least” $175 billion more in emergency aid for schools and more than double the ordinary subsidies to schools.
The teachers also demand free education for anyone, including illegal aliens, to remove “fear and distress from harsh and unfair immigration enforcement.”
And the government must impose special protections for transgender students in schools, including allowing boys to use girls’ restrooms and showers if they choose.
And the NEA wants to discriminate against religious schools by prohibiting the disbursement of federal funds to any group that discriminates on the basis of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.”
NEA members also want more money in their paychecks and more money in retirement.
And they want teachers blocked from having guns. Further, they endorse and promote various “Extreme Risk Protection Order” plans in states that allow police to “intervene” if a third party believes there are “warning signals” about any person. The orders allow police to confiscate guns, for example, even if there is no probable cause.
Lastly, they want “protections for collective bargaining.”
