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

On the pages of Time, Andrew Rotherham examines the various reform-minded groups that have sprung up within the ranks of the big-city teachers’ unions. Sarah Rosenberg at The Quick and the Ed follows suit. Rotherham calls them “insurgents” while Rosenberg refers to “a revolution.” While I applaud any publicly stated diversity of thought within NEA and AFT, I am considerably less sanguine about the prospects of major internal reform.

There are two problems. One is that in any corporate culture radical changes in direction are frowned upon, if not suppressed. In unions, whose very hallmark is solidarity, this reluctance to entertain unorthodox thought is ratcheted up several levels. The relative electoral success of NewTLA is remarkable, but such victories don’t usually result in further gains in subsequent elections. I admit we are operating in extraordinary times, so maybe things will be different and I’ll be surprised.

Second, everyone is an insurgent until he or she achieves power. If you think this is an easy transition, ask Karen Lewis in Chicago. Or ask Bob Chase how that new unionism thing worked out for him. The teacher union reform field is littered with the bodies of those who sought to alter the union’s primary mission – protecting teachers – and found themselves ousted in favor of challengers who promised to get tough with administrators.

You say you want a revolution? Well, you know…

After losing the state supreme court race, gaining control of the Wisconsin senate would have been good news for Democrats and labor unions – though with a Republican governor and a Republican assembly one has to wonder how much practical effect it would have had. That didn’t happen, but the efforts of both sides to declare victory seem strained.

When you spend millions just to hold on to what you already have, and lose two seats in the bargain, it can’t be considered a great accomplishment.

On the other hand, when you spend millions of dollars to pick up no more than two (pending next week’s recalls) inconsequential state senate seats, neither can it be considered a great accomplishment. Just last week, Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate said “our polling tells that we have leads in three of these races and we are dead tied in three.” I’m guessing that polling money wasn’t well spent.

The Washington Post‘s Rachel Weiner called the election an ”undeniable defeat for labor and for progressive activists.” The Daily Kos called it “a real victory.”

Victories like these would undo just about anyone else, but I’ve yet to see any bottom to the well of union political spending. Wisconsin has shown that the unions can be defeated even if they have a high priority goal, but they are much better situated to prevail in a war of attrition. We can expect Wisconsin-style battles to continue for some time yet.

Click here to read:

1) Education Politics 2011: Can Both Sides Be in Trouble?

2) Last Week’s Intercepts

3) Quotes of the Week

In Sacramento, our local newspaper and teachers’ union are all over this story, but it was actually broken last June by our local CBS-TV affiliate, which I embed here for you.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that school districts handle restaurant finances about as well as they handle education finances. I’m not sure what’s more insulting: taxpayers footing the bill for a special cafe for district employees, or the claim by the district spokesman that the restaurant is losing money because of layoffs at headquarters.

I’ve reported in the past about NEA’s foray into Indiana real estate, but that was a measure taken to solve an affiliate insolvency problem. The United Federation of Teachers in New York City routinely operates at the highest levels of commercial real estate. The union purchased its current headquarters building at 50 Broadway in 2002 for $53.75 million – financed by the sale of three midtown properties for $63.6 million.

Last week, UFT secured $54.5 million in first mortgage financing for the building, which is 20 percent occupied by the union and 80 percent occupied by other parties, including many non-profit organizations and affiliated unions.

The deal came with a line of credit and letter of credit for the union. All told, more than enough to cover the rent in Boca Raton.

Blogger RiShawn Biddle exposed a PowerPoint presentation from Jennifer Berigan, a legislative advocate for AFT Connecticut, that described the union’s strategy in opposing, then undermining, “parent trigger” legislation. One of the things that aided a successful outcome for AFTCT was, according to Berigan, the “absence of charter school and parent groups from the table” during negotiations with the Connecticut legislative leadership.

Berigan also slammed the Connecticut Education Association, saying the NEA state affiliate was dragged “kicking and screaming” into lobbying activities and listed CEA as one of the things that “hurt us.”

Since the PowerPoint was originally posted on AFT’s web site, the public criticism caused Randi the Anguished to suffer some - um, well, what’s the word I’m looking for? – distress. She e-mailed This Week in Education‘s Alexander Russo to say “The powerpoint didn’t represent AFT or my views, nor does it represent the Conn Fed’s views.”

A photo from the SOS March (hat tip to Larry Sand):

Its provenance is impeccable. It was posted by Mark Simon of the Mooney Institute for Teacher and Union Leadership. Simon is the former president of the Montgomery Education Association, one of NEA’s largest local affiliates.