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

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation devoted itself for years to carrying Davenport, et al, v. Washington Education Association to the U.S. Supreme Court and should be justifiably proud of the 9-0 decision in its favor. If you have any doubts it was a real victory, you just have to read the sour grapes statement from the WEA.

“The WEA wants nothing more than to bring an end to this prolonged litigation,” said WEA President Charles Hasse. Of course, WEA had the power to do so at any point, simply by switching to an opt-in procedure. It’s much too late to complain about the waste of “valuable time and resources.”

But the unions, as usual, have the last laugh. WEA already muscled an amendment to the state law in question through the legislature as an “emergency measure,” so it won’t have to do anything differently. As for the national implications, you need only take a look at the headline from the AFL-CIO blog:

“High Court Ruling on Union Dues Will Not Affect Union Practices“

The sad fact is, union power is achieved politically, and so it can only be defeated politically. Despite dwindling membership market share for at least four decades and a private sector workforce where an employee can go for years without seeing a union member, never mind become one, unions have lost little clout.

Unions are now, and will increasingly be, public sector organizations, which means their growth is directly tied to the growth of government. And since no American President or Congress has stemmed the growth of government, we’re stuck with the status quo for the foreseeable future.

You can win battles, but you can’t occupy enemy territory.

“We hold that it does not violate the First Amendment for a State to require that its public-sector unions receive affirmative authorization from a nonmember before spending that nonmember’s agency fees for election-related purposes. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Washington and remand the cases for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

Read the entire decision here.

Barry M. Young, former treasurer of the Delaware State Education Association, pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of making a false statement in exchange for having two other counts dropped.

Young’s financial problems were personal ones, and apparently were unrelated to his work at the union. DSEA didn’t help the matter when Young was indicted, calling for his immediate resignation while at the same time claiming that he had no control over union finances.

The four-day strike is apparently over, pending a ratification vote.

UPDATE: The cause of the strike was the district’s demand that teachers’ contributions to their health care premiums increase from 10% to 20%. The increase is reportedly in the tentative agreement, phased in over two years.

While a lot of attention is being focused on Education Week‘s devastating report on graduation rates, I don’t want you to miss something just as important in this week’s issue.

Reporter Bess Keller examines teacher retention in a story deliciously headlined, “Oft-Cited Statistic Likely Inaccurate.” Keller analyzes the undying qualities of the claim that “half of all new teachers leave the profession after just five years on the job.” She notes “the figure is rarely presented in context, often because it is being used to incite alarm. Teacher turnover is roughly in line with that in other professions with similar educational requirements for entry, such as nursing and accounting. And that is so even with the pressure on school districts to get rid of teachers in their first two or three years before tenure protections make it more difficult.”

I’ve ranted about this phony stat for years (most recently here, with links to all the other times) and it’s going to take a lot more than one story to put a stake through it, but it’s a small victory, all the same.

The melodrama at the headquarters of the Teachers Association of Long Beach continues unabated. I thought you would enjoy this account of the shenanigans from a reporter at the Long Beach Press-Telegram:

“Although the teachers rallied at Long Beach headquarters, the board’s meeting was moved from that location to a Santa Fe Springs office of the California Teachers Association.

“After demonstrating for about an hour at TALB offices, a group of about 50 teachers drove to the Santa Fe Springs building.

“A CTA staff member told the protesters gathered in the lobby that the meeting was moved from TALB offices to Santa Fe Springs because of safety concerns. He declined to speak with a Press-Telegram reporter….

“As a Press-Telegram reporter and the teachers were waiting for the closed-door meeting to wrap up, some teachers shouted at the reporter to leave, prompting a CTA staff member to order him to exit the building.”

Teacher strikes are illegal in Massachusetts. The teachers in Quincy went on strike. Return-to-work orders were issued. Court orders were issued. The union was ordered to post the orders on its web site, and make specific mention of the strike’s illegality. As you can see, none of this has happened.

So while the bureaucracy spins merrily, the strike continues.

Don’t enact laws you cannot, or will not, enforce. Just say no to no-strike laws.

UPDATE: The union has posted the back-to-work order on its web site.