A few years ago I worked on a report for Education Sector on the relationships between the National Education Association and a constellation of activist, political, civil rights and other interest groups. These relationships (traced through money doled out from the union to these nonprofits) were not new and represented the kind of effective coalition building that had helped make the NEA such a political powerhouse. (And, as noted in the report, prominent right-wing groups have funded similar groups around the country for years to help advance a conservative agenda.)
The dots I was attempting to connect in the report suggested that a lot of the anti-NCLB noise that was appearing in the media and at public hearings could all be traced back, financially, to one common denomenator (the NEA), which also happened to be the organization most wildly opposed to the accountability measures contained in NCLB.
No scandal, no illegalities – just a rather obvious connection which nonetheless seemed to have been lost to reporters and policymakers who were listening to the growing debate.
At the time, one of the reporters who was writing about the report pointed out to me that while the “echo chamber” argument was strong, it would have been even stronger had there been some connection to a group like FairTest, which has been extremely effective across the country in publicly criticizing testing of students. FairTest has been an important part of attempts to bring people into the anti-NCLB fold by making tests the enemy, rather than the achievement gap that exists in this country.
I had gone through piles and piles of documents and saw no connection whatsoever between FairTest and the NEA. Until yesterday.
Mike Antonucci notes in his latest round-up on the NEA’s Department of Labor filings that the NEA gave FairTest a $35,000 check in 2006-07. This came at a time when the organization was so desperate for cash that it got NY Times columnist Michael Winerip to write a fundraising letter on behalf of Fairtest that the newspaper actually ran.
No need to go all grassy knoll with this, but it seems at least worth noting when FairTest is presented as the external validation for the NEA’s war on accountability.
UPDATE: FairTest’s Bob Schaeffer responds:
If you’d check the clip files or even our website, you’d find that
FairTest has been a vocal critic of federally mandated testing for more
than two decades. In fact, FairTest led the national opposition to
national testing proposals made by Presidents George H.W. Bush (in a
strange-bedfellows alliance with the likes of Phyllis Schlafly) and Bill
Clinton throughout the 1980s and 1990s without a nickel of NEA money.
The recent NEA support — less than one-tenth of our budget — helps
cover FairTest’s costs involved in facilitating the Forum on Educational
Accountability (FEA), such as traveling to meetings and maintaining the
website edaccountability.org. NEA has never attempted to dictate what
FairTest (or FEA) says or does.
We do, however, appreciate your recognition that FairTest has been
“extremely effective across the country.” Perhaps the reason media,
activists and, according to several polls, a majority of the public
listen to our views is because they are grounded in facts and real-world
experiences.
Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
P.S. Mike Winerip’s column was his idea, not ours. He’s too good a
journalist to respond to any organization’s self-serving pleas for help.