Will Hillary Clinton Listen to Teachers?
In her interview with the president of the National Education Association (NEA), Hillary Clinton vowed to ” . . . listen to teachers.” Or did she really mean she would listen to union officials? Will the voice of nonmembers and forced-dues payers fall on deaf ears with Hillary Clinton? Lindsey Layton has the story in the Washington Post. As she points out, NEA is a political force to be reckoned with in political spending and action.
“She used the most important word that I was personally looking for, the word ‘listen’,” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the NEA, which represents mostly K-12 teachers and paraprofessionals and has 3 million members.
Garcia met privately with Clinton, a Democrat who is running for president, at NEA headquarters as part of the union’s endorsement process for the 2016 campaign. The NEA has invited both Democratic and Republican candidates to complete a 34-question survey, sit for a videotaped interview with Garcia and attend the union’s annual meeting at the end of the month.