The nation's most powerful teachers union claims an extensive network of "far-right" groups is attempting to undermine public education and the political power of organized labor. The 2.4 million-member National Education Association outlines "a state-by-state assault on public education" in a report called "The Real Story Behind 'Paycheck Protection' - The Hidden Link Between Anti-Public Education Initiatives: An Anatomy of the Far Right."

The report describes a nationwide network of organizations and activists that NEA Executive Director Don Cameron said has been "very effective" in advancing conservative causes.

It lists dozens of individuals, including Wal-Mart heir John Walton, conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife and retired insurance executive J. Patrick Rooney, as well as think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

The report "demonstrates a linkage" between proponents of Proposition 174 - a 1994 California ballot initiative to fund private school tuition - and this year's Proposition 226, the "paycheck protection" initiative to require unions to get members' permission to use their dues to fund political activities. Similar measures have been proposed by conservatives in several states.

Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, a group mentioned in the NEA report, said the only "conspiracy" is that "65 percent of Americans support paycheck protection and 65 percent of Americans also support school choice."

"It would be curious not to have a high degree of overlap here," Mr. Norquist said. "That's not a conspiracy. That's a match."

Mark Wilson, a labor economist at Heritage, said the report could not be taken seriously.

"All I can say is it's a shame the NEA is spending their members' dollars this way rather than directly addressing the issues," he said. "This looks more like a fund-raising attempt on their part than a substantive report on policy issues."

Mr. Cameron described the report as an information package prepared for the NEA members and state affiliates in the wake of the union's successful campaign against Proposition 226, and that NEA officials had worried whether to delay its public release. The union's leadership "talked about the timing of this thing, with Clinton's troubles and all, and should we wait? We decided there was no good time to do this."

Nina Shokraii Reef, an education policy analyst at Heritage, said she suspects the report was timed to energize Democratic union voters in advance of the Nov. 3 congressional elections.

The two issues of school choice and paycheck protection became intertwined as a result of the high-profile fight over Proposition 174 five years ago. The California Teachers Association and its allies spent an estimated $16 million to defeat the voucher initiative.

Disappointed backers of the voucher measure advanced Proposition 226 in part to limit unions from pouring members' money into campaigns. But unions ran a $30 million campaign to defeat that measure, which was voted down 54 percent to 46 percent by California voters in June.

Proposition 226 advocates say it is unfair for unions to use dues in political campaigns that many members oppose. What supporters call paycheck protection - and the NEA report describes as "anti-worker initiatives" - is already the law in Washington, Michigan, Idaho and Wyoming, requiring union members to give written consent annually before their dues can spent on politics.

The NEA report maintains that "choking off NEA funding is not an end in itself," but that the conservative movement considers it "a critical step in achieving its broader aims - a state-by-state assault on public education."

The report, prepared by NEA researchers led by political consultant Robert Watson, lists not only such high-profile groups as Heritage and Cato, but also focuses on lesser known organizations that help coordinate state and national conservative strategies, including the Council for National Policy, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Policy Network.

The study began in January when the California Teachers Association asked for help fighting Proposition 226, NEA spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons said.

Mr. Watson was hired as project leader for the NEA research effort. By the time Proposition 226 was defeated, the NEA "had compiled a lot of information and . . . saw it would be useful to a lot of our state and local affiliates," Miss Lyons said, and decided to prepare a full report for nationwide distribution.

The report foreword, by University of Virginia professor Larry J. Sabato, notes, "The modern conservative movement has grown into one of the most powerful forces in all of American history." But this success "is not because the citizenry is comprehensively conservative," Mr. Sabato writes, but because "conservative groups simply have out-organized and out-fund-raised their rivals."

"There are outfits that oppose our agenda," Miss Lyons said. "Proposition 226 was aimed squarely at teachers to keep us from advocating what we believe in."