|
1) CTA to Vote on Admitting Support Employees. In June, the State
Council of the California Teachers Association will vote on a bylaw change
that would allow the union to organize education support employees.
CTA is one of the few NEA state affiliates that do not represent support
employees, though the union does have some as members through special
arrangements. Most support employees in the state are represented by the
independent
California School Employees Association.
As
EIA reported on this story last month, the bylaw change has the
potential to create a rift between CTA and CSEA. CTA is already offering
assurances that it has no designs on raiding CSEA locals, but merely wants
to make its current support employees full members, and have the option of
creating wall-to-wall units in charter schools. One wonders, however, if CTA
would view such a move as innocent if the positions were reversed, and CSEA
announced it would organize teachers.
CSEA did not respond to a request for comment.
2) Ohio Per-Pupil Spending Boosted by Charter Enrollment.
You don't
have go far to find this complaint about charter schools in Ohio:
"In addition to the academic inferiority of the majority of Ohio's charter
schools, there is a significant adverse fiscal impact to local school
districts. The state funding formula creates an inequity in the funding
given for a student enrolled in a public school and that same student
enrolled in a charter school. Ohio's state-funded, privately operated
charter schools are well-funded at the same time public school districts are
mired in the throes of a funding crisis. In each of the last three fiscal
years, more than half of Ohio's school districts were forced to engage in
deficit spending in order to operate."
That quote is from a letter from Ohio Education Association President Gary
Allen to the New York Times, in response to a July 13, 2005 article
about charter schools. It is a standard talking point, particularly in Ohio,
that charter schools strip regular public schools of funding. But does the
argument hold water?
EIA's school district spending and enrollment tables, updated with the
latest U.S. Census data, show clearly what happened in public school
spending in Ohio during the three years referred to by Allen in his letter
to the Times. And the effect was opposite that claimed by OEA.
Most of Ohio's charter schools are located in six of the state's seven
largest school districts. Only the sixth-ranked South-Western City School
District lacks a significant group of charters, and is the only one of the
top seven that experienced enrollment growth in the years between 2000-01
and 2003-04.
Here are the enrollment and per-pupil spending statistics for the other six:
State average – enrollment down 2.04%, per-pupil spending up 19.53%,
spending on employees up 19.83%
Cleveland - enrollment down 7.97%, per-pupil spending up 19.29%, spending on
employees up 24.80%
Columbus - enrollment down 2.19%, per-pupil spending up 18.47%, spending on
employees up 22.11%
Cincinnati - enrollment down 13.29%, per-pupil spending up 39.08%, spending
on employees up 37.89%
Toledo - enrollment down 8.62%, per-pupil spending up 29.37%, spending on
employees up 32.34%
Akron - enrollment down 8.42%, per-pupil spending up 25.08%, spending on
employees up 26.40%
Dayton - enrollment down 21.39%, per-pupil spending up 21.86%, spending on
employees up 32.40%
Does this mean the state and local governments are actually plowing more
money into districts with declining enrollment? Not necessarily, but it
seems the district workforce does not decline commensurate with enrollment.
Same payroll or higher, with fewer students, equals higher per-pupil
spending for regular public schools.
If it's a win-win situation for all involved, why are the unions so opposed
to charter schools? Simple. This lovely arrangement can't last forever.
Eventually enrollment declines have to lead to layoffs, attrition and other
staff reductions. As unionized employees retire or are laid off, and the
students they used to teach increasingly enroll in non-union charter
schools, the union eventually ends up in a membership death spiral.
Each teacher working in a charter is some $440 in annual dues not being
received by OEA. With more than 85,000 Ohio students enrolled in charters,
it's really starting to cost OEA some money.
3) Damned If You Do… "People sometimes forget that they're
experimental schools that do experimental work with children, and we have to
be extremely cautious when that's going on." -- Sharon Palmer, president of
AFT Connecticut,
talking about charter schools.
4) …And Damned If You Don't. "Charter schools were supposed to
experiment with new curricula and classroom practices, but they have proven
no more innovative than other public schools…. The company-run schools do
not contribute to innovation because they offer a single 'cookie-cutter'
school design, curriculum and technology package to all the schools they
operate." – from pages 6 and 7 of
Do Charter Schools Measure Up?, an AFT study of charter schools from
July 2002.
5) New York Merger Up for Vote This Weekend. Approval doesn't appear
to be in any doubt, but members of the NEA New York Delegate Assembly will
vote in Rochester this weekend on whether to merge with the AFT-affiliated
New York State United Teachers. If approved (and subsequently approved by
NYSUT, as expected) the New York union will become the fourth merged NEA-AFT
state affiliate beginning in September 2006.
The only remaining question after that is:
what will Phil Rumore do?
6) How Spell Check Can Let You Down. The March issue of
NEA-AKtivist, the organ of NEA Alaska, displays this headline on
page 4:
"Assistant executive director position open – Women and members of ethic
minority groups urged to apply"
Some might say that
NEA Alaska is a trailblazer in hiring from this traditionally
underrepresented group.
7) School Repairs Fund Does Wonders… for Lawyers. The San Diego
Union-Tribune reported that a $200 million fund created for emergency
repairs of California's low-performing schools
has spent only $247,000 in two years.
The creation of the fund was part of a settlement reached in a class action
lawsuit against the state filed in 2000. Under the terms of the settlement,
schools must pay for the repairs then apply for reimbursement from the
state. Evidently school districts are understandably worried that they might
not receive the state money or that there could be long delays.
While hardly any money has repaired broken-down schools, the law firm
representing the state of California received $11.5 million, while the
plaintiffs' attorneys received $14 million.
8) Dues Going Up. GA few weeks ago, EIA reported next year's dues
levels for a number of NEA state affiliates (item
#4). Here are two more. The Indiana State Teachers Association plans a
$9 state dues increase, and the Wisconsin Education Association Council is
proposing an $8 increase.
9) Last week's Intercepts. EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from April 18-23:
*
Immovable Object, But No Irresistible Force.
The California Teachers Association has proven it can stop almost anything.
But can it move its own agenda?
*
School Budget Revolution? Will New Jersey Gov.
Jon Corzine be the next Democratic governor to run afoul of the teachers’
union?
*
Who Wants to Be a Chemist? An elementary
school program venerates Rachel Carson, but was her work as valuable as that
of Paul Hermann Müller?
*
The Case for Schadenfreude. The head of the
Michigan AFL-CIO blames everyone else for the decline of unions.
10)
Quote of the Week.
"I've never
heard of a hunger strike for card checks." – University of Miam President
(and former Clinton administration U.S. Secretary of Health and Human
Services) Donna Shalala, commenting on a hunger strike by janitors and
students in support of a unionization drive at the university. SEIU wants
the union recognized on the basis of a card check, rather than through a
secret-ballot election. (April
18 New York Times) |
