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1) NEA Organizes EduJobs Call-In
Blitz for Wednesday. The National Education
Association is focusing all its energy on getting the $23 billion
Keep Our Educators Working Act
passed, scheduling a
national call-in day between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 26.
Members are instructed to call an NEA
toll-free number where they'll be given recorded instructions before being
patched through to the Congressional switchboard. NEA has assigned a dozen
staffers full-time to this one bill, which will have the dual effect of
mitigating both layoffs and
NEA membership losses.
The number of possible layoffs continues
to be amorphous, with the union embracing the estimate of
300,000 teacher layoffs being floated by the White House, which also
claims 400,000 teacher jobs were saved by the stimulus bill. This, despite
NEA's own alarmist material predicting total layoffs nationwide at
132,676.
The measure is facing opposition not
just due to its cost, but because it will be attached to a
supplemental appropriations bill to fund disaster relief and military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2) Do Early Retirements Actually Save
Money? In New Jersey they have finally noticed
that teacher union officers, out of the classroom for years,
are still earning credit toward their state pensions. This is common
throughout the United States.
The Bergen Record reports:
"Joseph
Coppola, president of the Bergen County Education Association, said he
stopped teaching in 2004, though the district lists him as a basic skills
instructor. He said keeping him on the Wood-Ridge payroll helped the
district; the school board can hire a cheaper teacher in his place and so
have extra cash on hand. He said he continued to make the required employee
contribution of 5.5 percent of his paychecks to the pension system.
"'Nobody gets
hurt, nobody's getting abused,' Coppola said. 'There's no negative on
anybody's end.'"
It's fascinating that Coppola (of Gov.
Christie
"death prayer" fame) finds it a benefit to have him out of the classroom
and a cheaper teacher in. Maybe he's more progressive than previously
thought. But his argument is similar to that used to offer veteran teacher
early retirement buyouts. Can a district really end up with "extra cash on
hand" when it replaces a retiring teacher with a new teacher?
Not if you look at all the pots of
money, says Chad Alderman of
The Quick and the Ed. Using New York City as an example, the salary
savings is more than offset by "the minimum $44,000 annual pension
that a retiring teacher with that level of experience would be eligible to
receive," he writes. "Including health insurance costs – New York covers 90
percent of retiree health expenses – would wipe out any remaining 'savings'
completely. This does not count any one-time payments or new early
retirement incentives that might be used to encourage senior teachers to
retire."
3) Minnesota Teachers to Receive Pay
to Write College Recommendations for Students. The
new contract for teachers in Edina, Minnesota, contains a provision for up
to two paid days to
write college recommendation letters for students.
"Putting it in the
contract makes it a benefit for teachers that's contractual, not just a
matter of board policy," said Van Anderson, president of the local teachers'
union.
This ought to be fun.
What happens if a teacher writes a recommendation that the affected student
decides is unsatisfactory? Perhaps it has spelling errors, or is too short,
or contains erroneous information. Since the teacher is now contractually
obligated to write the recommendation in order to receive the paid day off,
will the district withhold payment? Wouldn't the union then file a
grievance? I can hardly wait for the first case to reach arbitration.
4) Cure for Union Apathy: Contested
Elections. Union elections are not known for heavy
turnout, but it does improve when incumbents are challenged by organized
opposition. The Baltimore Teachers Union recently held an election in which
the president and executive board all ran unopposed.
Turnout was about 10 percent.
Last week's Chicago Teachers Union
election boasted five slates of candidates, the worst performing of which
received more votes than the total number of people who voted in Baltimore.
Turnout was about 60 percent. There will a runoff in two weeks.
The Chicago election was not
problem-free, however. (Has any Chicago election ever been?) Evidently
ballot boxes at 30 schools
were never picked up.
5) New York Judges Court Teachers'
Union. Some New York
judges are considering unionizing under the auspices of the New York
State United Teachers. Well, why not? What's the point of owning only two
branches of government?
6) Florida Education Association
Endorses Crist and Meek. Meek is the Democrat, so
he was a shoo-in, and
Crist was rewarded for his veto of Senate Bill 6. The AFL-CIO didn't
receive such a big favor from the governor so its delegates
endorsed Meek alone. It's not the endorsement that matters. It's that
the union requires an endorsement before sending money to a candidate. We'll
know who they really prefer when the campaign finance disclosure reports
start rolling in.
7) Scheduling Note.
Because of the Memorial Day holiday, the next EIA
Communiqué will appear on Tuesday, June 1.
8) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from May 17-24:
* South
Carolina Members Notified of NEA Trusteeship. Reaction from the South
Carolina media, the national education press and the U.S. Department of
Labor is exactly the same: complete indifference. NEA must be pleased.
*
Will Some States Get Jobbed by EduJobs Bill? Why does the edujobs bill
"create" teacher jobs in states with declining enrollment?
*
Then and Now. Pretty easy editing job to insert "job" between "teacher"
and "shortage" in those headlines from last year.
*
Brill-iant. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew can
fire his aides whenever he wants. Maybe they should form a union.
* Law
& Order Investigates Teachers' Union. Ripped from the headlines.
*
Arizona Easily Passes Sales Tax Increase. More to come?
9)
Quote of the Week.
"Meanwhile, increases in the size of the teaching force more than doubled
increases in student enrollment. And the US Department of Education and the
teachers unions (and bend-over-backwards education writers) all say that
there's some sort of teacherpocalypse already upon us. It's impressive, and
shameless, and it's sort of working.... Long live the teaching bubble. May
it never pop. Because teachers unions aren't on their last legs. They're the
industry that's still too big to fail." - Alexander Russo. (May 21
This Week in Education) |
