In writing my book NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, first published in 1984 — 28 years ago — I read every issue of the NEA Journal and thus was able to chronicle the National Education Association’s support for world government from their own writings. The NEA began to promote that utopian idea as early as December 1942 when its Journal published an editorial entitled “The United Peoples of the World.” In it, the editor announced the NEA’s support of world government. He quoted Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” with its reference to the “Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World.” The editor wrote:
World organization may well have four branches which in practice have proved indispensable: the legislature, the judicial, the executive, and the educational. In addition to the framework of government the world needs certain tools of cooperation. A world system of money and credit; a uniform system of weights and measures; a revised calendar; and a basic language.
The Christian calendar, which starts with the birth of Christ, was to be discarded in favor of some other calendar. Committed to the idea of world government, the NEA began its campaign for the metric system, which still hasn’t caught on in the United States, and an international bureau of education that would eventually become UNESCO. For the NEA, the United Nations represented the hope of the world. The NEA Journal reported in April 1945: “The NEA is intensifying its efforts to have provision made for an international office of education in the UNO.”
In May 1945 the NEA addressed an open letter to members of the American delegation to the United Nations conference in San Francisco, which stated in part: “We urge … that … the United Nations agree to explore the desirability and feasibililty of including in the overall security organization an international agency to deal with international problems in education.” In response, the American delegation named William G. Carr, associate secretary of the NEA, as a consultant.
In October, Carr reported what took place on May 22, 1945 at the San Francisco conference: “The climax came when the U.S. Delegation asked that educational cooperation be definitely recognized among the objectives of the United Nations Organization.”
In an editorial in the January 1946 NEA Journal entitled “The Teacher and World Government,” the editor wrote:
In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher has many parts to play. He must begin with his own attitude and knowledge and purpose. He can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation…. At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession.
That same issue of the Journal also published the constitution of UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It was called a “World Charter for Education.”
The idea of world government became a constant theme in the NEA Journal. In December 1946, the editor ended the year with an editorial entitled “Fundamentals of Abiding Peace.” He wrote:
The organized teaching profession may well take hope and satisfaction from the achievements it has already made toward world government in its support of the United Nations and UNESCO. It is ours to hold ever before the people the ideals and principles of world government until practice can catch up with those ideals.
To help the educators of other nations catch up to the ideals of world government, the NEA sponsored a World Conference of the Teaching Profession in 1946 at Endicott, New York, at which was formed the World Organization of the Teaching Profession (WOTP). William G. Carr of the NEA became its secretary-general. In 1951, the WOTP was expanded to include both elementary and secondary teacher associations and it changed its name to the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession (WCOTP). Carr remained as secretary-general.
Articles and reports about the United Nations, UNESCO, the WOTP, and later the WCOTP appeared regularly in the NEA Journal. But by 1950 the Cold War had ended all illusions about the possibility of a world government with the Soviet Union in it. Indeed, the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 shattered all dreams that the UN might prevent further wars. Instead of advocating world government, the NEA now advocated the idea of “world citizenship” and the notion that the UN was the only hope for mankind.
In 1952, William Carr became executive secretary of the NEA. Although Carr was probably the most anti-communist executive secretary the NEA ever had, he remained a progressive in matters of curriculum, federal aid to education, psychology, the UN, and globalism.
With the departure of Carr in 1967 also went the NEA’s short-lived anti-communism. In 1971 the new executive secretary, Sam Lambert, visited the Soviet Union and established cordial relations with the government-controlled Soviet teachers union. By then the NEA itself had become a labor union, identifying itself with the working class. It also began to adopt the radical postures of the New Left, which had arisen during the political turmoil of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.
In 1976, when the nation was celebrating the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence, the NEA issued a “Declaration of Interdependence” and advocated “education for a global community,” despite the fact that the United Nations was now dominated by the Soviet bloc and third world nations, most of which had socialist governments. The idea of a world government dominated by the western democracies was now an unattainable dream. If there was ever to be a world government, it would have to be a communist one, for that was the only kind the communists would ever accept.
On October 17, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the measure creating the cabinet-level Department of Education. The NEA had advocated such a department since its own inception back in 1857, and now that goal had finally been achieved. But although during his presidential campaign of 1980, Ronald Reagan had promised to eliminate the department, once he was in office he was unable to do so.
In 2007, at the 150th anniversary of the founding of the NEA, its membership had grown to 3.2 million members. But on July 3, 2012, USA Today reported that the NEA had lost more than 100,000 members. Nevertheless, its adherence to a far-left, pro-internationalist agenda remained as strong as ever.
Meanwhile, the goal of world government has grown more and more remote. The war against Islamic terrorism means that no Islamic government will cede its sovereignty to a world government run by secular westerners. Nevertheless, the NEA is committed to some kind of world authority through the UN. For example, among the resolutions adopted at its convention in 2012 were several promoting the idea of world governance:
B-40. Global Education. The National Education Association believes that global education increases respect for and awareness of the earth and its peoples. Global education imparts information about cultures and an appreciation of our interdependency in sharing the world’s resources to meet mutual human needs. The Association also believes that curriculum and instruction about regional and international conflicts must present a balanced view, include historical context, and demonstrate relevancy and sensitivity to all people.
I-1. Peace and International Relations. The National Education Association recognizes the interdependence of all people. The Association believes in the ideals of peace, freedom, and human dignity based upon respect for the individual and cultural diversity. The Association urges all nations to develop treaties and disarmament agreements that reduce the possibility of war, provide for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, and guarantee the rights of nations to exist within safe and secure borders, free from the threat of pre-emptive attacks. The Association also believes that such treaties and agreements should prevent the placement of weapons in outer space.
The Association supports the principles stated in the United Nations (UN) Charter and believes that the UN furthers world peace and promotes the rights of all people by preventing war, racism, and genocide. The Association further believes that Education International contributes to peace and international relations by promoting dialogue among the world’s education employees.
The Association supports the U.S. Institute of Peace, which provides publications, information, programs, training, and research data in developing peacemaking and conflict resolution skills.
I-2. International Court of Justice. The Association urges participation by the United States in deliberations before the court.
I-3. International Criminal Court. The Association believes that the United States should ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and recognize and support its authority and jurisdiction.
In other words, the NEA wants the United States to surrender its sovereignty to these international bodies that do not have our interests at heart. Instead, those courts can be used by our enemies to prosecute American officers and soldiers accused of violating the human rights of terrorists.
The NEA also supports ObamaCare, or socialized medicine:
H-7. National Health Care Policy. The National Education Association believes that affordable, comprehensive health care, including prescription drug coverage, is the right of every resident. The Association supports the adoption of a single-payer health care plan for all residents of the United States, its territories, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
The Association will support health care reform measures that move the United States closer to this goal and that achieve universal and comprehensive health care coverage, control costs while assuring quality, emphasize prevention of health care problems, and are financed by means that assure greater equity in the funding of that health care.
The Association also believes that until a single-payer health care plan is adopted, Congress should make no cuts in Medicare/Medicaid benefit levels or in federal funding of the Medicare/Medicaid program.
Note that the NEA believes that full government health care is the “right” of all “residents,” not just tax-paying citizens. The NEA always calls for “full funding” of all the programs it advocates, with no concern about where the money comes from.
Incidentally, if you would like to read the 99 pages of resolutions adopted by the NEA, they are all on the Internet. Meanwhile, the idea of world government under the UN, which is largely made up of nations who have no love for the United States, can hardly be consummated under the world’s present political conflicts and financial crises. But the NEA is clearly anxious to undermine American national sovereignty by our participation in international bodies run by socialists who want our money.
