"Specifically, and regrettably, we can no longer afford to sustain the current number of OEA employees at their current level of compensation and benefits and continue to provide the expected level of services and programs without significantly raising OEA dues for you and every other member," reads a memo from OEA President Mike Billirakis and Executive Director Robert Barkley.

Just what is that "current level of compensation and benefits"? Funny you should ask. Today, EIA announces the release of the latest booklet on teachers’ union finances: Where Do My OEA Dues Go? The study reveals that although OEA’s staff and executive costs eat up a large portion of the budget, the union’s income has far outpaced its growth in membership. In 1999, OEA had a net gain of only 363 members statewide, but took in an additional $1.8 million in dues income -- a growth rate of 6.1 percent.

Single copies of Where Do My OEA Dues Go? are available free from EIA. The full report is also available on the Internet through a link on the Reports page of the EIA web-site.

+ Voodoo Statistics Bedevil NEA’s School Modernization Study. Dozens of major daily newspapers around the country dutifully reported the findings of NEA’s latest study on school construction. NEA claims states must spend $322 billion to take care of unmet needs. This figure is ten times current spending and nearly three times the estimate of the General Accounting Office. President Clinton immediately cited the study in a speech in Davenport, Iowa. Congressional Democrats said they hoped the study would help their efforts to increase federal funding for school construction and modernization.

NEA claims its study is more comprehensive that GAO’s 1995 study. Perhaps it is, but only because it uses statistical legerdemain that’s unworthy of a high school math student. To begin with, only 24 states actually had estimates of what their construction needs were, and the funding figures they attached to these needs are from six different years (1994-1999). How does NEA account for the other 26 states? By extrapolating "based on similarities in selected demographic and student variables." An unusual enough method to begin with, but one must even question how this unusual method was applied. It’s dangerous enough to extrapolate Mississippi’s construction needs from Alabama’s data, but it’s unacceptable to extrapolate Oregon’s construction needs from New Mexico’s data, and absolutely preposterous to extrapolate Hawaii’s needs based on data from South Carolina.

Even worse are NEA’s education technology estimates. Only three states (California, Delaware, and Connecticut) had reasonable recent financial estimates of their technology needs. NEA estimated the technology funding for the other 47 states by using Delaware as the benchmark. In fact, NEA adjusted the actual figures from Connecticut in order for them to fit the benchmark model.

Whatever the reality of school infrastructure needs, NEA’s figures are clearly insufficient to support its conclusions. Americans deserve better reporting than our pliant press gave them on this story.

+ Improve Scores with Big Buildings? It was a bad week for conclusions drawn from statistics. A study conducted for the Arizona School Facilities Board found that students in schools of more than 300,000 square feet scored higher on standardized tests than students in smaller schools. The conclusion drawn from this was not that large school buildings tend to exist in spacious suburban districts with wealthy parents -- parental income being a strong indicator of school performance -- but that "elementary school students should be in big schools with plenty of space per student, but not too much space."

+ Rally Notes. EIA offers its apologies to Minnesota, for missing its May 1 statehouse rally for more education funding. Top officials from Education Minnesota were in the crowd of only 400. By the way, EM is raising its dues $7 next year, and at last report the union had not sent a single dime to NEA in payment for its premature merger in September 1998. Last year’s NEA Representative Assembly featured long and bitter debates over EM’s financial obligations, culminating in a vote not to forgive its estimated $2.5 million loan.

This afternoon, EIA will cover the California Teacher Association rally at the state Capitol in Sacramento. The weather looks grim but EIA will be on the scene and will issue a special bulletin should events warrant.

+ Former Allies Oppose Union in Boston. American Federation of Teachers affiliates, disproportionately located in large urban areas, are bearing the initial brunt of community dissatisfaction with public schools. The latest example is in Boston, where more than two dozen parent and community groups have formed a coalition to limit the use of seniority in teacher assignments. The formation of the coalition, called Voices for Children, is a striking development for two reasons: 1) It signals an unusual public involvement in contract talks between the Boston Public Schools and the Boston Teachers Union; and 2) the members of the coalition include the NAACP of Boston, the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation, the Black Ministerial Alliance, the Citywide Parents Council, and the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts -- groups the union usually seeks out for support.

"We had to speak because we are voices for children, and they’re not at the bargaining table," Susan Bannon, co-chair of the Citywide Parents Council told the Boston Globe.

+ Oregon Union to Produce Enemies List. The Oregon Education Association’s Representative Assembly voted to publish an annual report listing "individuals and businesses that support Bill Sizemore and other foes of public schools and public school employees." Sizemore is the sponsor of a number of education-related initiatives headed for the November ballot and is a consistent opponent of OEA. The report will be about the 1,932^nd in a series of NEA enemies lists.

+ What School to Work Really Does. The federal School to Work program has been accused of a number of offenses by conservative groups. Some allegations are legitimate concerns about government intrusion, others are completely off-the-wall. Lost amidst the sound and fury is evidence that the School to Work program operates like many other federal programs, that is, it exists as a method to pass taxpayer money to liberal interest groups. Case in point: the Calumet Project’s Labor Education in the Schools program in Hammond, Indiana.

Backed by a $12,750 grant from the School to Work program, the Calumet Project sends union organizers into high school classrooms to lecture on "labor history, famous labor leaders and the impact unions have had on society." Neither the union speakers nor the Calumet Project are disinterested academics. In fact, the Calumet Project also offers assistance in organizing, strike or lock-out campaigns, and training union supporters in how to build community-labor relations.

"Many of the benefits and rights that we enjoy in the workplace today are the direct result of unions," Calumet Project Director David Klein told the Gary Post-Tribune. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to buy unions a soapbox in the public schools.