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A lot of ground to cover, so I'll keep the items short
so as not to tax your attention span:
1) Did NEA Help Derail Hagel's Presidential Plans?
In a rather odd event today, U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel announced that he
wasn't yet ready to announce plans for his political future. There has been
speculation that Hagel wants to enter the 2008 race for the Republican
Presidential nomination. It was Hagel's second odd event in a month, and EIA
wonders if the two are connected.
On February 9, Sen. Hagel became the first elected
national Republican in living memory to address a meeting of the NEA Board
of Directors. Hagel received a warm welcome from the union directors,
particularly after NEA President Reg Weaver introduced him as someone who
was opposed to school vouchers.
To his credit, Hagel didn't let that big meatball just
lie there, but told his audience that he was opposed to any voucher programs
at the federal level, and that state voucher programs were the business of
each individual state (Holy cow! Is he a federalist?)
Unfortunately for Hagel, his clarification didn't sit
well with his new NEA friends, and the temperature in the room cooled
considerably.
Whatever ambitions Hagel has for the White House, they
ride on his niche as the "aisle-crossing candidate." His NEA experience
probably didn't make him feel better about his chances.
2) NEA to Revive Booster Club Proposal. NEA's
attempt to create a category of associate membership fell short at last
year's convention, but the union will try again this July in Philadelphia.
This would open NEA membership to people not employed in public education.
Why? Well,
as EIA revealed last year, NEA can only collect PAC money from members,
so associate membership would help the union deal with its collection
problem. Only
seven percent of NEA members currently donate to the national PAC.
There will also be a proposal to immediately increase
contributions to the union's ballot initiative and legislative crisis fund
to $10 per member per year. The money is disseminated to state affiliates to
support or defeat ballot measures or legislation the union deems important.
This proposal simply accelerates a previously approved gradual increase to
the fund.
During the 2006 campaign, NEA divided its staff into
two groups and placed a virtual wall between them, in order to allow one
group to operate in support of candidates and subject to federal election
regulations, and the other to distance itself from candidates, but operate
under the rules of union political activity. This must have worked well
because NEA will make the set-up permanent. The union's Government Relations
department will now have a Public Policy section to handled traditional
lobbying activities, while the Campaigns and Elections section will work to
recruit and support candidates for federal office.
3) Utahns for Public Schools = NEA UniServ.
With the passage of a statewide voucher program into law in Utah, opponents
have decided to gather signatures for a referendum that would first suspend,
then overturn the law. The main group is working under the banner
Utahns for Public Schools. An alert EIA reader noticed something unusual
about the organization. Upon deeper investigation, the roots of Utahns for
Public Schools are beginning to show.
On its website, the coalition describes itself as "a
group of parents, teachers, and others interested in the quality of
education provided to Utah children." This sounds a lot better to the
general public and the press than "a group of employees and officers of the
Utah Education Association and the Utah PTA."
The organization lists 128 names as county contacts for
people interested in signing or distributing the petition against the
voucher law. The 128 names are of 50 individuals, almost all of whom can be
identified by very specific job titles.
Of the 50 people, 13 are UniServ directors employed by
the Utah Education Association, whose pay is subsidized by grants from the
National Education Association. Another 12 contacts are elected officers or
representatives of the Utah Education Association and its local affiliates,
and another 14 contacts are regional directors of the Utah PTA. The jobs of
the other 11 contacts could not be immediately determined.
4) Local That Inspired Solidarity Partnership
Denied AFL-CIO Membership. Remember the
Labor Solidarity Partnership Agreement between NEA and the AFL-CIO? The
agreement allows NEA locals to affiliate directly with the AFL-CIO. Last
week, the AFL-CIO issued the first four charters under the agreement to NEA
locals: the Seattle Education Association, the Rialto Education Association
in California, the Beloit Education Association in Wisconsin, and the
University of the District of Columbia Faculty Association. Representing
about 6,000 NEA members, they constitute four of the five NEA locals that
applied for an AFL-CIO charter.
Who was rejected? Ironically, it was the Jefferson
County Teachers Association (JCTA), NEA's affiliate in Louisville, Kentucky,
who instigated the solidarity partnership process when it wanted to join the
local AFL-CIO central labor council but was turned down due to lack of
AFL-CIO affiliation. JCTA took its problem to NEA, and the ultimate result
was the partnership agreement.
Unfortunately for JCTA, while the process was going
forward the union joined the Kentucky chapter of the Change to Win
coalition, which is made up of unions that left the AFL-CIO in 2005. The
AFL-CIO cited this as a reason to reject JCTA's application.
The labor federation stated that more NEA locals are
"in the pipeline" for affiliation, but did not identify these.
5) Ousted Miami-Dade Union Treasurer Fires Back on
Website. EIA has reported extensively on the suspension and subsequent
firing of
Pamela Sturrup as secretary-treasurer of the United Teachers of Dade.
The union charged Sturrup with dereliction of duty and
making unsubstantiated allegations against UTD's executive officers. Sturrup
accused the UTD president of altering the terms of a promissory note
involving AFT, which stemmed from debts incurred due to the
Pat Tornillo scandal.
You can read the union's version of events here.
Fortunately, we now can get Sturrup's side of the
story. She has posted a large amount of material and narrative at
http://www.pamelasturrup.com. EIA directs your attention to "The Inside
Scoop at UTD," in which Sturrup defends her actions, and lists a number of
allegations of questionable financial practices by the current UTD
leadership.
Maybe Sturrup is disgruntled and fabricating all of
this. But it's difficult to dismiss her out of hand after UTD's previous
history with whistleblowers. EIA is reminded of the lesson of
Jilda Unruh and her dogged pursuit of Pat Tornillo's excesses. After
Tornillo's plea deal, Unruh interviewed AFT Administrator Mark Richard, who
told her, "It seems to me if people had listened to those earlier reports
and took them more seriously, maybe I wouldn't be in front of this camera
today. Maybe there wouldn't be a need for administratorship." And let's not
forget what happened to James Angleton, the UTD employee who called the FBI
on Tornillo in the first place (see
Item #3 here).
Sturrup deserves her soapbox.
6) Zullinger Out After Eight Months as South
Carolina Executive Director. Multiple sources inform EIA that the South
Carolina Education Association has removed Chip Zullinger from his position
as executive director after only eight months in the position. Zullinger
replaced Richard Miller, who
abruptly resigned in February 2006.
Zullinger was a surprise choice for the SCEA position,
having no union experience. He held several jobs as superintendent,
including a short stint in Denver. His job history contains
a lot of short stints. EIA sources differ on the reasons for Zullinger's
ouster, so we'll await further details.
Zullinger's e-mail has already been disconnected. There
is no word yet on a possible replacement.
7) West Virginia Unions Organize Laissez-Faire Job
Action. I'm not sure what it would look like if libertarians organized a
work stoppage, but it might be similar to the current situation in West
Virginia.
Upset that the legislature will increase teacher
salaries by 3.5 percent, instead of the 6 percent they wanted, officials of
the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA) organized a one-day walkout,
scheduled for this Wednesday. It was an idea fraught with problems, one of
which is the fact that WVEA only represents about 41 percent of working
teachers. Others belong to AFT-West Virginia, West Virginia Professional
Educators, or no organization at all.
What's more, WVEA locals will make their own decisions
about whether to join the walkout. The WVEA local in Kanawha County has
already decided to show up for work on Wednesday. WVEA President Charles
DeLauder told the press teachers could picket, protest at the state capitol,
or walkout later in the year. Whatever!
Judy Hale, president of AFT West Virginia, said her
members will not participate. "We're not sure what a one-day walkout on
Wednesday is going to accomplish," she said, but left open the door for a
full-blown strike later in the year. Hale accused WVEA of undermining last
week's one-day sick-out organized by AFT in Monongalia.
Meanwhile, the West Virginia Service Personnel union,
representing support employees, will not join the one-day walkout. "That’s
not our style," said the union president.
Oh, and teacher strikes are illegal in West Virginia,
as if that mattered.
8) Sault Tribe Charter Teachers Eject Union. It
dragged on for a long time, and was a mishmash of conflicting national and
state labor laws, charter school authorization policies, tribal sovereignty
and internal tribe politics, but teachers at the Joseph K. Lumsden Bahweting
Anishnabe charter school
voted 19-13 to decertify the Michigan Education Association as its
bargaining representative.
The school is associated with the Sault Tribe of
Chippewas, whose leadership was very much opposed to the union presence. The
intensity of feelings about the school on both sides was illustrated by the
hundreds of comments posted by tribe members on Intercepts when
EIA reported the story in October 2005.
9) Off the Reservation in San Diego. There have
been fewer and fewer fireworks at the annual NEA convention as the years
have gone by, but we may see some this year over NEA's "fix and fund" policy
for the No Child Left Behind Act. The board of directors of the San Diego
Education Association passed a resolution that states, in part, that NCLB
"cannot be overhauled, fixed or properly funded," and instructs SDEA
delegates to the NEA convention to introduce a new business item that would
support scrapping NCLB entirely.
We can expect opposition to
this at national NEA similar to that demonstrated against the petition
championed by Susan Ohanian last December (see
Item #2 here).
10) Staff Union Problems North of the Border.
Not only does the British Columbia Teachers Federation have to deal with
wacky resolutions, but the teachers' union has received a 72-hour
strike notice by its own staff, represented by the Communications,
Energy and Paperworkers Union.
"The BCTF has forgotten its union principles," said the
staff union president.
Sounds vaguely familiar.
11) Niche Players. This has nothing to do with
education, but I was intrigued by the conclusions drawn in
The State of the News Media by the Project for Excellence in
Journalism. Among them is the notion that "all news organizations are
becoming more niche players, basing their appeal less on how they cover the
news and more on what they cover." The organization credits this to bloggers,
video uploaders, and other "new media" types "who are creating news-oriented
content tailored to individual niches."
12) The Falklands – Then and Now. For those
interested in the topic, I've begun posting entries about the Falkland
Islands on my personal blog –
http://www.mikeantonucci.com. There are bound to be many more, extended
over a long period of time, but I invite you to take a gander.
13) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from March 7-12:
* Oh,
Those Wacky Teacher Unions! Nutty new business items seep north of the
border.
* Limits
of Law-Based School Reform. School reform isn't World War II. It's
Vietnam.
* The
Michigan Teacher Shortage Glut.
Teacher candidates in Michigan pay the price for the much-hyped shortage
scare.
14)
Quote of the Week.
"A 4% increase
in teachers across the state is not particularly large, even amidst
declining student enrollment." – Vermont-NEA Angelo J. Dorta. (March 2007 Vermont-NEA
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