DR. CLARK AND THE NEA

Petitioners are urging the Cape Girardeau Board of Education to deny Superintendent Neyland Clark's contract extension. Clark, familiar with National Education Association rabble-rousing in Kentucky, thinks the teacher organization may be linked to this effort.

After interviewing dozens of board members, teachers, NEA representatives and petitioners, we believe it highly unlikely that the petitions are a stealth mission of the NEA. Contrary to what Clark and some members of the school board maintain, the petition drive is not a NEA-masterminded plot against the district. Those involved with the petition drive are mainly frustrated school district patrons unhappy with Clark's performance and demeanor.

At that same time, the growth of the NEA in Southeast Missouri is cause for concern.

The claim that local NEA chapters are setting their own agenda just doesn't wash. The member teachers who think they are in charge of the organization's goals should quit kidding themselves. They are members of the largest union in the United States, a powerful union that isn't shy about flexing its muscles, often at the expense of school children. We have no doubt the NEA agenda is the agenda of each one of its affiliates.

The NEA cares about money. Forbes magazine, in a sweeping look at the NEA last year, questioned whether the union should more apt be called "The National Extortion Association." With 2.3 million members, it passed the Teamsters as the country's biggest union some years ago.

Forbes calls NEA the most powerful U.S. trade union and describes it as playing very rough -- shutting down school systems that don't play ball.

A growing list of educational officials nationally have linked increasing education dollars and declining quality to NEA efforts. The Forbes article is chilling. Especially the reminder that candidate Bill Clinton told an NEA candidate screening panel that if he became president, the NEA would become his partner.

But at the local level, it doesn't appear the NEA has the numbers to wield that kind of power. Yet.

As far as the superintendent's woes go, Clark needs to be more forthright with both district patrons and teachers.

Education isn't prescriptive medicine, and Clark wasn't hired to be the doctor to fix all the education ills.

We want and need a straight-talking educator at the helm. Taxpayers finance public schools, and they have every right to hold the superintendent and the school board accountable for their actions.

In the process of demanding accountability, complaints should remain professional and not become personal. There is no excuse for vandalism at the Clark home, for example. The people responsible should be found and jailed. Such criminal acts only detract from the validity of the complaints.

As board members prepare to evaluate Clark's contract, they should keep these district complaints in mind and not smile and say there is no problem.

There are problems. The community's relationship with Clark isn't irreparable. But it needs work.