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The EIA Operations Center remains under siege. The
FBI has dispatched
a negotiator to gain control of the
Audio X-Files, but they are still preparing for more
direct action. EIA cannot match the federal firepower, but must rely on
its
secret weapon.
1) Buffalo Affiliation with NYSUT in Serious Doubt.
This Friday, September 1, there will be only one statewide teachers' union
in New York, and NEA New York will cease to exist. At that point its largest
local, the Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) will be in legal and
administrative limbo, because it has yet to declare its intentions regarding
affiliation with the merged New York State United Teachers (NYSUT).
Negotiations between BTF President Phil Rumore and top
officials at NYSUT continued all summer and were largely cordial. In the
past few weeks, however, the mood has gotten more and more combative, to the
point where Buffalo's affiliation with NYSUT now has to be considered less
than a 50-50 proposition.
The issues and personalities defy quick summary, but it
is clear that BTF wants more services from the huge, merged NYSUT than it
was getting from financial basket case NEA New York. BTF also wants a
measure of autonomy when it comes to PAC recommendations and funding.
BTF plans what seems to be a rank-and-file vote for
next month on affiliation, but this alone has caused tensions with NYSUT.
NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi informed Rumore that the state union would
"communicate with your membership" prior to the vote about the advantages of
affiliation. Rumore doesn't want NYSUT campaigning for affiliation in
Buffalo.
Communications between the two sides have become more
and more strained, with NYSUT warning about the "isolation of BTF and its
members from the rest of the education union community," and BTF
characterizing such statements as "not-so-veiled threats."
Rumore was able to make some veiled threats of his own.
In delineating all the services BTF would be able to provide its members if
it wasn't sending dues money to NYSUT, AFT and NEA, Rumore noted that his
union "would no doubt be able to place $500,000 - $700,000 per year in our
reserves for future contingencies." Such "future contingencies," EIA
believes, surely include any attempted raiding by NYSUT.
Two weeks ago, the BTF Executive Committee unanimously
rejected NYSUT's list of offered services.
These are two unions negotiating, so it's still
possible that all this heat will dissipate and a settlement will be reached.
And there's no reason for NYSUT to perceive an independent BTF as a threat
to solidarity. The comparatively sized
Akron Education Association operates independently in Ohio without much
rancor from either the Ohio Education Association or the Ohio Federation of
Teachers.
But, as the Change to Win unions learned, any
dissension within a labor organization creates a lot of anger, and this has
to be dealt with before BTF can work with NYSUT, either as a new affiliate
or as an independent local union.
2) The Detroit Teacher, Str--, Uh, Thing.
Your local newspaper this morning probably
contained the wire story that the Detroit Federation of Teachers voted to go
on strike. But that's not entirely accurate. The union instead voted to go
on "strike." The reason for the distinction is that public employee strikes
are illegal in Michigan. "Strikes" are what happens when public employees
don't show up for work and march around in picket lines outside their places
of employment, despite the law.
If you think I'm making this
up, have a look at
this flyer. It was distributed to union members at Cobo Arena prior to
the "strike" vote yesterday. Its title refers to a job action, and states
quite clearly that public employee strikes are forbidden by state law. The
rest of the flyer answers questions about "strikes," including one that
reads, "The employee also has an opportunity to be heard and to challenge
the employer's assertion that he or she was on 'strike.'"
This flyer lists the rules of conduct for the picket line. Item #19
reads, "The Union will provide picket signs; however, additional signs may
be handmade. DO NOT USE THE WORD 'STRIKE' on any picket
sign." (emphasis in original)
EIA has previously
sermonized against no-strike laws, so there's no point in repeating that
argument. It's a different matter to let the union claim the moral high
ground while hiding behind a legalistic pretense to avoid the consequences
of its actions.
3) "Who Are Those Guys?"
Yet another reporter
failed to ask that critical question when approached by
Communities for Quality Education, the NEA front group created in 2004
(originally as "America
Learns") to disembowel the No Child Left Behind Act.
This time it was Kati Phillips of the
Daily Southtown in Illinois who happily reported the results of a
CQE poll on education spending without bothering to find out what CQE was or
who pays its bills. NEA is mentioned nowhere on the CQE web site, nor are
its officers listed. Shouldn't curiosity alone prompt a Google search?
Hat tip:
Illinois Loop.
4) School Choice Black Market Resurfaces.
Illegal immigration is all the rage in the public policy debate these days,
but the enthusiasm for creating school district border patrols seems to
cross party lines.
The New York Times is the latest to examine the issue EIA has dubbed
"the
black market in school choice" – parents who lie about their residency
in order to enroll their kids in better schools. Reporter Joseph Berger gets
points for wondering whether hiring private investigators to conduct
surveillance on students' homes is cost-effective, never mind its
obtrusiveness.
But we have to take those points away because of this
sentence: "One way to resolve the differences is to think of the rules
governing out-of-district pupils in the same way as marijuana laws. There
should be a law to keep marijuana under control, but police don't arrest all
the smokers they see because the prisons couldn't hold them."
In reaching for a
relevant analogy, Berger picked a really bad one. Parents who want to put
their kids in a better school, but can't afford to live in the proper
neighborhood, shouldn't be equated with pot smokers. Nevertheless, ignore
Berger's reefer madness and read the worthwhile article.
5) How to Make an Easy $225,000 in Nevada.
The
Nevada legislature paid $225,000 to consultants Augenblick, Palaich and
Associates to study the state's education spending and report to the
Committee on School Funding Adequacy. They came back with the recommendation
that the state increase its spending by $3,600 per pupil – an increase of
about 80 percent.
Where did they come up with that number? The
Las Vegas Review-Journal reported "the spending recommendations came
from a series of private panel discussions with 39 educators across the
state."
Since the public was not present at these panel
discussions, we can only assume the legislators paid the consultants
$225,000 to put 39 public employees in a room and ask them "How much money
would you like?"
How can EIA get a
gig like that?
6) Teamsters vs. NEA in Nevada Probably Headed to
Court. There is no end in sight to the five-year battle between the
Teamsters and NEA over the representation rights of some 10,000 education
support workers in Clark County, Nevada. The workers are currently
represented by the NEA-affiliated Education Support Employees Association (ESEA).
After years of legal and administrative wrangling, Teamsters Local 14 was
able to force an election last May, which it "won" by 2,711 to 1,932 (93
voted for "no union").
Unfortunately for the Teamsters, the law calls for a
majority of eligible voters, not a majority of ballots cast. To win, the
Teamsters needed to gain more than 5,200 votes. Only 4,736 ballots were
cast.
The Nevada labor relations board certified the election
results, leaving ESEA as the exclusive representative. The Teamsters
submitted a motion stating that since neither union met the majority
threshold, "no union" won the election. The board replied that it had
exhausted its jurisdiction and could take no further action.
EIA doubts the Teamsters would go through all the
effort and expense to force an election and outpoll the opposition, only to
leave ESEA in charge. Expect this one to land in the laps of the judges and
lawyers.
7) The Education Omelet.
Suppose you wanted to
make an omelet. You have more than enough eggs, onions and mushrooms, but
you have no peppers. Would you buy more onions and mushrooms because you
were short of vegetables?
That seems to be
the preferred solution to the teacher supply problem in places where it
exists. The Arkansas legislature recently received a report titled "Teacher
Supply and Demand in Arkansas," meant to address chronic teacher shortages
in the state.
The Arkansas News
Bureau published a story on the problem headlined, "Need
to find ways to keep teachers teaching, lawmakers told." But it takes
until the 12th paragraph to get this vital tidbit of information:
"In the report, Wilson said the state has enough teachers, but that some
areas are reporting shortages of teachers of some subjects."
And it isn't until
the 16th and final paragraph that you learn that "The highest
percentage of surpluses were found in elementary education, with 81 percent
of schools reported (sic) more than enough teachers in that area."
Since elementary
education teachers comprise the majority of the public school teaching force
in any state, there are two questions that should be answered: a) How do we
persuade teachers to specialize in the shortage areas of math, science and
special education, rather than join the overstaffed elementary education
field? and b) Why is the 16th paragraph never, ever the lead
paragraph in a story on teacher supply and demand?
8) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from August 21-28:
*
New Medical Evidence Suggests Union Corruption Causes Ailments - Former
Washington Teachers Union Treasurer James O. Baxter's pain in the neck won't
keep him out of prison. He should have used
more imagination.
*
Knowing What You Don't Know – Reasonable people can disagree about
various education reforms. But how should we weigh the opinions of those who
admit they don't know what they're talking about?
*
How Education Policy Is Made in Sacramento – The California
legislature's reading problems are more worrisome than those of the state's
fourth-graders.
9) Scheduling Note.
The next EIA Communiqué
will appear on Tuesday, September 5.
10) Quote of the Week.
Another excerpt from
AFT's Audio X-Files: "[Name redacted] interacts with the people on the Hill,
all of whom love her, one, because she's a great person, and two, because
she's the one who delivers all the PAC checks." |
