(2003-07-05) — America’s largest teachers’ union today called for a return to fundamentals in civics and history, after a new survey revealed that teacher pay is not going up as fast as the union would like.
According to the survey, the average salary last year was about $44,400, leaving many teachers to live a hand-to-mouth existence, wondering where they’ll get the money for vacation travel, and new cars.
“We need to make sure young people understand that the right to an ever-increasing taxpayer-funded salary is a basic guarantee in the Constitution,” said an unnamed spokesman for the National Education Association (NEA). “We also need to review the articles which specify that a large government bureaucracy will regulate local community schools, and use funding incentives to bring the schools in line with national standards.”
The NEA spokesman said the union’s members were shocked to hear that high school seniors didn’t know that tax-funded government-regulated schooling was among the “unalienable rights” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.
“We need more cash to improve the teaching of civics and history,” said the NEA source. “Our basic freedoms are threatened if we send out a generation of graduates who fail to look to the federal government to take care of them.”

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