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1) Will Maryland
Educators Become “Teachsters?” It
may be fanciful, but after Teamster successes with education support
personnel in Las Vegas, it was only a matter of time before the union made a
play for teachers. Teamsters Local 103 in Maryland has organizers on the
ground trying to interest the more than 4,000 members of the NEA-affiliated
Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County (TAAAC) in new representation.
The Teamsters and
disaffected TAAAC members got together because of unhappiness with the
latest contract. “I don’t think TAAAC fought very hard for us,” teacher Nick
Mastroianni told the Baltimore Sun. TAAAC President Sheila Finlayson
dismissed the Teamster threat. “I think we have so many advantages over the
Teamsters. Teamsters don’t know education…. They’re inexperienced in public
school law and negotiations.”
Local 103 currently
represents public employees such as nurses and law enforcement officers. The
union feels it’s a short step to public school teachers. “They have the
right to be represented by an organization of their choice,” said Local 103
representative Dan Taylor.
2) NEAFT
Partnership Fails Where It Matters.
If your vision of what the NEAFT Partnership
would do was to hold regular meetings, publish joint articles in each
other’s publications, and issue joint studies on health care and tuition tax
credits, then you are probably very satisfied with its progress.
If, on the other hand,
your vision was of unified stances on crucial issues, the facilitation of
state and local joint activities that would eventually lead to mutual trust
and eventual merger, and a process for advancing national merger of both
teachers’ unions, you are probably wondering what went wrong.
The most recent joint
NEA-AFT communiqué notes that “while productive joint activities had
occurred at the national level, the organizations had not been as successful
in stimulating collaboration at the state and local levels.” This should
hardly come as a surprise, since it was the state and local affiliates that
defeated the Principles of Unity in 1998. The national bodies of both unions
were overwhelmingly in favor of merger. What’s surprising is that five years
after that vote, there is little progress towards one of the primary
purposes of having the partnership in the first place.
Secondly, NEA has made
it abundantly clear at its last two conventions that it abhors the No Child
Left Behind Act, despite its neutrality when the bill became law with
bipartisan support in 2001. NEA’s aim is to pass dozens of amendments to the
law, and file suit where the law interferes with collective bargaining.
Contrast that approach
with this remark from AFT President Sandra Feldman, who said last week,
“Yet, if all we do is focus on the potential harm that can be done by the
law, then we’ll be doing a disservice to our students, our profession, our
union, and to each and every individual teacher.”
Wedded to fundamentally
different strategies to deal with NCLB, joint communications from NEA and
AFT on the issue will focus on the one area where there will never be a
difference between the two unions: more funding.
3) Faint But
Persistent Rumblings. Many
readers have written about the July 6 EIA Communiqué, making direct
reference to the metaphorical sentence, “To me, it looks cloudy, it’s
getting gray, but for four days I watched everyone else walking around with
sunglasses and beach balls.” Readers’ opinions about the teachers’ unions’
“weather forecast” run the gamut from “clear skies” to “storm warning.” My
view continues to be informed by the additive effect of the items coming in.
Individually, they may be (and have been by some) written off as
insignificant. Taken cumulatively, they sound ominous. If the Washington
Teachers Union and United Teachers of Dade scandals weren’t singular enough,
we have seen flagging membership numbers, the Madison Teachers, Inc. lawsuit
against its state affiliate, the “rebellion in Dixie,” the merger
negotiation tensions in Texas, and several other stories that have yet to
make it to the pages of the EIA Communiqué. Here are a few more
stories that mean little when standing alone, but certainly contribute to
the picture when placed together:
* In Florida, the
Volusia Teachers Organization (VTO) voted out its long-time president Suzy
Smith in favor of 31-year-old Andrew Spar. Spar is expected to reverse
declining membership and boost union participation. “Quite honestly, one of
the things I’ve heard is the contract is not enforced and teachers feel VTO
is not doing enough for them,” Spar told the Orlando Sentinel.
* In Wyoming, a group
of seven teachers from one junior high school resigned from the Natrona
County Education Association (NCEA), saying there was “a deterioration of
the democratic processes within the union.” This would hardly be worth
mentioning, except one of the seven teachers is Holly Thompson, former NCEA
president and former vice president of the Wyoming Education Association.
* In New York, a losing
candidates for president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) initiated
attempts to throw out the vote results that reelected Philip Rumore. Rumore
has been the BTF president for 22 years. Susan M. Frawley claimed that
Rumore “inappropriately used his position and office” in the campaign.
“Unseating Mr. Rumore is beginning to be more about hanging chads that about
true representation of teachers,” Frawley told the Buffalo News.
Rumore called the charges “totally without substance” and told the News,
“I don’t need to do anything improper to win.”
* In New York, Linda
Nash, the former president of the Rochester Association of
Paraprofessionals, was indicted on counts of felony grand larceny, and tax
and labor law violations in connection with her alleged personal misuse of
union funds, totaling about $170,000. Since Nash’s ouster, the union “has
begun a practice of reporting financial details to the members,” according
to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
* In Pennsylvania, 57
union members filed suit against the Scranton Federation of Teachers in an
attempt to force a general membership meeting. The union is divided over the
legitimacy of a recall vote that some claim ousted President Jacque
Petherick. The plaintiffs want the general membership meeting to establish
constitutional changes and settle the leadership question once and for all.
* In New York,
Plainview-Old Bethpage Congress of Teachers President Morty Rosenfeld
published a letter from two retired members that called on the local union
to “vote to disaffiliate from NEA New York and to simultaneously rejoin
NYSUT (New York State United Teachers).” Rosenfeld called their argument
“the beginning of a discussion that I have already begun to have with the
officers and executive board of our union.”
4) America’s Best
Public Schools? During June and
July, both the reading and writing scores from the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) tests were released. Widely considered to be the
most reliable evaluation of the status of America’s students, the NAEP tests
also provide crucial information on achievement among various sub-groups –
in particular racial/ethnic minorities and the poor.
One set of public
schools consistently show high achievement on the NAEP tests, and did so
again in the latest reading and writing assessments. The Department of
Defense Dependents Schools (DoDDS) and the Domestic Dependent Elementary and
Secondary Schools (DDESS) serve the children of military members overseas
and at home, respectively. Ranked against the 50 states and the District of
Columbia, DoDDS schools ranked no lower than fifth in reading and writing
among fourth- and eighth-graders. DDESS schools ranked no lower than fourth
on the same tests.
Even more striking were
the results for minority students when compared to their peers of the same
racial/ethnic group. African-American and Hispanic students who attend
Department of Defense schools ranked first, second or third on each test.
Teachers and support
staff in these schools are represented by the Federal Education Association
(FEA), an affiliate of the NEA. The union is justifiably proud of the
students’ scores. “These results are testimony to the military community’s
emphasis on education and to the incredibly hard work put forth by FEA
members in the schools everyday,” said FEA President Sheridan Pierce after
the NAEP reading scores were released.
Defense Department
schools may be unique and impossible to recreate in any other venue, but it
seems to me that a public school system with high-achieving students
(particularly minorities), higher per-pupil spending (but not outrageously
so), union representation that embraces the information garnered by test
scores rather than damning it out of hand, and a relatively functional
relationship between labor and management, has something to satisfy all
sides in the education wars. Aren’t these schools worth trying to
emulate in some way, rather than dismissing them as an aberration?
5) Growth Doesn’t
Balance Budget in Pennsylvania.
With so many NEA state affiliates losing members, the Pennsylvania State
Education Association (PSEA) can take pride in its steady growth. The
union’s membership grew 2.3 percent in 2002 to reach 141,509 active members,
and added several hundred new members during 2003. But, as occurred in Ohio,
Illinois and Missouri, membership growth hasn’t translated to financial
security, and PSEA is planning to reduce staff in order to balance its
budget for 2003-04. PSEA has a history of labor unrest and the staff
contract expires at the end of August. This situation bears watching.
6)
Quote of the Week.
“…strenuous efforts by the California teachers’ union to block NBA star
Kevin Johnson from starting a charter school to replace his alma mater,
‘low-performing’ Sacramento High School in a largely minority neighborhood
of the state capitol. Note to California Teachers Association: You can’t buy
bad publicity like that!” – Blogger Mickey Kaus, from his July 3
kausfiles in the online publication Slate. (http://slate.msn.com/id/2085262/) |
