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1) NEA Gives $4.7 Million to Advocacy Groups.
The National Education Association filed its 2006 U.S. Department of Labor
financial disclosure report last Wednesday, and the document once again
reveals the extent of NEA's involvement in liberal philanthropy, advocacy
and policy research.
Last January, the Wall Street Journal
published an editorial about this, but included NEA's payments of
UniServ grants to its state affiliates, leading to many headlines about NEA
giving "$65 million" to advocacy groups. NEA
seized on this error to avoid discussing the details of the
contributions to other organizations and, naturally, the facts were lost in
the screaming.
In an effort to mitigate the chances of history
repeating itself, EIA combed through NEA's entire disclosure report (called
an LM-2), culled the expenditures that could properly be viewed as grants or
payments for services rendered from other advocacy organizations, and added
them up. Based on the information in the LM-2, NEA spent an estimated $4.7
million in such a way.
The expenditures range from $1.3 million to Communities
for Quality Education (formerly
America Learns), an NEA front group created to advance the union's
agenda on the No Child Left Behind Act, down to several $5,000 grants to
groups such as Rainbow PUSH, GLSEN, and Amnesty International.
Here is a list of the recipients of NEA's largesse,
with relevant web links:
100% for Great Public Schools - $110,000
AIDS Responsibility Project - $5,000
Alliance for Justice - $10,000
America's Agenda - $50,000
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education - $16,500
Americans United to Protect Social Security - $250,000
Amnesty International - $5,000
Asian American Justice Center - $5,000
Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund - $5,000
Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies - $5,000
ASPIRA - $5,000
Baptist Center for Ethics - $20,000
Campaign for America's Future - $41,000
Center for Community Change - $25,000
Center for Innovative Policy - $125,000
Center for Law and Education - $50,000
Center for Policy Alternatives - $5,000
Center for Teaching Quality - $17,150
Center for Women Policy Studies - $5,000
Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association - $52,500
Citizens Who Support Maine's Public Schools - $100,000
Committee for Education Funding - $16,182
Committee for Fair Elections - $100,000
Communities for Quality Education - $1.3 million
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. - $56,800
Consortium for Educational Change - $11,900
Council of State Governments - $10,000
Democratic GAIN - $10,990
Democratic Leadership Council - $25,000
Economic Policy Institute - $208,474
Educational Impact Inc. - $40,000
Educational Testing Service - $42,266
Everybody Wins DC - $8,000
FairTest - $35,000
Faith and Politics Institute - $5,000
Funniest Celebrity in Washington - $20,000
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation - $5,000
Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network - $5,000
Generations United - $30,000
Grassroots Democrats - $7,500
Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice - $250,000
Great Lakes Inter-tribal Council - $9,500
Harvard University Office for Sponsored Research - $50,000
HEROS Inc. - $79,890
Hispanic Press Foundation - $7,500
Home and School Institute - $45,131
Howard University School of Business - $5,000
Human Rights Campaign - $30,000
Institute for Women's Policy Research - $5,000
International Civil Rights Center - $15,000
Iowa Teaching and Learning Center - $17,000
Jobs with Justice - $10,120
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies - $10,000
Latino Book and Family Festival - $6,000
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights - $13,000
League of United Latin American Citizens - $15,000
Learning First Alliance - $52,890
Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change - $5,000
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund - $10,000
NASA/PSTP - $12,500
National Alliance of Black School Educators - $5,000
National Association for Asian and Pacific American Education - $5,200
National Association for Bilingual Education - $5,000
NAFEA - $5,000
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education
Fund - $10,000
National Coalition of ESEA Title I Parents - $5,000
National Coalition on Health Care - $25,000
National Conference of Black Mayors - $5,000
National Conference of State Legislatures - $37,000
National Consumers League - $5,000
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education - $320,160
National Council of La Raza - $8,000
National Equity Center - $15,000
National Indian Education Association - $40,800
National Parent Teachers Association - $5,000
NTL Institute - $52,250
National Women's Law Center - $10,000
New Organizing Institute - $25,000
Organizations Concerned About Rural Education - $5,000
Organization of Chinese Americans - $5,000
Partnership for 21st Century Skills - $45,000
People for the American Way - $160,805
Public Agenda - $32,351
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition - $5,000
Rebuild America's Schools - $10,000
Richard Ingersoll - $12,000
Ripon Society - $12,500
Southeast Center for Teaching Quality - $180,000
Southern Christian Leadership Conference - $11,450
Task Force Foundation - $10,000
United South and Eastern Tribes - $5,000
U.S. Action - $35,000
U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute - $15,000
WAND Education Fund - $12,000
Wellesley College Center for Research on Women - $10,295
It was also a good year to be Robert Chanin, NEA's
general counsel. Chanin's firm, Bredhoff & Kaiser, received a total of
$557,433 from NEA, while Chanin personally received payments in the sum of
$317,750.
EIA will have further revelations from NEA's disclosure
report in the weeks to come.
2) "It Hurts Up to a Point and Then It Doesn't Get
Any Worse." For those of you who were on your edge of your seat, I ran
the California International Marathon in 3:43:34 – a time that beat
President Bush's 1993 marathon time, but was still behind one woman and
six men who were 65 years of age and older.
I've posted a full race report on my personal blog –
http://www.mikeantonucci.com.
3) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from November 27-December 4:
* Here
It Comes. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants holds a meeting.
*
All
We Want to Do Is Eat Your Brains. Can a bizarre new campus fad actually
lead to improved fundamental education?
* Here
It Comes – Part II. Lobbying is too time-consuming. Just run the state
directly.
4)
Quote of the Week.
"I was
surprised by the handful of some of the big unions in the state – the power
to really scare certain political representatives into doing what privately
they wouldn't like to do. And that concerns me." – Bonnie Reiss, outgoing
senior adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Reiss is a
Democrat. (November 30
Capitol Weekly) |
