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1) AFT Districts Headed for Troubled Times.
District-by-district enrollment, workforce and spending tables for all 50
states for 2005-06 are now complete and posted on the EIA web site. There
are many different ways to examine the data, but one set of numbers in
particular does not bode well for AFT.
I culled the figures for every school district in the
United States with K-12 enrollment of more than 50,000 students. There were
82. Of these, 26 had fewer students in 2006 than they had in 2001. A
disproportionate number were in districts where AFT represents teachers.
New York City – enrollment down 4.9%
Chicago – enrollment down 3.3%
Miami-Dade (dual-affiliated) – enrollment down 1.8%
San Francisco (dual-affiliated) – enrollment down 6.2%
Philadelphia – enrollment down 8.3%
Boston – enrollment down 9%
Baltimore City – enrollment down 12.2%
Detroit – enrollment down 17.8%
Cleveland – enrollment down 22.3%
Even in places where the news is not so bad, it's not
so good, either.
Dallas – enrollment down 0.2%
Houston – enrollment up 0.9%
Los Angeles (dual-affiliated) – enrollment up 0.8%
The only large school district I can identify with a
growing student body and AFT affiliation is Broward County in Florida, which
has experienced an 8.2% increase in enrollment between 2001 and 2006. NEA,
on the other hand, has double-digit growth in a number of places, and is
seeing significant declines only in San Diego, Milwaukee, and Columbus,
Ohio.
As I have previously noted, student enrollment numbers
seem to have little relationship to teacher hiring, and so many AFT unions
have seen member increases despite having fewer students to teach. These
numbers suggest, however, that when the reductions-in-force occur, they will
disproportionately strike AFT districts. This will likely change the dynamic
in education labor and may affect relations between the two national
teachers' unions.
The tables are located at
http://www.eiaonline.com/districts.htm.
2) Binge, Then Purge. In Miami, the late Pat
Tornillo spent millions of dollars of dues money on himself. In Chicago,
Marilyn Stewart has allegedly turned a $5 million surplus into a deficit.
There is only one thing to do after binges.
Purge.
The United Teachers of Dade
suspended stewards Ronald Beasley, Shawn Beightol and Rory Robinson for
"maliciously publishing false reports and working in the interest of an
inimical organization." If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is similar to
the
circumstances of Ira J. Paul in 2006. (Let's not forget
Pamela Sturrup, either.)
Once tried and found guilty, the three can be removed
from office and/or expelled from UTD.
They're trying it over at the Chicago Teachers Union,
too. On Thursday, CTU Vice President Ted Dallas (see Quote of the Week,
below) is set to be tried for bringing the union "into disrepute." (See page
two of the
document posted here.)
Throw in the entertainment at the
Washington Teachers Union and you've got plotting and intrigue to rival
the
Fourth Crusade. (Go
here if, like me, you prefer primary sources.)
3) NEA Settles With Staff Union. When
convention time approaches, the last thing NEA wants is a
labor dispute with its own employees. After lengthy negotiations, the
union came to terms last week on a three-year contract with the Association
of Field Service Employees (AFSE), which is one of several staff unions
representing workers at NEA headquarters.
AFSE members will receive a 3% salary increase in each
year of the deal. AFSE went on
a
three-day strike against NEA back in 1987.
4) Last Week's Intercepts. EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from June 2-9:
*
OMG! NEA Recommends Obama!!!!!! NEA finally admits to being "evenly
split." I guess February's
"up for grabs" press release is now inoperative.
*
The Cost of Timidity. The Associated Press places a price on the NEA
endorsement.
*
A Fistful of Political Philosophy. "My mule don't like people laughin'."
5) Quote of the Week. "How can you have all
these people here when we have less (sic) employees? We need to cut people,
cut them where they're not going to hurt member services but cut people
out." – Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Ted Dallas, commenting on the
number of CTU employees relative to the number of CTU members. (June 4
Chicago Public Radio)
Funny how that argument doesn't play when it comes to
teachers and students. In the city of Chicago between 2001 and 2006, K-12
enrollment decreased by 3.3 percent while the number of teachers increased
13 percent. |
