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1) Panic in the Streets: President
Obama Holds the Same Views on Education as Candidate Obama.
When Barack Obama mentioned performance pay in front of the 2007 NEA
Representative Assembly,
I assumed that he believed the union's spin on the issue, that NEA's
objection was a statement on performance pay's form, rather than its
substance. I also assumed the union would make its objections clear to him
before his campaign got much older.
When he locked up the Democratic
nomination, and mentioned performance pay again in front of the 2008 NEA
Representative Assembly, he convinced me he really meant it. The question of
whether anything would come of it was, and still is, mostly out of his
hands.
Now we have President Obama, and in his
first major education policy speech last week, he once again mentioned
performance pay, plus supported lifting charter school caps, decried
America's "educational decline," demanded accountability, and called for
getting "bad teachers out of the classroom."
NEA issued talking points on the speech
the same day, and they emphasize that "President Obama's plan calls for
proposals we've been advocating for quite some time." This will come as news
to former President Bush.
NEA's talking points also insist the
union advocates enhanced compensation for those teachers who "agree to teach
in 'hard to staff" schools." This point seems to fly in the face of a
sentence in NEA Resolution F-9, which reads, "The Association opposes
providing additional compensation to attract and/or retain education
employees in hard-to-recruit positions." If there is a provision somewhere
that distinguishes between "hard to staff schools" and "hard to recruit
positions" I'll stand corrected.
While NEA was papering over some obvious
philosophical differences with President Obama, others were not. In fact,
the prevailing mood after his speech was rampant overreaction. Here are just
a few samples:
Diane Ravitch - "In education, the
new administration is as ruinous as the old."
Alfie Kohn - "Merit pay is Exhibit
A for the proposition that the relevant distinction in education policy is
not between Democrat and Republican but between those who have some
understanding of the nuances of learning, teaching, and motivation – and
those who haven't a clue. President Obama – who chose for his Secretary of
Education someone who would have felt right at home in the Bush
administration – recently offered enthusiastic support for a concept that
has been tried and found wanting over and over again: dangle more money in
front of teachers to make them perform better."
Gerald Bracey - "I
voted for Obama. I canvassed for him. I registered voters for him. But on
education, he has yet to hit the basket."
Daily Kos diarist tovan: "I
have a sinking feeling about President Obama's policy toward public
education. On the surface it sounds reasonable, but there are red flags:
promoting charter schools, merit pay, and teacher accountability. So, what's
wrong with that? The fact is, these key points to Obama's education plan are
rightwing talking points. And rightwing code terms for continuing
privatization and union-busting in education. In other words, some of Obama
education plan sounds horribly like the Republican platform on education.
Alarm bells are going off."
Reality-Based Educator, in a post
headlined, "President
Merit Pay Or How I Have Come To Despise Barack Obama": "Meet the new
boss, same as the old boss. I despise both bosses."
Exit question: Is President Obama
already
going Gray?
2) Staff Pension Costs Bedevil NEA
State Affiliates. Having broken the seal on this
story
two weeks ago, EIA is hearing more chatter about staff pension costs and
their effects on the budgets of NEA state affiliates. Details are hard to
come by, but I'm reliably informed that Maine and New Jersey are two states
that have particular concerns. The Illinois Education Association, having
just completed its representative assembly, put the issue front and center.
Union officers took cost-cutting
measures in an effort to avoid a large dues increase, but they note
(ironically, in my view) that "the officers and managers directly control
less than 10% of the overall expenses of the IEA." Staffing costs consume
75% of the union's budget.
The investment portfolio for the IEA
staff pension fund, like the investment portfolios of just about everyone
else, fell 30% last year, leaving the union with the requirement to make up
the difference in new cash. IEA's solution was a dues increase, the creation
of a rainy day fund, and a fervent hope that the market rebounds.
Illinois is one of NEA's strongest
affiliates in terms of historical membership growth. The national dues money
created by its growth helps subsidize NEA's weak affiliates. This greatly
aids the overall health of the union in good times, but troubles in strong
affiliates can have cascading negative effects throughout the organization.
3) California Pink Slips Slips.
As you probably already know, the California Teachers Association held
rallies around the state to
protest the issuance of 26,500 pink slips to public school teachers. The
issues of the economy, the state budget, the union's efforts to save jobs,
and staffing levels are being loudly debated throughout California. The
issue of the pink slips themselves is less examined.
In 2003, California issued 20,000 pink
slips, and only 3,000 teachers lost their jobs. The percentage will be
higher this time around, but it is likely that a majority of the
pink-slipped will be called back. So why so much angst? Because state law
requires districts to give teachers what amounts to five months' notice of a
possible layoff. More notice is better than less if you knew you were
definitely losing your job, but months of uncertainty only exacerbates the
problem.
"What is
happening in these schools when the pink slips go out is everything stops,
everyone is discouraged, everyone is busy worrying whether the money will
come through, and all the efforts to get schools going basically grinds to a
halt and remains ground to a halt for the rest of the spring," said W.
Norton Grubb, the director of a principal training program at the University
of California at Berkeley.
Besides the uncertainty, the pink slips
can be self-fulfilling. If you fear you will be laid off, you will seek
another position, probably in another state, effectively laying yourself
off.
Then we get stories about local teachers
of the year in
Burbank and
Santa Barbara County receiving pink slips with zero mention of why. What
kind of system
forces you to get rid of teachers of the year and keep others?
4) Eating Your Young.
I learned the Maine Education Association's "Dos,
Don'ts of Bargaining in Tough Times" aren't appreciably different from
bargaining in good times, or bargaining in OK times, or bargaining in the
End Times. Still, this one caught my eye:
"Insist that all other steps to reduce
costs be implemented, including reduction-in-force if it is unavoidable,
before reductions in employees' compensation are considered."
Bye-bye, newbies. We hardly knew ye.
5) United Teachers of Dade Irony
Alert Update. A couple of weeks ago I noted the
irony of the United Teachers of Dade hiring a
forensic auditor to dig into the district's budget when its own
financial oversight didn't stand up to scrutiny. I can now add that UTD
still owes more than $3.6 million in back dues to AFT and the Florida
Education Association, plus it is experiencing a "negative variance" in dues
income because it budgeted for 900 more members than it actually has.
6) Right on the Left.
If I write
this exact article, the hate mail flows and the name-calling begins.
What happens when a true-believing union activist of 27 years writes it?
Silence.
7) Contract Hits.
Wherein we highlight a contract provision from the current agreement between
the National Education Association and its largest staff union. Here is
Article 9, Section 2:
"NEA may require employees to complete
Daily Activity Reports. Such reports shall include, among other things, the
regular and excess or holiday time worked by the employee; the amount and
type of leave used by him/her; a brief description of the activities worked
on during the time worked; and the appropriate codes for such activities.
Such reports shall be submitted by the employee to his/her immediate
supervisor in accordance with NEA payroll practices."
8) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from March 9-16:
*
NEA on Merit Pay, Without the Sugar Coating. Unlike many NEA policies,
the union's position on merit and performance pay is a model of crystal
clarity.
*
Labor Unrest – Coming Soon to a District Near You. The grapes of wrath.
*
The Maine Objection to Performance Pay. Liberals embracing federalism.
*
Obama and Merit Pay. A digest of stories on the President's education
plan.
*
NEA Responds to Obama's Speech. La-la-la-la-la, I can't hear you.
*
How Would Card Check Work with Someone Like Kashi Nelson? A KIPP teacher
changes her mind.
*
Who Lost the Burlington Free Press? Single salary schedule =
sinking ship.
9) Quote of the Week.
"If you pay one teacher more you have to pay someone else less." – National
Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel, former math teacher,
expressing his view of merit pay. (March 11
Wall Street Journal) |
