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

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, one and all! See you back here on January 3.

With the sad demise of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, I’m wondering why we haven’t heard from the host of merger supporters, including the National Education Association. After all, didn’t NEA president Dennis Van Roekel call the merger “a win for everyone?”

AFT is in a tight spot. It took control of the Broward Teachers Union in order to put a stop to BTU’s financial mismanagement while heading off a power struggle between BTU president Pat Santeramo and a faction of the local’s executive board. That has been accomplished. Although some are worried about BTU’s cash flow, AFT will certainly float a loan and give the local a very long time to pay it back – just as it did in Miami after the Tornillo scandal. And the administratorship of John Tarka expires in six months, giving the union ample opportunity to arrange for new elections.

Though the just-in-time resignation of Pat Santeramo saved AFT and BTU from the exposure of how business was routinely conducted during his tenure, it still hangs overhead, like a threatening storm cloud. And the rumbling thunder is from the financial settlement due to Santeramo.

BTU owes Santeramo $255,020 in unused vacation and sick leave. If there were no scandal, and Santeramo had simply decided to resign, the payment would have been made without a second thought. However, with an expulsion hearing called by the union executive board, an AFT administratorship, and a sudden resignation, members can be forgiven for believing that something must have been wrong. And if so, why is Santeramo being paid off?

With the Santeramo resignation requiring secrecy and the payoff requiring transparency, Tarka decided to split the difference. In a letter to members, Tarka defends the transaction:

We must honor this commitment. In thousands of contracts across the nation, AFT locals and school districts negotiate sets of work rules and compensation packages. Our members correctly view those agreements as sacred commitments that must be honored. Here in Broward County, we expect the Board of Education to honor the commitments it makes to us. Likewise, we have an obligation to hold up our commitments to others, as well.

Honoring our commitments is more than a legal obligation. It is a statement about our character and a fundamental value we teach our children.

As long as The Battle Hymn of the Republic is playing in the background, we might as well ask how this arrangement squares with the championing of due process. It’s reasonable to believe that the union has a moral obligation to pay Santeramo. But was there a moral obligation to negotiate a resignation in private and cancel the expulsion hearing in the first place?

Tarka’s nod to the problems that brought forth his administratorship takes the form of reducing Santeramo’s payoff by the amount AFT claims he was overpaid during the last six years, plus credit card charges he made that lack documentation – a total of $56,000. Tarka believes this will satisfy all parties and avoid a “potential protracted legal battle that would distract us from the union’s important business and cost the BTU thousands of dollars in lawyer fees.”

He may be right, but it seems he’s giving short shrift to an important variable: Santeramo.

The legal opinion upon which Tarka based his decision states, “While there is a question as to whether under the law BTU has the unilateral right to do so, we believe that such an approach is fair and reasonable under the circumstances. Given the situation at hand, we believe your acceptance of this risk is a defensible business position.”

If Santeramo takes his money and runs, so too will all accounting for what happened, because no one involved wants to spend time explaining why the failure to pass along national and state dues hikes was never questioned by BTU officers and representatives, or why continued budget deficits and drawn-down reserves never provoked any response, or whether there was any legally actionable wrongdoing (although the state attorney and the elections commission may have final say on that question).

But if Santeramo demands his full payout, he may use Tarka’s statement and legal opinion for himself. In it, Tarka admits the union owes him this money, and Santeramo might demand proof in a court of law that a) he was overpaid by that exact amount; and b) that his credit card charges should not be reimbursed. Despite Tarka’s effort, it will be Santeramo’s decision whether there will be a “protracted legal battle.” It would be ironic if the resignation deal ends up causing the public fallout it was meant to prevent.

Dateline – Springfield, Massachusetts:

Assault and kidnapping charges were filed Thursday against Willie Vega, the 44-year old teacher accused of punching a female vice principal at the High School of Commerce after receiving a poor evaluation.

…In the first detailed account of the incident, police said Vega became enraged while reviewing his evaluation during a meeting at the State Street high school. Grabbing it from the vice-principal, Vega stabbed it with a pen and then crumpled it up, said Sgt. John Delaney.

“Mr. Vega then stood up and punched the vice principal in the face causing her to fall from her chair,” Delaney added.

When the vice principal attempted to flee her office, Vega blocked the door, forcing her to use a portable radio to call a police officer assigned to the school.

…Vega has no record of serious disciplinary problems, but faces the possibility of being fired for assaulting an administrator, Collins said.

Click here to read:

1) Membership Losses, Budget Cuts Continue to Plague NEA

2) Last Week’s Intercepts

3) Scheduling Note

3) Quote of the Week

NEA is recognizing its top cyberlobbyists of 2011 for their work in filling the inboxes of Congresspersons all year long.

Fifty NEA activists were responsible for more than 17,000 e-mails to Congress, which averages out to more than 6.5 e-mails per person per week.

Still a long way to go before making the ROKSO list.

I doubt if Matthew Di Carlo of the Albert Shanker Institute and I see eye-to-eye on much regarding education labor, but he’s devoted to ensuring that arguments and opinions at least have a basis in documented evidence. There may be some propaganda value in repeating verifiable falsehoods, but I think there are enough legitimate ways to disagree that willfully getting it wrong is neither desirable nor acceptable.

Recently Di Carlo has examined the claim that teacher candidates come from the bottom third of college graduates (incomplete and out of context), and whether Al Shanker actually said, “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children” (probably not).

Yesterday, Di Carlo asked the question, “Do Half Of New Teachers Leave The Profession Within Five Years?” He looks back at the relevant data and reaches the conclusion that such a claim is incomplete.

As is usually the case, the statistics paint a somewhat nuanced picture that doesn’t lend itself to screaming newspaper headlines and TV sound bites. But the usual case also is that the headlines and sound bites are what people remember, while the detailed explanation of the numbers is intricate and sleep-inducing. So while I applaud Di Carlo for his research and for publishing his results, I can also say from experience that the claim will long outlive his explanation.

Di Carlo’s focus was on whether the retention numbers were accurately cited and added up, but he only spent a little time on why the retention numbers are where they are. After all, the purpose of virtually everyone who cites the “half of all new teachers” claim is to illustrate that teaching is such a low-paid, high stress occupation it is driving out newcomers in droves.

In April 2004 (see item #2), I cited statistics showing that by far the two most common reasons teachers left the profession were a) “family or personal reasons” and b) retirement. Then I noted government data showing K-12 teaching having the second highest retention rate of all professions.

In June 2006 (see item #2), I asked a series of contextual questions in response to a teacher retention report by the Public Policy Institute of California, including “compared to what?” That is a question Di Carlo also asks in his analysis.

Finally, in a February 2007 story headlined “School Staffing Survey Provides Perspective” I cited a National Center for Education Statistics report demonstrating that most of the reasons teachers leave the profession have very little to do with the profession – such as pregnancy, relocating or health.

I hope Di Carlo’s efforts lead people to stop using the apocryphal Shanker quote and authoritative-sounding claims that lack sourcing, but the political climate being what it is, I wouldn’t bet the house on it.