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1) How's That Charter School Union Campaign Coming
Along? Ah, it seems like only yesterday I was writing about the big push
to unionize charter school employees. Let's see, we opened with the $250,000
grant to the California Teachers Association from NEA for a charter school
organizing pilot project back in October 2003 (see
item #2 here). The campaign kicked off with horror stories in the pages
of California Educator, the CTA organ.
NEA likes horror stories, so it budgeted $1.75 million
over three years to expand the campaign (see
item #4 here). Fast forward to March 2006, when the head of the CTA
Charter School Working Group makes an appearance before the National Charter
Schools Conference to a
less than enthusiastic response. We soon learn that the
inability to organize wall-to-wall units is having an adverse effect on
CTA's organizing efforts.
Well, here we are in June 2008, and our newspapers,
TVs, radios and web sites are notoriously lacking in news of CTA's sweeping
successes in getting charter school employees to join unions. This may be
because it's all going according to the super-secret plan, but recent output
suggests instead that the "beat 'em, join 'em" pendulum has swung sharply
back to the "beat 'em" side.
Just as the California Educator articles
signaled the beginning of the campaign in 2003, the union newsletter now
seems to be signaling the resumption of overt hostility. In a story
headlined "Teachers
and unions are targets in attack on public education" there is little
doubt as to the identity of the culprits.
"The district's main source of revenue is state money,
and an influx of charter schools is siphoning off what little the state
gives us," said Dixie Johansen, past president of the Ravenswood Teachers
Association.
By the way, the Ravenswood City district spent $9,324
per-pupil in 2005-06, almost 10 percent more than the state average.
"Enemies of education kept on hammering and hammering
their message until people moved toward their way of thinking," said San
Diego Education Association President Camille Zombro. "If anybody had told
me 20 years ago that Title I money would be used to support private tutoring
centers and that in San Diego, 40 charter schools would be operating in the
district with 10 percent of our student population, I wouldn't have believed
it."
As a great educator once said, "That
is why you fail."
Meanwhile, in today's Los Angeles Times we get
the heat from United Teachers Los Angeles area chairman Mathew C. Taylor in
an editorial headlined "Stop
cheering on charter schools":
"The well-funded movement to privatize
education is in full swing with folks like The Times touting its
agenda. The goal to privatize the last big enchilada of public money will
leave us all much poorer in spirit and pocketbook. The goal has been to
portray public education as a failure (particularly in the inner cities) and
then to promote 100% charter schools as the answer. Far from being saviors,
charters in fact drain public money. Clearly they represent a real danger to
the historic democratic value that is public education."
Whatever you think about charter schools and unions,
you have to agree that these lines of argument are not designed to appeal to
charter school employees. Teachers' unions have been unable to generate a
coherent charter school policy since the first charter school, the
City Academy opened in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1992.
They are paying the price. For all the education
commentariat that exists, there has been a notable silence about the news of
the
nation's first charter school districts. In Georgia, the Decatur,
Marietta, Gainesville and Warren County school systems will operate
according to their charters in 2008-09, overseen by the state, rather than
by the normal laws and regulations governing the relationship between the
two.
If charters can operate effectively as large entities,
without falling into the usual bureaucratic pitfalls, they have the
potential of altering the direction of the entire American public school
system.
2) That's the Chicago Way. I wish I could lay
claim to this scandal, gossip and all-around internal nastiness coming from
the Chicago Teachers Union, but I'm a mere secondhand observer of it, just
like the rest of you. Rather than rehash it all here, let me just send you
directly to the sources.
The print media has been playing catch-up, but at least
they are on top of the legal proceedings. The Chicago Sun-Times
takes up the food angle here, then gets the latest from the
Cook County Circuit Court. The Chicago Tribune also
covered the court decision.
Alexander Russo's District 299 blog not only has been all over the
stories, but its comments section has hosted additional revelations from CTU
members. The latest post has the closed-door
minutes from the May 28 executive committee meeting in which a union
"grand jury" proceeding was held to investigate charges against both CTU
President Marilyn Stewart and Vice President Ted Dallas.
I also direct you to the
CTU web site, just so you can see for yourself that there is literally
no mention of any of this anywhere on it. PACT, the union's opposition
caucus,
has been keeping tabs on CTU's budget deficit, but is behind the news
curve on the internal strife. The
Coalition for a Strong Democratic Union, which I assume is the Ted
Dallas support site, has been posting internal documents on its blog from
more than a month.
It's all great stuff, but it's hard to root for either
party in this battle. At least we know everyone at CTU headquarters is well
fed.
3) Poor Communities, Affluent Schools. NEA
President Reg Weaver gave a speech in Lubbock, Texas, over the weekend. The
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported:
"Among other issues, Weaver
spoke about a dichotomy in America's education system, with affluent
communities receiving the most funding for their schools, while schools in
poorer communities barely have enough money to provide for their students
the most basic of educations."
Here are a few other poorer communities where Weaver
might have delivered his speech (all figures are from 2005-06):
Detroit - $10,576 per-pupil spending
St. Louis - $10,770
Baltimore - $10,910
Gary, Indiana - $11,032
Cleveland - $11,073
Milwaukee - $11,277
New York City - $14,961
Hartford - $15,926
Boston - $17,421
Newark - $21,295
Or he could have stayed in DC ($13,446).
Lubbock spent only $7,890 per-pupil – but it was $329
above the state average.
4) Detroit Breakdown, Motor City Shakedown.
After publishing the
school district enrollment and spending tables, I have spent a lot of
time discussing the disconnect between enrollment and hiring. In the Detroit Public Schools we have a prime example of what happens
when you fail to pay close attention.
The
district has a projected $63 million budget deficit and plans to lay off 800
teachers. As the
Detroit News notes, "The discovery comes as the 106,000-student
district braces for another year of funding cuts brought on by massive
enrollment declines." The district lost 12,000 students last year alone.
"I'm just
baffled," said school board member Tyrone Winfrey. "As we reduced in
students, why didn't we reduce staff properly last fall?"
Attention, Mr. Winfrey! You're on the school board!
5) Last Week's Intercepts. EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from June 9-16:
*
Another Landslide Victory for "Don't Give a Crap"! Colorado's state
employees are unionized on a tidal wave of apathy.
*
Static Cling. It's sad when you have to get in-depth labor analysis from
American Laundry News.
*
This Isn't Rocket Science, Folks. "We are not well informed."
6) Quote of the Week #1. "There is not supposed
to be politics involved in public schools. The pressure of an administrator
coming to you and suggesting you should purchase a political ticket, if an
employee has a different opinion, we have a problem." – Newark Teachers
Union President Joseph Del Grosso, commenting on a memo sent by a high
school principal asking staffers to purchase tickets to a political
fundraiser. (June 15
Newark Star-Ledger)
Quote of
the Week #2.
"This year, NTU COPE expects to be very active in registering voters, as
well as supporting candidates in New Jersey's statewide legislative races. NTU
COPE will also organize membership around legislative referenda related to
school vouchers, school financing, pension issues, and the ability of the
union members to maximize their political voice. State and Federal election
laws prohibit the use of union dues for political activities. Therefore, the
NTU relies heavily on a voluntary $1 COPE payroll deduction. Please contact
the NTU to ensure that you are a COPE member." – from the
Newark Teachers Union web site. |
