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

When Indiana State Teachers Association President Nathan Schnellenberger addressed the union’s representative assembly last month, he had more on his mind than just the health of the organization’s insurance trust:

During the last two years I have not shied away from making some tough decisions that I felt would help advance the organization, and you and the rest of Team ISTA have not shied away from supporting those decisions.

Allow me to mention just a few of the larger cost-saving measures we have enacted:

• We have reduced the number of ISTA Board and other ISTA committee meetings.

• We have combined some UniServ offices.

• We cancelled last year’s Summer Leadership Conference.

• We have reduced the number of ISTA staff by nearly 10%.

Even though these actions have reduced operational costs by over a million dollars; it still sometimes seems to me that financially we are pushing a boulder uphill. To this date, even with these and other reductions in expenses, we have not been able to live up to my expectation that we will eliminate deficit spending. Unless our finances change in the next four months, this current fiscal year will be the fourth consecutive year that we will record a negative net income.

What does that mean? To me it means one of two things must occur.

Either we must raise our dues factor to a level that covers our expenses or we must continue to look for ways to reduce those expenses. Unless you tell me differently, at this time, I do not support raising our dues factor. I believe it is far too easy to just say, lets raise dues. I believe that we must stay disciplined and focused on cutting our expenses without cutting service to our members, and more importantly, I believe that with your help we can continue to do that.

Will that require continued change? You bet it will. Is change sometimes a little scary ? Sure it is. But disregarding change because we are afraid to leave the comfort of the present will only assure that we will never find more efficient and more effective ways to operate. I promise you that I am not going to back away from the tough decisions that will be needed to assure our association’s future success. Those decisions may include further consolidation of some UniServ offices and may include additional reduction in staffing.

Most likely there will be other changes needed as well. Kathy will talk about our financial challenges in her budget report later this afternoon. But I will say now that our financial challenges are real and they are serious.

However, they were not formed in a day or in a month or in a year. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect that they will be solved in a short span of time, but know this — our challenges will be met.

I am confident that we understand the responsibility and have the knowledge and wisdom to make the difficult decisions that will carry us through these difficult times. To overcome our challenges, we must use our knowledge and our wisdom to thoughtfully plan for our future. However, just planning for the future is not enough, we must also have the courage to act and to act decisively.

Delegates, earlier Teresa referenced a sign in my office that says, “No Whining, No Excuses, No Drama — Just Results.” I do try to lead by those concepts.

There is another poster in my office that also sums up how I try to lead this organization. It reads:

“Dream more than others think is practical,
Push more than others think is comfortable,
Expect more than most think is possible.”

I know that sometimes my dreams for our Association make some feel a little uncomfortable. But understand that the risks and costs of action are far less than the long range risks and costs of inaction. I am confident that we have the courage to do what we must do – and that together, with our common sense of purpose – we will build an ISTA that is stronger and more respected than ever before.

An ISTA that will replace – “We can’t” with “Yes, we can.” That’s my dream for our Association.

I don’t have the treasurer’s budget report, so I can’t tell how much delegates were told about the health of the insurance trust, but it’s clear from Schnellenberger’s speech they weren’t told the union could be on the brink of NEA trusteeship.

From the Associated Press:

The National Education Association has taken over its troubled Indiana affiliate after problems with its insurance trust landed the teachers union in financial trouble and spurred investigations.

Indiana State Teachers Association President Nate Schnellenberger has sent an e-mail to members saying the NEA will have complete control of the state’s largest teachers union.

The NEA appointed trustee Edward Sullivan to run ISTA. Schnellenberger says Sullivan will try to keep ISTA running smoothly while exploring financial options for the union and making corrections as needed.

ISTA’s board requested the NEA trusteeship to ensure the union is financially viable, Schnellenberger said.

ISTA is working to untangle its insurance trust from millions of dollars in liabilities while the state and the FBI investigate whether fund managers did something more than make risky investments.

Sullivan is the recently retired executive director of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

Details of the ISTA insurance trust meltdown were in Monday’s communiqué. I’ll have further news of the situation as it becomes available.

Unionized teachers from the Charter School for Applied Technologies in Tonawanda picketed the local headquarters of New York State United Teachers in a protest of the union’s opposition to increased charter school funding.

The teachers have been unionized since the school was opened eight years ago.

“We are looking for NYSUT to take a more proactive approach to representing us and other charter schools,” said teacher Christine Twarozek.

The Buffalo News reports:

But charter school teachers were amazed to hear the president of NYSUT, Richard Iannuzzi, say the union had sought a freeze in charter school funding during this year’s state budget crisis….

Twarozek said charter school teachers who are members of NYSUT believe that the union has not always had their interests at heart.

“I think because they feel somehow we’re a threat to their funding, we’re not being fully represented to the best NYSUT could do for us,” she said.

I’ve often wondered why teacher union tactics (work-to-rule, informational picketing, rallies, stunts like wearing black or pink or bandaids, et al.) seem to be exclusive to them. How would Dennis Van Roekel like the sight of DC voucher parents chaining themselves to the doors of NEA headquarters?

Click here to read:

1) Indiana State Teachers Association Insurance Trust Near Bankruptcy, Under Investigation
2) The Story Behind the Story
3) California Teachers Association Reaches Tentative Agreement with Staff Unions
4) Contract Hits
5) Last Week’s Intercepts
6) Scheduling Note
7) Quote of the Week

And NEA/CTA are responsible for most of it.

Also, thanks to the dozens of people who sent me stuff about Indiana over the past few days. The story will be in tonight’s communiqué, so stand by. I’ll include a second item about the difficulties involved in corroborating stories like that. It will be old hat for those of you who work in the media, but I hope it will be instructive for others.

Despite my reputation in some circles, I err on the side of caution when it comes to breaking stories of teacher union scandals. So if you send me something and I don’t use it, it doesn’t mean I don’t believe it, but that I can’t yet confirm it. I have folders full of stuff like that.

Stephen Sawchuk of Teacher Beat interviewed American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten about the federal Teacher Incentive Fund. His lede is “AFT President Randi Weingarten said yesterday that she wants federally financed performance-pay grants to be bargained collectively as part of contracts.”

That’s not news, but Weingarten’s statements show why “collaboration” on these issues is shorthand for “surrender quietly.”

“This can’t be about a thousand flowers blooming,” Weingarten told me. “There are things we know are based upon research and practice as well as President Obama’s core principles, and that includes working together collaboratively.”

Commenter Jonathon destroys that line of argument:

“I agree completely, unfortunately in the experiences I have had with my local union research does not play a part in the bargaining process. If it did we would not be paying teachers more for earning advanced degrees and extra credits because research shows that these have little to no impact on teacher effectiveness and ultimately student achievement.”

What research you use also matters. The union-backed Economic Policy Institute thinks private-sector performance pay is a “myth” because only a small percentage of workers receive bonuses, commissions, or piece-work pay. The idea that someone’s base pay might be related to his or her performance never seems to have occurred to them.

Weingarten goes on:

“In a nonbargaining state, she said, districts should take their cues from models such as the Teacher Advancement Program. That school-reform model, run by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, requires 75 percent of teachers to vote in favor of adoption.”

This is rich. If a super-majority of 75 percent is required to ensure teacher buy-in, why don’t we apply it to union representation elections as well? Or contract ratification?

She continues:

“If it’s simply a matter of looking at outcomes, not creating the stairs to success, it won’t work.”

This is what we get when we mix education and labor problems. Whatever you think of performance pay as an education reform, we can agree its eponymous goal is improved performance - of teachers and, by extension, of students. As union president, Weingarten’s primary goal for a performance pay program is to make it as simple for as many teachers as possible to get the pay. These goals are not mutually exclusive, but they’re not the same. That’s why the Denver plan took so long to put together, and why it hasn’t been replicated.

So, Weingarten says, this can’t be about a thousand flowers blooming. In Randi’s garden, there’s a single dead tree stump, and our job is to keep watering it.