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

Here is the EIA Communiqué for December 16, 1996. I’ve added a couple of embedded links to supporting documentation.

The following information came from the latest NEA Board of Directors meeting, held on Friday and Saturday, December 13-14:

Media. On Thursday, Dec. 12, NEA headquarters staff provided a training session on how to deal with the media. Emphasis was placed on dealing with issues raised on talk radio. Directors were instructed to circulate a list of tips to their locals that included NEA’s standard arguments against vouchers, parental rights, etc. The tips should show up at state affiliate meetings next month.

Election post-mortem. Since this was the first board meeting since the November elections, a briefing was conducted by NEA’s Governmental Relations staff. Of the 322 House candidates recommended by NEA, 198 won — a 61 percent rate. Thirteen of 29 recommended Senate candidates won — a 45 percent rate. An NEA-conducted poll found that 64 percent of respondents felt NEA had gotten its message across effectively.

1997 agenda. NEA will link its agenda to the education issues Americans support: children’s health and safety; preparing students for the jobs of the future; and strengthening public education. Expect NEA’s advertising, editorials and advocacy to incorporate any or all of these themes.

PLAN. The board voted to help fund the Policy Leaders Action Network (PLAN). PLAN is considered to be more liberal competition for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which provides a network for state legislators. NEA will also lobby its state affiliates to contribute.

Dues. NEA is likely to increase its share of members’ dues by $2.

NEA-AFT. The NEA local in Wichita, Kansas, is merging with the local American Federation of Teachers (AFT) affiliate. The merger is seen as a test case for a full organizational merger. The Minnesota state NEA affiliate voted 63-36 percent to merge with the state AFT affiliate. While national talks continue with AFT, NEA President Bob Chase told the board that “This is not a done deal.” Chase outlined the items being discussed and the tentative new leadership structure. The main change would a leadership council to replace the current board. The council would be larger than the current board and include members of the 13 largest locals of each union. The unions have had no discussions yet on term limits or minority guarantees. The major sticking point may be continued affiliation with AFL-CIO.

Disney Foundation. NEA will participate in the Teaching Center of the Celebration School Project being run by the Disney Foundation. Teachers from across the country will come to the center to learn teaching methods. The board sees the venture as providing “good press for NEA.”

I’ll be on vacation for the rest of the month, but I won’t leave you totally in the lurch. In the interim I’ve scheduled a few forgotten items from the EIA vault. I hope you enjoy them.

So keep the barbarians from the gates while I’m gone, OK?

Are you a member of the Connecticut Education Association with questions about union finances? Don’t ask.

Are you a candidate for president of the Chicago Teachers Union who wants to speak to the House of Delegates? Don’t talk.

Are you a professor emeritus with an online newsletter criticizing the faculty union? Don’t write.

Are you a member of the Des Moines Education Association wondering why the incumbent president was voted out? Don’t add.

The State University of New York issued its renewal report for the United Federation of Teachers Charter School in New York City (hat tip: Eduwonk) and you’ll want to spend time with it if you have any interest at all in charters, unions and the relationship between the two. What’s striking is not that the school has unique or unusual problems – it’s that it has all the typical problems of many charter schools. The UFT Charter School has virtually every perceived defect AFT has fulminated against for years.

SUNY issued the school a short-term renewal of three years, rather than the full term of five years, which means the school has shortcomings that the evaluation panel believes it will overcome.

Here are a few of the findings:

* ”The UFT Charter School does not meet the standard for a Full-Term Renewal to the extent that it has not compiled a strong and compelling record of meeting or coming close to meeting its academic Accountability Plan goals.”

* “While the school has had a formal process for evaluating teacher quality and effectiveness throughout the charter period, this system has not been used effectively to hold teachers accountable for high levels of instruction. For example, teacher evaluation documentation reviewed during the renewal visit was not consistent with observations of classroom instruction; few teachers were given a low rating in any of the assessed domains and all were deemed satisfactory overall despite what the observers noted as the low rigor of instruction and lack of student engagement in some classrooms.”

* “At the time of the renewal visit, 42 percent of teachers had no more than two years of teaching experience prior to the current year. Notwithstanding the support provided to these novice teachers and the hiring of some experienced faculty, the school has struggled with teacher turnover throughout the charter period.”

* “The UFT Charter School’s board of trustees has struggled to provide effective oversight of the school…. The large school board’s lack of formality has at times resulted in violations of the New York Open Meetings Law. A review of the school board’s minutes revealed a meeting with no quorum with action taken, votes taken by written submission, executive session not being entered into properly and an inappropriate topic discussed in executive session and a lack of minutes for board committee meetings.”

* “A relatively low number of English language learners (‘ELLs’) attend the school.”

* “Actual expenses per pupil exceeded actual revenue per pupil in FY 2006-07 and 2007-08 contributing to a lack of cash reserves. This evidence suggests that the school has had difficulty balancing revenue and expenditures. Due to the limited cash available, the school has a negative working capital ratio, indicating it does may not have enough short-term assets to cover all immediate liabilities, short-term debt or any unforeseen expenditures that may arise.”

* “The school has assumed a five-percent increase in per-pupil funding each year of the new charter term. Due to the state deficit problems and the uncertainty of per-pupil funding, the school acknowledges that the per-pupil percentage increase they have anticipated is not assured.”

These problems all need to be addressed, but the most significant finding is that “Parents/guardians and students are generally satisfied with the school.” Absent major deficiencies, educational or otherwise, what else really matters?  SUNY correctly renewed the charter, but it was fortunate for UFT that the evaluation team had a more forgiving nature than does UFT’s parent union (here and here).

The National Education Association posted its membership numbers as of December 31, 2009, and something’s hinky somewhere.

You may recall EIA reported that NEA experienced membership losses in 2009 – its first losses in 27 years. That report was based on a presentation made by NEA Secretary-Treasurer Becky Pringle to the union’s board of directors the weekend of December 12. That report was quadruple-sourced, so I have no doubt as to its accuracy.

The board was briefed that active membership (those working in K-12 and higher ed) was down by almost 17,000 while total membership (including retirees, students and others) was down by almost 37,000. One source gave me NEA total membership at 3,198,513.

In less than three weeks, however, the numbers turned around. They now show active membership up by 14,785 and total membership at 3,269,523 – an increase of 15,640 from 2008. So unless NEA picked up 71,000 members over the Christmas holidays, these numbers are at odds with the numbers presented to the board. They also fly in the face of all the reported teacher layoffs in 2009, with 30 NEA state affiliates reporting an increase in membership – some of them huge.

Working K-12 education employees, both teachers and support workers, are NEA’s core constituency. For comparison purposes, here are the state-by-state active K-12 numbers as of December 31, 2009, with the change in membership, and percentage change, since December 31, 2008:

National – 2,753,129 (up 8,235, +0.3%)

Alabama – 72,145 (down 188, -0.3%)

Alaska – 11,140 (up 298, +2.7%)

Arizona – 31,074 (down 454, -1.4%)

Arkansas – 13,416 (down 48, -0.4%)

California – 301,237 (down 5,463, -1.8%)

Colorado – 35,585 (up 122, +0.3%)

Connecticut – 37,427 (up 277, +0.7%)

Delaware – 10,941 (up 213, +2.0%)

Florida – 125,033 (down 4,479, -3.5%)

Georgia – 33,654 (up 849, +2.6%)

Hawaii – 12,503 (down 297, -2.3%)

Idaho – 11,637 (up 75, +0.6%)

Illinois – 125,386 (up 2,868, +2.3%)

Indiana – 47,499 (up 193, +0.4%)

Iowa – 35,232 (down 268, -0.8%)

Kansas – 25,510 (down 31, -0.1%)

Kentucky – 32,182 (down 70, -0.2%)

Louisiana – 14,331 (up 179, +1.3%)

Maine – 18,444 (down 46, -0.2%)

Maryland – 66,515 (up 386, +0.6%)

Massachusetts – 84,994 (up 1,120, +1.3%)

Michigan – 118,339 (up 2,551, +2.2%)

Minnesota – 70,493 (down 513, -0.7%)

Mississippi – 5,411 (down 39, -0.7%)

Missouri – 29,400 (up 662, +2.3%)

Montana – 12,922 (up 57, +0.4%)

Nebraska – 21,114 (up 101, +0.5%)

Nevada – 26,970 (up 1,978, +7.9%)

New Hampshire – 15,404 (up 197, +1.3%)

New Jersey – 175,414 (up 1,547, +0.9%)

New Mexico – 8,127 (up 309, +4.0%)

New York – 347,229 (up 3,382, +1.0%)

North Carolina – 47,917 (down 418, -0.9%)

North Dakota – 7,076 (up 64, +0.9%)

Ohio – 117,594 (up 1,459, +1.3%)

Oklahoma – 23,451 (down 987, -4.0%)

Oregon – 40,103 (up 277, +0.7%)

Pennsylvania – 154,198 (up 2,287, +1.5%)

Rhode Island – 7,108 (down 197, -2.7%)

South Carolina – 7,793 (down 1,081, -12.2%)

South Dakota – 5,650 (up 33, +0.6%)

Tennessee – 47,129 (up 405, +0.9%)

Texas – 42,969 (up 817, +1.9%)

Utah – 23,989 (down 21, -0.1%)

Vermont – 10,790 (up 166, +1.6%)

Virginia – 56,262 (down 471, -0.8%)

Washington – 77,542 (up 468, +0.6%)

West Virginia – 11,372 (down 442, -3.7%)

Wisconsin – 84,023 (up 548, +0.7%)

Wyoming – 5,568 (down 24, -0.4%)

Others – 5,887 (down 120, -2.0%)

There wasn’t much wiggle room in NEA’s reaction to President Obama’s ESEA reauthorization plan: “The National Education Association cannot support the Administration’s plan at this time.”

But evidently Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell didn’t check her e-mail inbox in time, because she told WKOW-TV in Madison, “I think there’s much in there that we can support.” Here’s the video:

To be sure, her assessment was far from glowing, but it certainly had a much different tone than the communications from NEA.

Click here to read:

1) Separating the Sheep from the Goats

2) Just Say No

3) Scheduling Note

4) Last Week’s Intercepts

5) Quote of the Week