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1) Nearly One-Third of AFT Employees
Earn Six-Figure Salaries. The American Federation
of Teachers may be in second place in a two-horse race to represent the
nation's teachers, but you wouldn't know that from the organization's
payroll.
According to its federal disclosure
report, AFT had 351 employees and executives and a payroll of almost $29
million last year. That's an average salary of more than $82,100. One
hundred and ten of those employees earned salaries in excess of $100,000.
The parade is led by AFT President
Edward McElroy, with a base salary of $281,256. McElroy also received
$32,892 in taxable allowances, not included in the above computations. AFT
Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour received $229,949 and Executive Vice
President Antonia Cortese made $180,072. Chief of Staff Ronald Krouse and
organizing director Philip Kugler were the high earners among staffers with
$190,201 each. AFT spent an additional $10.9 million on benefits, an average
of more than $31,000 per employee.
2) Membership Numbers Not Adding Up.
The new U.S. Department of Labor disclosure reports provide a breakdown of
membership by categories of active, student, retired and agency fee payers,
the same as the teacher unions use to report membership figures to their
members. This should make it relatively easy to compare one to other. But
something seems off.
Last week, EIA's report on the AFT
indicated the large difference between the union's advertised 1.3 million
members, and its LM-2 report to the Labor Department of 828,500. Though the
disparity is not as great, the Illinois Education Association's (IEA)
numbers also show significant differences.
IEA reported an active membership to NEA
in 2003-04 of 116,535, which was an increase of 0.9 percent from the
previous year. IEA is one of a very few NEA state affiliates that have
maintained increased growth in what are clearly lean years. But the union's
LM-2 report for 2004-05 claims only 110,838 active members, which would
constitute a significant decrease in just one year.
The LM-2 for the Michigan Education
Association has not yet been posted, but it should also prove interesting.
This time last year, the union had 108,000 full-time equivalent members.
This year, MEA budgeted for 106,000 FTEs. It is unclear whether the union
expected that dramatic a drop in membership, or whether it simply budgeted
low in order to avoid sinking back into the deficit that bedeviled MEA in
2002-03.
3) Adequacy Lawsuit Dismissed in
Nebraska. Lawsuits seeking "adequate" funding are
all the rage in public education circles (expect to see one in Oklahoma by
the end of the year), but at least one district court judge in Nebraska has
the revolutionary notion that such arguments are the proper purview of the
legislature.
Judge John A. Colborn dismissed an
adequacy lawsuit brought by the Nebraska Coalition for Educational Equity
and Adequacy (NCEEA) earlier this month, ruling such an issue was not
judicable. The NCEEA plans to appeal to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
4) Statewide Teachers Contract in
Vermont? At a press conference two weeks ago,
Vermont Gov. James Douglas said a statewide teachers contract is "worthy of
consideration" as a way to prevent future strikes, such as the bitter one
recently settled in the town of Colchester.
This is particularly odd reasoning,
since the only state that has a statewide teachers contract is Hawaii, and
it had a three-week strike in 2001, only narrowly avoided a strike in 1997,
and had another three-week strike in 1973.
5) Nebraska Pipeline.
For a long time EIA has pointed out how rising to the presidency of a
teachers' union usually requires strict advancement along the royal line,
much like the Tudor kings (March
8, 1999, Item 5). But in Nebraska, the royal line extends even beyond
the state union presidency.
Duane Obermeier, who served as president
of the Nebraska State Education Association from 1998 to July 2005, was
recently hired as a UniServ director by NSEA. This practice is not all that
unusual, except that Obermeier's predecessor as NSEA president, Craig R.
Christiansen, also served two three-year terms before he was hired as a
UniServ director by NSEA. Christiansen is now a part of NSEA management, as
an associate executive director, so Obermeier's next job seems predestined.
6) Headline of the Year.
"Semi-nude teachers run amok" above a story about a delegation of activists
from the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) who reportedly
"paraded drunk and semi-naked through the corridors of a hotel," among other
escapades.
This isn't the first time SADTU
delegates have gotten into trouble. See "Your
Choice: Contract Negotiations or Hostage Negotiations" and "A
Place Where the Teachers' Union Is a Terrorist Organization."
7) Maine Local Treasurer Charged
with Felony Theft. Jeffrey Olson, for 20 years the
treasurer of the SAD 34 Education Association in Maine, was charged with
felony theft for stealing $150,000 from the local union over the past six
years. Olson may have been able to keep his theft a secret for so long
because he never missed making the local's dues payment to the state union.
Olson had been
under investigation for several months. He is out on bail and has
resigned his position as a high school math teacher.
8) Scheduling Note.
The next EIA Communiqué will appear on Tuesday, November 8.
9) Quote of
the Week.
"If the United States is to preserve our system of free
public schools, teacher unions are going to have to stop accepting the
status quo and making excuses for the poor performance of our students." –
Morty Rosenfeld, member of the NEA New York board of directors,
now infected because of his mention here. (October 17
Teacher Talk) |
