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

School district officials in Columbus, Ohio, were jazzed when they installed the new $1.7 million Kronos computer system to track workers’ attendance. The idea was that all employees, from the superintendent on down, would have to swipe a card through a reader as they entered and exited their workplace. The district computers would record the amount of time each employee spent on the job, much like the old factory punch cards and clock.

There was only one problem. The use of the system is considered to be a change in working conditions according to the collective bargaining agreement. Since the district never negotiated Kronos with the Columbus Education Association, district employees simply refused to use it. Three years in, only about 15% of the Columbus workforce uses a time card.

Rhonda Johnson, president of the Columbus Education Association, said the district never formally approached the union about the Kronos system. She opposes the idea.

“We’re professional, and we’re expected to be on the job 7 1/2 hours a day,” Johnson said. “We don’t swipe in and out.”

EIA has learned that CEA produced a video warning members about the threat of Kronos, to be broadcast should the district try to impose it on employees. Spies within the union smuggled the video out of Columbus, and I post it here for you.

For a group of people who were worried about staff costs when they ran for office, the new leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union are sure hiring a boatload of staffers.

The Center for American Progress is a labor-friendly organization (NEA gave them money last year), and wants to know “Why Is the Public Suddenly Down on Unions?” Authors David Madland and Karla Walter examine this question at great length and, through the historical study of opinion surveys about unions, they find that the public likes unions when economic times are good and dislikes them when economic times are bad. They then conclude that support for unions will recover when the economy does.

This analysis is helpful, but buried inside is a point that is profound in its simplicity.

Despite their skepticism of power, however, the American public realizes that the competing interests of government, labor, and business create a system of checks and balances between these actors that prevents too much power from being concentrated in these institutions. Consequently, Americans approve of conflict within and among their major institutions. The institutionalized tension between labor and business is seen as checking the power of both institutions.

So it turns out that even after 220 years, Americans still like checks and balances. Madland and Walter find that although government, labor and business have competing interests, public opinion of them rises and falls together. The authors mosey alongside the reason for this without stating it outright when they discuss the unpopularity of the GM and Chrysler bailouts.

If government, labor and business have nothing else in common, they all do pine for what’s in the taxpayer’s wallet. So when the average American sees the car companies and autoworkers unions successfully lobby the federal government for a bailout, he or she sees collusion among all three and concludes “This can’t be good for me.”

This wariness of consensus supports the position of hardline unionists, who oppose collaboration with management on principle. The public generally doesn’t want labor and management on the same side because it distrusts their combined power. At the same time, this outlook is problematic for public sector unions, because their members are government workers, and their interests coincide with those of government. It also explains why the public dislikes corporate tax breaks. It seems to indicate a too cozy relationship between government and business.

Politicians and the press often claim that the public wants to “get things done.” What they fail to realize is the public also wants their institutions to prevent other institutions from getting things done.

Click here to read:

1) 45,000 Fewer Students and 7,800 More Teachers

2) NEA Reduces Media Fund Spending for State Affiliates

3) Last Week’s Intercepts

4) Quote of the Week

The National Education Association discussing Rep. David Obey (D-WI):

The decisive victory for education jobs in the US House of Representatives last week couldn’t have been done without NEA members, but President Van Roekel took a little time this afternoon to thank a valuable friend who fights for public education, Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin. Van Roekel publicly thanked Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, for his critical leadership in securing the passage in the House of Representatives of funding that will save an estimated 138,000 educator jobs. Van Roekel led the delegates in a chant of “Thank you Chairman Obey!” and reminded them the fight isn’t over.

Rep. David Obey (D-WI) discussing the National Education Association:

I have had a half-life war with the NEA . For three years in a row I refused to even take any contributions because they had this silly deal that every year if you want to get their endorsement, you first had to fill out their silly questionnaire and pledge like a Boy Scout that you would do A, B, C, D and E. And I said I’m not going to do that. I have been the lead pony on education funding for 15 years around here, and if NEA isn’t smart enough to figure out where the hell I’m coming from on education after that time, they don’t deserve to be in the business.

I have been the leading proponent of funding for education for the last 15 years in this Congress at least. … And I’ve had a hell of a lot of experience fighting teachers unions, school boards, school superintendents, the whole damn bunch when I thought they were wrong. I don’t need any lectures from the secretary of Education or the president of the United States in terms of my willingness to take on teachers’ organizations.

Few things can start up an argument faster than the role of student standardized tests. They are blamed for narrowing the curriculum and giving the public a false perception of the state of public education. Some think they should be used to evaluate teachers and establish pay scales. Others decry their use even as a measure to evaluate student performance – unless the scores rise.

There are a lot of very smart people out there trying to bring these sides together to craft some sort of system or compromise that would allow student scores to be factored into evaluations of teachers and schools, without losing sight of the many variables that enter into student outcomes. In some locations, they have even succeeded.

I think they are wasting their time.

The debate over performance pay is a good example. Statements from the National Education Association consistently mention opposition to the practice “based on student test scores.” Proponents then figure if they could come up with a system not solely based on student test scores, it might pass muster. They are unaware that NEA is philosophically opposed to performance pay, however it is determined.

Even if we leave the issue of pay aside, these are differences of belief, not of methods. It is official NEA policy that student test scores don’t reveal anything about the quality of teaching or schools. Poor test results indicate a change of tactics may be in order, not that the school and teachers are deficient. NEA believes “that indicators of student learning are most appro­priately used in formative assessments focused on helping teachers to improve their practice. Measures of teacher effectiveness based on standardized test data should not be used for summative evaluation of teach­ers or other education professionals.”

Do “value-added” assessments manage to sidestep this problem? Not according to NEA’s Committee on Professional Standards and Practice:

It should be noted that so-called “value-added” models that claim to measure teachers by student test data do not promote collaboration and can measure teacher effects only when teaching remains a private and isolated process. These measures of isolated practice are neither valid nor reliable.

Under these circumstances, we will continue to see what we have already seen. In most places, student scores will never formally become a part of teacher evaluations. In some places, individuals on opposite sides will craft something they can both live with. But we can rule out a grand consensus.

Hang on, dear reader, as we weave our way through the interstices of federal and state campaign finance and labor laws.

Unions at all levels must segregate dues money and PAC contributions for candidates. They are allowed to spend dues money on ballot initiatives, issue campaigns and independent expenditure campaigns, but they must collect voluntary contributions exclusively from members for PACs that donate to candidates. This explains why the National Education Association, which spends tens of millions of dollars on issue politics each year, only collects, on average, about $2.5 million annually for its candidate PAC – the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education. Raising PAC money among the delegates to the union’s convention is a neverending activity.

In some states, and California is among them, the union is allowed to collect candidate PAC contributions along with dues (primarily through paycheck deduction), but the contribution still has to be voluntary. In the case of the California Teachers Association, “voluntary” means you failed to fill in an opt-out bubble on your membership enrollment form when you joined the union, lo those many years ago. The form looked something like this one. The relevant box reads:

“A designated portion of CTA dues is normally allocated to the Association for Better Citizenship (CTA/ABC), a bipartisan political fund through which CTA provides financial support for educational issues and CTA-endorsed candidates for local and state offices. Please fill in if you choose not to allocate a portion of your dues to the CTA/ABC account and want all of your dues to remain in the General Fund.”

The last phrase is signficant because if you fill in the opt-out bubble, you don’t get the money back. You just gave an extra $18.30 to the union’s general fund.

Now we move on to CTA’s budget decisions for the 2010-11 school year. The union’s board of directors determined the usual PAC allocation would not get the job done. CTA very much wants Jerry Brown elected governor and Tom Torlakson as state superintendent of public instruction. So, for a single year, they increased the PAC allocation to $26.30, without raising total dues any additional amount. This maneuver will generate an additional $2 million or more for the PAC.

This sleight-of-hand would not be permitted at the federal level. But because state law allows the union to collect dues and PAC money in the same lump sum, CTA can claim that the general fund money is not the exact same money being added to the PAC coffers. Indeed, because the membership form specifies only “a designated portion,” there is nothing to stop CTA from raising the PAC allocation to $200 per member with no additional authorization from the individual.

Under these circumstances, there is some question whether the PAC box on the membership form constitutes informed consent. It is also worth mentioning that a CTA membership form is something you fill out once in your career. There are people currently teaching in California who filled out that form 20 or 30 years ago. Are they to be PAC contributors in perpetuity, at whatever level the union decides, without further authorization or even notification?