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1) School Staffing Survey Provides Perspective.
Education researchers have waited patiently for the latest Schools and
Staffing Survey from the National Center for Education Statistics and we
finally have what the federal agency is calling a "first look" at
Teacher Attrition and Mobility. It's a target-rich environment, but
let's begin by being generous with some of the believers in high teacher
turnover.
The categories used by NCES in computing teacher
turnover don't match up neatly with those used by Richard Ingersoll and the
citers of the "half of all new teachers leave the profession within the
first five years" claim, but the data benefit them in that the NCES numbers
move the claim from unsubstantiated to arguable.
If you work the raw numbers from Table 2 of the report,
you find that in 2005 about 8.6 percent of teachers with three years of
experience or less left the profession. Crunch the numbers again, and the
rate for teachers with nine years of experience or less was 8.2 percent. So,
let's split the difference and assume the rate for teachers with five years
of experience or less was 8.4 percent. Accumulated over five years, it would
mean 42 percent of new teachers leave the profession in the first five
years.
I'm willing to get off my hobby horse and concede that,
for sound bite purposes, 42 percent is close enough to qualify as "about
half."
From there, let's head over to Table 6, which tries to
help us understand why they leave the profession. The NCES
questionnaire allowed respondents to choose more than one reason (the
average respondent chose two), but the percentages are still useful.
Teacher union talking points would have us believe that
teachers leave because of poor pay, lousy working conditions, and lack of
respect and support. Certainly, these problems were mentioned by the
leavers:
* 14.2% cited "better salary or benefits" as a reason
for leaving.
* 14.6% cited being "dissatisfied with teaching as a
career."
* 16.0% cited being "dissatisfied with previous school
or teaching assignment."
* 25.3% cited a desire to "pursue a position other than
that of K-12 teacher" (which could include becoming a vice principal,
principal, or other school administration job).
* 5.3% cited a desire "to take courses to improve
career opportunities outside the field of education."
These are actual problems. School administrators and
politicians alike need to examine such dissatisfaction and, where possible,
correct it. But let's not overstate it. These percentages pale when compared
to the other reasons cited for leaving:
* 31.4% retired.
* 18.7% cited "pregnancy or child rearing."
* 11.8% cited "health."
* 14.6% were laid off or otherwise left involuntarily.
* 11.2% changed residence.
* 8.9% cited the desire "to take courses to improve
career opportunities within the field of education."
* 20.4% cited "other family or personal reasons."
These latter reasons have nothing to do with teaching
as a career. They are common to all careers and are therefore unlikely to be
affected by changes in education policy. Move on to Table 7 and you find
that 29.1 percent of leavers are still working in the field of education,
just not as K-12 teachers.
Add this all up and you don't rid yourself of the
problem of teacher turnover, but you get some much-needed context in an
environment where there are stark differences between reality and the
requirements of political agendas.
2) Card Check May Not Be the Panacea Unions Want.
Card check legislation is the Holy Grail of the labor movement this year, so
its possible effects bear examining. The AFL-CIO is very proud of the fact
that it helped elect Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2002, with the
subsequent result of card check legislation for public sector workers being
signed into law in 2003.
The purpose of card check is to increase unionization
rates and reverse the decades-long decline in union membership in the United
States. But the statistics in Illinois, one of the strongest labor states in
the country, make you wonder if card check will really stop the juggernaut
and turn it around.
In 2003, the final year without card check in Illinois,
the state had 727,894 public sector workers, of whom 362,316 were union
members (49.8%). In 2006, the unionization rate was 49.5%. In other words,
of the 51,000 additional public employees hired in Illinois since card check
was enacted, only 45 percent joined a union.
3) Washington Education Association Tosses a Hail
Mary. You have to admire the spheres of the Washington Education
Association. Apparently the union is more than a little worried about how
oral arguments went in
Davenport v. Washington Education Association and came up with a
unique, if a little desperate, solution.
If the U.S. Supreme Court decision goes against the
union, WEA will not be able to collect and spend political money without
"affirmative authorization" of employees. Before waiting to see how this
turns out, WEA had its minions in the state legislature
introduce bills that would effectively exempt unions from the
ramifications of an adverse court decision.
But the nervy part is that the union included an
"emergency clause" in the legislation, which would put it into immediate
effect and protect it against being overturned in a voter referendum. Since
the law at issue in the U.S. Supreme Court case passed in 1992, it's
difficult for WEA to argue that, almost 15 years later, it's an emergency.
4) Agency Fee Battles in Iowa and Maine.
There's a big stink in Iowa about a proposed agency fee law (see
here and
here), but this isn't news to EIA readers (see
Item #5). As is usual with stories about agency fee, reporters missed an
important detail. A
similar fracas in Maine gets closer to the point, but fails to mention
it flat out.
The standard union talking point on agency fee is that
non-members are freeloading on the benefits they receive from union
representation.
"I think it's unfair to the people who pay dues," said
one Iowa State Education Association member. "I've felt strongly for a long
time that these people are basically getting a free ride on the back of the
dues-paying members."
This is arguable on its face, but let's skip that and
get to the question of why unions would be forced by law to represent
non-members, regardless of whether they pay a fee or not. Despite what
you're hearing, it's not because evil politicians want to destroy unions.
The duty of fair representation – that is, the
requirement to look after all workers in a bargaining unit - is the price a
union pays in exchange for its exclusive status (the
reason it was created is edifying). The union receives the legal
privilege of preventing any individual or agent or organization from
negotiating pay and working conditions with the employer. If unions really
thought non-members were moochers, they have a simple way to remedy the
situation that doesn't involve state laws and millions in political
contributions: Cut them loose and let them sink or swim on their own.
Ah, but then you'd have competition for representation.
Some people might negotiate their own terms of employment. Others might hire
an agent. More likely, they would bring in a competing union.
Whether this would actually create chaos, as school
administrators and union officials claim, will probably not be debated. Nor
will the question of the marginal costs for the union of negotiating a
contract that covers non-members. Nor the question of the actual amount of
money unions spend processing grievances of non-members. Let the battles
begin.
5) Teachers and Hourly Rates. The Manhattan
Institute released a report claiming the
average teacher makes $34.06 an hour and educators, predictably, went
nuts. One of the biggest complaints was that teaching is a profession,
requiring many extra hours of work off the clock, and not an assembly line
job. This is true. But someone ought to inform the folks who negotiate
teacher contracts of this fact.
Most teacher contracts contain a negotiated daily rate
of pay, and many contain hourly rates of pay for various duties. These rates
are computed based on the minimum hours required by the contract, and do not
include what we can call the "professional hours."
As an example, here's a weird story from the
New York Daily News about a teacher who took on an extra duty
providing home instruction for a sick student. The story is about the fact
that the teacher still collected her fee after the student died, but that's
irrelevant for our purposes. The city's department of education paid her
$37.96 an hour in additional pay for this extra duty.
Because of the way collective bargaining agreements are
structured, both sides are correct in the teacher pay debate. For the hours
and days they are contractually obligated to work, teachers are compensated
at a rate above that of most other professions, just as the Manhattan
Institute reports. However, the contract tacitly acknowledges that teachers
perform work beyond that required in the contract, for which no compensation
is demanded or paid. Thus, on an annual basis, teacher pay lags behind other
professions.
So we can argue until we're blue in the face about the
level of teacher pay (and some people seem perfectly eager to do so), but
the reason the comparisons to other professions are all flawed is because
teachers' work days, work years, and salary structure are unique. When it
comes to pay, in the private sector and most of the public sector, you're
either a clock-puncher or you're not. In public education, you're both.
6) Nevada Union President Hired as Executive
Director. Terry Hickman of the Nevada State Education Association is the
second NEA official to make the jump from sitting president of a state
affiliate to executive director of the same affiliate. Lu Battaglieri of the
Michigan Education Association
blazed the trail in this regard. Now you can officially count Hickman as
one of those teachers who has left the profession.
7) March Video Intercepts. I've posted
the EIA Video Intercept for March 2007 in advance. Enjoy!
8) See You Next Month. I'm heading off to
South America and will spend some time in both
Argentina and the Falklands, as we approach the 25th anniversary of the
Falklands War. I'll be visiting the battlefields and I hope to write
something insightful about the conflict and its aftermath when I return.
The next communiqué won't
appear until Monday, March 12, but Intercepts will be updated each
weekday during my absence with essays submitted by readers, plus a couple of
special tidbits. So even though I'll be away, I hope you'll stick around.
9) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from February 5-12:
* Could
Low Pay Be the Culprit? The treasurer of the Delaware State Education
Association is indicted for fraud. The union says he had no access to union
finances, but fires him anyway. See also
He Needs a Union Rep.
* Arkansas
to Cut the Flab (Report Cards). Self-esteem trumps childhood obesity.
* Shave
and a Haircut, Two Bits (Plus Tax).
Taxpayers are literally taken to the cleaners.
10)
Quote of the Week.
"It's a
misunderstanding that we had, so we had to take ourselves out of it." –
Linda Lipsen of the American Association for Justice (trial lawyers),
explaining why her group left a coalition of liberal and labor
organizations, created "to keep Democratic lawmakers from straying on
populist issues." (see
here, Item #3) (February 6
Associated Press) |
