The NEA’s PAC on Thursday issued a recommendation that the 3.2 million-member union’s representative assembly vote to support Obama in 2012 during its meeting in the president’s home city of Chicago July 2 through July 5.
“This is the time to make decisions about the direction of our country, and we have real choices to make. As activists, engaged educators, we should get involved now,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel will say in a statement due out this morning. “Will we allow Congress to gut Medicare, slash education and cut Social Security, and continue to make it just fine for hedge fund managers and corporations to sidestep paying taxes? Or will we act and assert the real American values of hard work and responsibility, a commitment to a vibrant middle class, to college affordability, and the opportunity to reach the American Dream? It is time to stand strong for what we believe in and what is right for students and families, schools and the nation. President Barack Obama has proven he deserves a second term.”
That determination has been made even as the Republican field has yet to form, and it makes the NEA the first labor organization to make an expression of official support for Obama’s re-election.
“The mid-term elections have shown us what can happen when education legislation and decisions are left in the hands of politicians who do not support public education—those of us in education call this a teachable moment,” said Van Roekel.
The final endorsement won’t come until the 9,000 delegates to the representative assembly have a chance to vote on it in two months.
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