NEA Politics

My objective is not to get in to national politics here in the USA. However I feel it necessary to discuss the NEA's involvement in such. It is my understanding that NEA stands for National Educator's Association which is the largest teacher union in the United States (is it not the largest union also?).
In every union in America there is much money changing hands in order to protect and extend worker rights. This does not mean propelling any agenda, conservative or liberal. Using union dues and collections in order to gain support for political issues such as gay marriage and immigration laws is not what should be done with our money.
What should be done? Well what about spending a little more on education lobbying to get higher pay for teachers? Or perhaps we can have teacher accountablity left up to district administrators and officials. Just about anything dealing with education. If the union is going to do anything dealing with immigration perhaps we can do some research to better understand how other nations are able to have 99% and 100% literacy. This should not be left only to the US government and university research. Teacher unions could even pay for professional development do be done school wide. This would help educators rise through the pay scale through credit completion and it would save teachers money that they would otherwise use on classes.