sounds like a large number of people are involved in the decision making, but first one must be able to be a delegate. This requires membership in the NEA for a long time and the effort and agreement with the current ideas in order to be chosen by the local members as a delegate. In other words, the direction this special interest group veered off towards will continue to be the direction it travels in without any real opportunity to change. In the case of the NEA, this is towards ever increasing liberalism. Many think this is good, but many teachers are not liberal in their thinking nor in their opinions.
Third, this hardened thinking presumes certain things are good and certain things are bad, without much room for objective information to change people's minds. As the NEA is comprised of teachers, higher teacher pay is often an issue and is always a good thing. Yet, the teacher is hired to teach the child, and any teacher will avow that teaching is easier with a smaller class size. Will the NEA therefore propose teachers accept a cut in pay in exchange for smaller classrooms? Never.
The same hardening of the mind exists against school vouchers or home schooling. Any teacher will aver that the ideal student teacher ration is one on one. Home schooling accomplishes this rati
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