Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

There’s a short intermission before we raise the curtain for the second act of “The OEA Staff Strike: The Empire Strikes Back.” While you’re scraping the Milk Duds off your shoes, take a look at Bill Turque’s latest report about the takeover of the Washington Teachers Union by the American Federation of Teachers (background here).

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled AFT failed to hold a proper hearing before taking an unreasonable “emergency action” against the DC local. The administratorship could be reestablished if AFT follows the required procedures.

Coming on the heels of the Labor Department ruling on the AFT takeover in Portland, it seems the pendulum for AFT action has swung to the other extreme, after the national union’s dilatory attitude toward Barbara Bullock and Pat Tornillo in years past.

Professional employees of the Ohio Education Association went on strike today.

“We are disappointed we could not complete negotiations before the PSU contract expired. OEA is ready to meet at any time to resolve our remaining issues,” said OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks in a statement.

OEA was able to reach a tentative agreement with the union representing support staff, but it won’t help OEA immediately, since the support staff will honor the professional staff’s picket line.

This is the first OEA staff strike since 1997.

UPDATE: Grab your popcorn. “At Least 1 Picketer Arrested Outside OEA Building.” For background on these types of staff job actions, you’ll want to read this.

UPDATE #2: The Buckeye Institute has video of the picket line. Looks more like a sit-down to me.

UPDATE #3: Even if you finished your popcorn, you’ll need a box of Jujubes for these photos of the street theater going on in front of OEA headquarters.

There isn’t much left to be said about the Los Angeles Times‘ teacher value-added database, but I’ll try anyway.

1) It’s not something I would have done, because the wholesale naming of teachers doesn’t, um, add much value to the story. The numbers should be used to identify schools and teachers who deserve further review, and then find out if the statistics accurately reflect what’s going on. Afterwards, the naming of teachers who are doing exceptionally well, or exceptionally poorly, is justified and necessary.

2) That having been said, the Times analysis was generated from public records about public employees. The letter signed by the presidents of the National Education Association, California Teachers Association, and United Teachers Los Angeles calling on the Times to ”cease the publication of data” is a blunt attempt to censor information with which the teachers’ unions disagree. I wish I could say this is an unusual position for them to take, but it isn’t, even when they don’t have a case.

3) I wonder how different the reaction to the database would have been if everyone were confident that the results would be positive and laudatory? I’m struck by the union presidents’ statement that “The LA Times proposal to expand its public shaming to the 6,000 teachers in its ‘database’ will exponentially compound the damage.” All 6,000 teachers will be publicly shamed by the value-added data? I also had a laugh at this:

Reasonable people understand a single test score does not define student learning and can never solely measure the effectiveness of a teacher. We would think a reasonable and respectable institution such as the LA Times would as well. So, we are only left to assume, the purpose of the publication was to sell newspapers.

The purpose of the LA Times is to sell newspapers, and the purpose of the teachers’ unions is to defend teachers’ interests. Holy cow! We’ve made an intellectual breakthrough!

But by the unions’ logic, reasonable people won’t take the data seriously, so how does that sell newspapers? And if only unreasonable people will accept the information at face value, why bother to try to censor it or argue about it? They’re unreasonable!

4) Finally, the Times story should give a short pause to those who like to repeat the old lament about how Americans fail to treat their beloved teachers the same way they treat professional athletes and celebrities. I once commented:

When we have a system for teachers that differentiates the Iversons from the guys playing pickup hoops in the schoolyard, or the Brad Pitts from the actor/waiters in Hollywood bistros, we’ll see some teachers making stratospheric salaries. Will they ever make $16 million a year? Only when people will pay just to watch them at work, and follow their statistics in the morning newspaper.

Now that people can follow teachers’ statistics in the morning newspaper, it’s time for a change in tactics. Instead of sending angry letters to the Times, maybe the union presidents should set up bleachers in Zenaida Tan’s classroom, and charge admission.

Last summer Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) President Kathy Geroux decided to call a meeting to discuss disaffiliating her local from AFT. Soon after, AFT placed the local under national trusteeship and sent in a troop of staffers to take over the union.

In a classic act of impotence and deference, the U.S. Department of Labor declared the AFT trusteeship “unlawful,” but decided that because it has since been lifted and new officers elected, “allegations concerning the validity of the trusteeship are moot.”

So congratulations are in order for AFT, which succeeded in Oregon where it had failed in Puerto Rico. Apparently a union can prevent any disaffiliation simply by acting faster than the government bureaucracy. A low threshold indeed.

Hat tip: Education Notes Online.

I am back in the office, but it will take some time to get caught up. Please stand by.

This is the EIA Communiqué for July 5, 1998:

+ In my efforts to ensure that I didn’t underestimate NEA’s ability to push through a “Yes” vote on the Principles of Unity, it appears I dramatically underestimated the ability of the opposition to persuade the undecided delegates and win over a substantial number of Yes voters.

An astounding 57.9 percent of the delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly voted to defeat the Principles of Unity. (Total votes = 9,715. Yes = 4,091. No = 5,624).

EIA estimated that the pro-merger side arrived in New Orleans with 53.5 percent of the vote. NEA President Bob Chase, his staff and supporters were expected to use their natural advantages in the convention setting to boost that support. Instead, it is clear that the anti-merger forces employed superior tactics and arguments to win the day.

As expected, both Chase and American Federation of Teachers President Sandra Feldman released statements promising continued cooperation and collaboration between the two teachers’ unions.

At the press conference following the vote, a visibly shaken Chase denied the vote showed the NEA leadership was out of touch with the membership. “No,” he said, “I don’t think it means that at all. As a matter of fact after the discussion that occurred yesterday, I think we are absolutely in touch with our members, about the fact that our members do want to bring about unity between the two organizations.”

Asked if he or the staff should have done something differently, Chase responded, “I’m not going to second-guess anything.”

Chase was emphatic that the embarrassing loss did not affect his ability to lead the union. Nor did he believe it would have any political impact. One wonders if he believes this as much as he believed his statement on Friday that “Momentum is building in a positive way and I am confident.”

The delegates will vote tomorrow on the alternate “Unity Without Merger” proposal submitted by the Illinois Education Association. The document provides for a continuation of the current “no-raid” agreement with AFT, allows for collaborative ventures, and authorizes state and local mergers with AFT affiliates.

More than just the vote occurred today, including a description by NEA General Counsel Robert Chanin of the union’s right-wing research program (described here in previous communiqués). Those details will have to wait until I return home.

This is the EIA Communiqué for July 4, 1998:

+ Happy Independence Day, everyone. Even as late as this morning, some among the delegates and reporters seemed to be persuaded that the merger would pass. I don’ t think they feel that way any more. The first jarring moment for merger supporters occurred when the results of the Executive Committee election were announced. As I mentioned in yesterday’s dispatch, Bob Gilchrist, president of the Iowa State Education Association, ran for the Executive Committee against two incumbents on one issue — opposition to the merger. He was not elected, but he received 4,253 votes — a full 45.1 percent. Since it was unlikely that many people voted for Gilchrist for any reason other than his anti-merger position, it was a clear indication of the lay of the land. A further indication was presented at the afternoon merger debate.

Let’s say up front that no state delegation declared a position opposite to the position taken by its state delegate assembly. Speakers for and against the Principles of Unity alternated at the microphones. From the outset of the debate, the emotional advantage was with the anti-merger side. Gerri Williams of Delaware was the first anti-merger speaker. She spoke of her fears that a small state like Delaware would lose its voice in the larger organization. She choked back tears as she told the assembly, “I urge you to vote against the Principles of Unity, and save my vote.”

But if one speaker could be said to have brought the house down, that speaker was Mary (“None Of Your Business”) Washington, president of the Louisiana Association of Educators. Speaking on behalf of the Louisiana delegation, Ms. Washington said that “today we are given a set of principles that makes a mockery of our core beliefs.” Focusing on the lack of policy-making power of the Leadership Council, the new organization’s replacement for the NEA Board of Directors, Washington declared that reducing that body to an advisory one was “unacceptable, unacceptable, unacceptable!” If the vote had been held that minute, the merger might have been defeated by a two-to-one margin.

The pro-merger side was not helped by Mike Billirakis, president of the Ohio Education Association and a merger supporter, who elicited groans and shouts from the crowd when he likened a vote against the Principles of Unity to a vote against the Declaration of Independence.

Throughout it all, Bob Chase appeared taken aback by the forcefulness of the opposition. The debate was heated, but decorous. It was, however, extremely interesting to see that the vote to close debate passed easily — after only two hours, and 34 speakers (17 from each side). This showed that not only was neither side interested in spending the entire Independence Day arguing about merger, but that both sides felt that further debate was unlikely to sway anyone.

The voting will take place tomorrow between 8:30 and noon, Central time. I expect the results to be announced at around 1:30 p.m. You will probably hear the results from your regular press outlets before you hear them from me. I plan to spend the rest of the afternoon at the Assembly, already trying to determine what follows.