The staff went on a three-week strike in 2008, but the economic situation is much worse this time around. OEA projects a $2.6 million deficit for the next school year (more than 10 percent in the red) and plans significant cuts to close it. The union’s representative assembly also approved a change to the dues formula that will lead to an increase next year.

The budget reductions include a cut to contributions to the staff pension fund and the closing of a single UniServ council office. But it is the staff layoffs, and how they were arrived at, that has already led to a great deal of friction.

Management sent layoff notices to seven of the 42 professional staffers and 13 of the 40 associate staffers, for a combined layoff of almost 25 percent. As you might imagine, the staff contracts set seniority as the top criterion for layoffs, with the last-in to be the first-out. But OEA management is trying to throw a curveball past its own employees.

Instead of laying off in reverse order of hiring, the union is laying off in reverse order of positions being created. This has resulted in two employees with more than 30 years of experience receiving pink slips.

That’s a hell of a maneuver, and one easily replicated by school districts if any had the sand to try it. Can’t lay off your most senior employees? Merely appoint them to head the new Teacher Evaluation Center, or some such dodge. Pitch it as a promotion. Then lay them off because they hold the most recently created positions. It’s either devilishly clever or delusional. In what reality will the staff union stand for that?

Since OEA’s projections are based on removing high-end employees, it might also mean additional layoffs or spending cuts will become necessary when the staff union puts the kibosh on the scheme.

Equally large numbers of layoff notices have been issued at other NEA state affiliates, but to my knowledge they were all issued in compliance with the staff contract.

OEA’s internal labor strife runs concurrently with a series of teacher strikes and near-strikes over the last month. More than 500 members of the Reynolds Education Association are on the picket line today.

Blogger Richard Millett was one of those using a video camera – for the first few minutes.  About 8 seconds into the presentation, Millett was prodded in the shoulder and ordered to stop recording.  When he refused, a man got in his face, demanding he stop recording, and said “You’re a typical Israeli, you know.”  (Millett is not an Israeli, and it’s not even clear he’s Jewish.  I have no personal acquaintance with him.)  As that confrontation unfolded, a very large man seated in front of Millett got up, towered over Millett, ordered him to leave, and snatched Millett’s backpack, walking out of the auditorium with it.  The audience began rhythmic clapping, shouting at Millett to leave.  Millett tried to make the case for his presence at a meeting open to the public, being held at the taxpayer funded University of London facility, but the audience continued to shout at him:  noise for noise’s sake; noise to drown him out and preempt any rational discourse.

Eventually, Millett did leave, in part to ensure the recovery of his personal belongings.  The audience clapped ecstatically for his departure.

If you go through Richard Millett’s website, what you will see is documentation of a number of such events (at most of which he was able to stay and record throughout).  Millett is critical, no doubt about that, but all he does is document exactly what the anti-Israel – and often anti-Semitic – activists and lecturers themselves do.  He quotes them accurately and gets them on video when he can.  There is nothing unfair about his coverage; it is scrupulously honest.

The University of London should certainly look into this, and ensure that public events can be attended peacefully by anyone, and that videorecording is allowed to all or denied to all equally.  Such enforcement may have little effect, however, on a group mindset that resents not just criticism but the simple truth.  If a civic or political group, meeting publicly, is not willing to have its activities and statements recorded truthfully by critics, its purpose is suspect.  Forcible suppression of truth only works one way:  those who practice it have wrong intentions.  There can be no good purpose for preventing third parties – i.e., the whole of society, whether friendly or critical – from seeing what is said and done at a public event sponsored by the Palestine Society.

The flip side of preventing the coverage of pro-Palestinian events is silencing supporters of Israel and those who make a pro-Israel – or even just a balanced – case in the matter of Israeli-Palestinian relations.  College campuses in the United States are the scene of a growing number of such attempts.

Quite a few of the most noteworthy have taken place in California (although by no means all.  On a slightly different head, see here for a Rutgers event to which putative Israel supporters were denied entry, based on blatant profiling by the sponsors.  And here for the attacks on Israel supporters who mounted political displays at UCLA and Penn State).  Back in 2010, writers for the American Thinker summarized a series of events at California universities at which critical or pro-Israel speech was shouted down – including an event made infamous for this exclamation by Dr. Jess Ghannam, a psychiatry professor at UC-San Francisco (emphasis added): “Now, every single Israeli military official and politician will be afraid to speak publicly. It’s huge!”

In a similar vein, Israeli soldiers giving a presentation at UC-Davis in March 2012 were relentlessly heckled by Palestinian-activist students.  One accused the Israelis of having turned “Palestine into a land of prostitutes, rapists, and child molesters.”  He hollered at the soldiers (emphasis added):

“How many women have you raped?  How many children have you raped?  You are a child molester!”  And he admitted freely: “I can embarrass myself all I want.  I will stand here and I will heckle!  My only purpose today is that this event is shut down!”

The joker in all this, however, is that the passionate heckler turned out to be a student who admitted to having been paid $50 to do the heckling, and who was given a script to follow for his performance.  The authorities made no effort to quiet the hecklers during the event, or advise them that the invited guests had a right to be heard.  Read the full CAMERA story; it’s a doozy.

It’s a good question how many universities realize the hit their academic reputations take from these events.  It’s one thing for the citizens to have to effectively subsidize the propagation of views they disagree with at the state-funded institutions.  But it’s another altogether for those state-funded institutions to silence speech on the taxpayer’s dime.

Not all the universities in question are taxpayer funded, of course.  But if you assembled the actual taxpayers for these events, they would behave much better than the student activists, faculty, and officials at almost any university.  (Fans at a minor-league hockey game would behave better.)  The best in the legacy of the English-speaking peoples – letting everyone have his say, tolerating dissent, prizing courtesy toward political opponents – is decreasingly in evidence in our most celebrated institutions of higher learning.  When the ordinary people are way better than the leaders of academia in this regard, it becomes a serious question why the taxpayers should keep funding the institutions’ sophomoric privileges.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

I hope they checked with Krugman’s mom first.

The median retirement age is also climbing, from 61.2 in 2001 to 61.9 in 2011. California teachers are vested after five years, and can retire as early as age 55. Those retiring in 2011 had fewer median years of service (25.5) than any previous group of retirees in the last 10 years.

The good news for CalSTRS and the state budget is that with fewer years of service, the average 2011 retiree received less of a payout than the 2010 retiree ($168 per month less). The bad news is that the good news only postpones the inevitable. CalSTRS currently pays benefits to some 253,000 retired teachers and surviving family members. There are more than 603,000 teachers who still work or have worked in the public schools and will be eligible for pensions when they retire.

In 2001, CalSTRS paid teachers under $4 million in benefits. Ten years later, that figure is more than $10.2 million. But the effect on CalSTRS is secondary to the effect these numbers will have on current school district operations. To put it in some perspective, the average working California public school teacher earned $64,069 in 2011. The average payout to a teacher who retired in 2011 was $49,056.

The political battle, of course, is whether to mitigate the shortfalls with pension reforms or revenue increases. Hopefully, though, California is past the point where hoping the future takes care of itself is our only strategy.

EIA has now learned that at least three more BTU officials have been charged with campaign violations, Secretary-Treasurer Ronney Virgillito was charged with the same violation as Schultz. Two BTU employees – director of field services George Segna and director of strategic programs Lynn Cavall – were cited for filing a false campaign report.

The details of the incident for which Segna and Cavall were charged have not yet been made clear, since the statute cited involves exceeding the allowed contribution limit to repay a candidate’s loan.

There are reportedly some two dozen BTU officials who may face similar charges. BTU was placed under an AFT administratorship after accusations of financial mismanagement by president Pat Santeramo. Santeramo was ultimately bought out and induced to resign. The AFT administratorship was recently extended until November 2012.

So said Mitt Romney in his victory speech after winning all five Republican primaries April 24.

He had me at “schools of their choice.”

For seven years, I headed a school reform organization in Vermont, advocating for school choice policies.  Vermont, in case you haven’t noticed, is the bluest of blue states. They’ve got a socialist in the U.S. Senate, their state legislature passed a single payer health care bill (and is now working out the details), and, of a 30-member state senate, only eight are Republicans. Their House is similarly unbalanced. Republicans who do manage to snag high office are often of the Jim Jeffords strain, left-leaning independents.

So, it was a steep hill we were climbing with our “conservative” idea of school choice, vouchers and charter schools (which is ironic, given that Vermont is one of two states with a pure voucher program in place in about 90 towns since the 1850s). Were we successful? To a degree. One city, Rutland, actually voted for a voucher program for the city, never implemented because Vermont’s municipalities must have all “charter changes” approved by the state legislature. But we turned public opinion around in favor of school choice, and a reluctant legislature was dragged into supporting a tepid public high school choice bill.

I learned a lot during those battles, and here, for the benefit of the Romney campaign, I offer my – cough, cough—humble opinions on how to promote this important issue:

• School choice removes the financial sting from choosing a school. Right now, the wealthy and those capable of making the financial sacrifices already have choice. They write tuition checks (as the Obamas do) for their children’s school or they buy a more expensive home in a better school district. How is that fair? When the state tells parents their children must be “schooled” or considered truant, the state (and local communities) have an obligation to underwrite that schooling. Why should it only be free at certain schools within a defined geographic district?
• School choice is about finding the right school for every child. Certainly, in urban areas, that often means allowing kids in so-called failing schools to access better ones. But the important point to emphasize is that choice allows parents to find the right school for their child, no matter what the school’s test scores are. Although I believe tests are an important snapshot of how a school is doing at the macro level, only a parent knows what programs and teachers will positively benefit their kids at the micro level. I often heard in Vermont that if parents are allowed to choose schools, you’d see kids going to the schools with the better sports teams. To which, I would reply: if sports keep a kid interested in school, what’s wrong with that? Would you be equally upset if a parent chose a school for its terrific art program? The path to achievement and accomplishment varies from child to child.
• School choice is not about bashing public schools or public school teachers. Conservatives have to be particularly aware of this point because the teachers unions are often so antagonistic to our ideas in general that it becomes very tempting to make this a battle of public versus private schools. No, sometimes the right school for a kid is the local public school. And public schools, for several generations, provided the gateway skills needed to become productive Americans. My oldest transferred from a small parochial high school to the public one in order to access a range of AP courses. The public school was the right choice for him.
• School choice redefines education in America. Embrace this idea. Let’s think about what public education really means—the public’s responsibility to educate each child, wherever his/her potential is unlocked. Don’t let opponents offer the tired “we should be putting money into public schools, not voucher programs” argument. It’s the education we need to be underwriting, not a particular system of schools.

In Vermont, I heard a lot of crazy arguments against school choice, including some that had a malodorous whiff from the past about them. But here are some common ones you’re likely to hear and some suggested responses:

• Public schools are a bedrock of America, and vouchers will destroy them. This argument always had me licking my chops to pull out this quote: “We are now facing the ultimate perpetuation or destruction of free institutions, based upon the perpetuation or destruction of the public schools.” Who said those words? Why, the King Kleagle of the Pacific KKK back in 1922 when Oregon was getting ready to vote on a bill that would have banned attendance at private schools (the KKK supported the law, which passed, but the US Supreme Court overturned it a few years later). Public schools might have evolved to be an integral part of our communities, but people should know the system began as an archconservative idea that today’s conservatives would find appalling. In the late 1800s, public schools were nativists’ tool for blanching what they perceived as threatening papist views out of new Catholic immigrants. Do today’s liberals really want to stand shoulder-to-ideological-shoulder with those unsavory types of yesteryear? Or would they like to help correct the injustices perpetrated by 19^th century xenophobes intent on using schools to achieve their goals? The point is that the public school system in America is not a sacred cow. When it was forming, it was as far from “liberal” values as you could possibly get. (If you’re a history buff, I recommend Lloyd Jorgenson’s excellent history of this movement, The State and the NonPublic School.)
•  How can we have fair school choice without adequate transportation programs for students? To this, I’d always respond: would you deny food stamps to a single mother because you were afraid she wouldn’t be able to get to the store? You work out transportation issues locally and after you know where kids are going. (Vermont’s “tuition towns” handle transportation in a variety of ways, as I detail in this paper here.)
• School choice creates winners and losers. No, school choice allows losers to become winners. We often hear education experts using poverty, low parental involvement, inner-city problems such as high crime, and even racial tension, as excuses for poor performances by urban schools. But these reasons are precisely why a good school is so important. Poor children must be able to get all their schooling…from school. If their parents don’t read to them, the school must teach them how to read and provide other “gateway” skills. Parents who recognize this will send their children to schools that provide those skills. The schools that lose students will be forced to improve to remain competitive.
•  More money and more parental involvement are what schools need, not “balkanizing” voucher programs. Three cheers for parents who are involved in their children’s schools. But the most effective parental involvement is paying attention to your child’s educational needs by choosing the right school. Ironically, voucher opponents sneer at this kind of involvement, often coming close to suggesting parents might not be wise enough to make solid decisions.

Although, for good reason, economic and other issues are likely to dominate this election, Mitt Romney has a great opportunity to reveal the president’s “unfairness” on education issues by forcing him to confront his hypocrisy on school choice. The president is a good father. He sends his own children to a school that’s right for them because he can afford to write the tuition checks. Why is he denying that choice to poor families in DC by not supporting the modest scholarship (voucher) program there? How is that fair? Why won’t he stand up against the opponents of these programs, designed to help the poor and minorities in particular, across the country? We all know the reason, but it would be instructive to those intoxicated with the idea that he’s all about “fairness” to hear him try to wiggle out of the answer.

____

Libby Sternberg is a novelist, who now lives in Pennsylvania.

At issue is a statewide survey of superintendents conducted by the Department of Public Instruction and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators in the fall of 2011. That survey produced results making the state of schools appear better now than in years past, at least in comparison to results of anonymous surveys the union collected from superintendents before Walker took office.

WEAC no longer stores the old surveys on its web site, and the governor’s staff thinks the union is trying to hide something. As political disputes go, this isn’t much of one. I doubt you’ll find a survey of public employees conducted by other public employees that reveals everything is great, there’s more than enough money to go around, and we are a damn happy group of individuals. So comparing them isn’t going to provide any substance.

But in researching the history of this battle over the surveys, I came across something much more illuminating and – let’s face it – entertaining.

When the governor first began making his claims of improved schools last fall, WEAC reacted in the traditional manner – by drawing up talking points. One memo, dated November 29, is still posted on the web site of the West Allis-West Milwaukee Education Association. It’s not unusual, until you get to the sample statement/press release that locals were supposed to use as a model. I repost it here in its entirety – warts and all:

Governor Walker Is Hurting Our Schools and Students

The facts are clear, based on the release of a state survey of superintendents showing that the governor’s extreme cuts to schools has resulted in larger class sizes and cuts to important programs for students.

“Clearly Governor Walker’s $1.6 billion-dollar education cut is having an adverse impact on our schools and students across the state,” said [name, title/role with school and union position].

“Wisconsin has had a long tradition of valuing our public schools and supporting our students. Even in times of economic hardship and state budget problems, we have prioritized our schools and our kids,” [he/she] added.

But now, Governor Walker and the Republicans in the state legislature have cut 1.6 billion dollars from public school funding. These cuts have had a profound impact on public schools and students across the state. “Across the state there are 1,655 fewer teachers, 765 fewer aides, 776 fewer education support professionals – the result larger class sizes, fewer opportunities for students and less help for students who are struggling.” Important programs in art, music, and physical education have been cut back or eliminated in 47 percent of the state’s school districts.

Governor Walker claims that the cuts to public school teachers’ benefits have improved our schools, but we see in our schools every day that that is not true. “You cannot cut $1.6 billion from Wisconsin public schools and not hurt our students,” [last name] said.

(Localize the following paragraph – if the local union leader is unable to be quoted with a statement about what’s happening in their district – consider quoting the UniServ Director for this section)

According to [name/title], school districts are feeling the pinch at a local level. In [district], the special education department has cut four teachers. In [Nearby City], 2nd grade classes now have 35 kids with no aides to help students who are struggling to understand key concepts. In [Small Town] art has been eliminated for all elementary students. Teachers are doing their best to do more with less, but with cuts of this size, students are being hurt.

For more information about what’s happening in school districts across the state, visit www.Facebook.com/ SpeakOutWisconsin.

# # #

The [local name] proudly represents dedicated public education employees in [community] by amplifying their voices to ensure [district] maintains high‐quality public schools.

Running various phrases through Google, it doesn’t look like anyone took advantage of this education policy Mad Lib for a press release. But keep your eyes open, [name of Wisconsin reader]. The next time you see published remarks from [local union officer] in the [daily newspaper] of [Nearby City], they may just be the parroted words of some [adjective] [adjective] [noun] at WEAC headquarters.

In the meantime, if you ever find yourself in Nearby City, enjoy your stay.

When I read the news my original plan was to revisit the lead story from NEA’s March 30 Federal Legislative Update. You remember it:

WHAT DO EDUCATION SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS AND WARREN BUFFET’S (sic) SECRETARY HAVE IN COMMON?

They pay more in taxes than billionaire investor Warren Buffet! Our nation’s tax laws are out of whack. It is not fair that a bus driver, a custodian, and Warren Buffet’s own secretary pay more in taxes than our nation’s richest individuals.

I was going to headline the post: “What Do Three Maryland School Employees and Warren Buffett Have in Common?”

But when I checked the link to the NEA update, I found someone had run off with Warren Buffet’s (sic) secretary. The entire item has been excised from the March 30 update. It appears nowhere else on the NEA web site. Just so you don’t think I was hallucinating when I read it, it still exists as a re-post by a couple of NEA affiliates.

I applaud NEA for removing the inaccurate item, but common Internet courtesy requires some acknowledgment that a significant change to the original post has been made.

In any event, congratulations to the three jackpot winners for joining the 1%. Invest wisely, especially since you will lose 30% of the returns to the Buffett Rule.

For those of you who had forgotten the 15 minutes of fame enjoyed by Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, my apologies for reminding you. For those who need a refresher, it’s pretty simple and summed up by ABC News: “Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent.”

It took a few media cycles to ascertain that Buffett made about $46 million, mostly from capital gains, while Bosanek earned about $60,000. And it took a few more media cycles for every financial pundit in America to attempt to figure out how Bosanek’s tax rate could be so high, based on such a relatively low income.

So let’s avoid a rehash of effective rates vs. marginal rates, Social Security and payroll taxes, etc., and just accept the intended spin of “Rich people are gaming the system at the expense of poor people,” even if the vehicle used didn’t have all of its wheels.

Enter the NEA, which in support of the legislation inspired by Buffett’s secretary, the Paying a Fair Share Act, decided to go one step beyond with this argument:

WHAT DO EDUCATION SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS AND WARREN BUFFET’S (sic) SECRETARY HAVE IN COMMON?

They pay more in taxes than billionaire investor Warren Buffet! Our nation’s tax laws are out of whack. It is not fair that a bus driver, a custodian, and Warren Buffet’s own secretary pay more in taxes than our nation’s richest individuals.

Let’s begin with the obvious. Neither bus drivers, nor custodians, nor Warren Buffett’s secretary pay more in taxes than our nation’s richest individuals. In absolute terms, Buffett paid more in taxes in one year than his secretary will earn in 130 years.

The larger problem with this argument is that education support professionals (ESPs) and Warren Buffett’s secretary don’t have much in common. Bosanek makes $60,000 a year – in Nebraska. The average full-time ESP salary nationwide, according to NEA itself, is $30,480. Even if we assume that entire amount to be taxable, the marginal federal income tax rate is 15%, and the effective tax rate would be 13.6%. But there are exemptions, deductions and tax credits. The Tax Policy Center reports that 69.5% of all households with an income below $50,000 pay no federal income tax whatsoever.

If “fair share” means those with more pay more, NEA should apply the principle to its teacher members, who currently pay the same standard dues rate regardless of income, geography, or economic condition. Why should a starting teacher in North Dakota have to pay 0.7% of her salary in NEA national dues, when a top-of-the-scale teacher in New Jersey only pays 0.2%?

Using Internal Revenue Service data from the 2009-10 school year, the table, posted on the EIA web site, contains revenue information and employee compensation figures for each K-12 teacher union local affiliate that accumulated more than $2 million in total revenue that year. The 36 affiliates that met the threshold received $337.7 million in total revenue.

Topping the list was the United Federation of Teachers in New York City with more than $139 million – a 1 percent increase over 2008-09. UFT also had the highest employee compensation expenditures – a 12.8 percent increase to $47 million.

United Teachers Los Angeles ranked a distance second with more than $44.4 million in revenue, while the Chicago Teachers Union ranked third with almost $30.1 million.

The top 15 locals were all either American Federation of Teacher affiliates or merged NEA/AFT affiliates, highlighting the difference in structures of the two organizations. NEA’s state affiliates are the primary source of funds and services while in AFT the locals rule the roost. The highest-earning “NEA only” local was the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association at $4.3 million.

Of the 36 locals listed, 27 saw boosts in revenue over the previous year, but some experienced financial difficulties. The Detroit and Cleveland locals were forced to use dues revenue to cover investment losses.

Nevertheless, 24 locals increased employee compensation – 8 of those by double-digits. Spending on staff spiked most sharply at the Broward Teachers Union. The 35.8 percent increase in employee compensation should have raised more red flags than it did, and possibly avoided the outcome of an AFT administratorship.

The financial information for 2009-10 also seemed to issue early warnings to other affiliates experiencing internal problems today. The Clark County Education Association spent more on employee compensation than it received in local dues, and the San Diego Education Association was in the same boat.

For the most part, a local affiliate’s dollars are separate and in addition to the amounts received by national and state union affiliates, but in a few cases it can get pretty tangled. The United Teachers of Dade, for example, actually operates on about a $5.3 million budget, and still owes AFT and the Florida Education Association some $6 million stemming from the Pat Tornillo scandal.

A final word concerning the “number of employees” column: The IRS requires the unions to count as an employee every person to whom they issued a W-2 form that year. This rule results in some squirrelly numbers. UFT didn’t really have 991 full-time employees, nor did Orange County, Anchorage and Cincinnati really have zero. But absent better information, this is what we have to work with.

EIA created a table, now posted on its web site, that lists the financial figures for NEA and each of its 53 “state” affiliates (50 states plus the directly affiliated Federal Education Association, which represents NEA teachers overseas and on military bases, the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, and the Utah School Employees Association). The numbers include each union’s total revenues, dues income and the amount devoted to employee compensation. The statistics do not include the income of any of NEA’s 14,000 locals.

The numbers in the table include not only salaries and benefits for current teacher union staff, but set-asides for their pensions and post-retirement health care. In most cases, the growth in the amount devoted to these purposes greatly exceeded the increases in income.

The figures show that 18 of these affiliates – Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, UHPA and USEA – took in less revenue in 2009-10 than in the previous year. A 19th – Indiana – was placed under NEA administratorship that year and received a multi-million dollar shot in the arm from the national organization.

NEA and its affiliates collected $1.4 billion in member dues during 2009-10 (and another 181 million from other sources) but spent more than $863 million on salaries and benefits for employed and retired union staffers. Three affiliates – Connecticut, Michigan and New Mexico – spent more on staff than they received in dues.

The 2009-10 figures probably represent the high-water mark in revenues for NEA and its affiliates, as both public spending and union membership have decreased since that time. Staff reductions at NEA headquarters are a harbinger of similar cuts in state affiliates as national bailouts will be much harder to come by.

One more note about interpreting the table: The smaller the ratio of dues-only revenue to total revenue for a particular state affiliate, the more likely that it is dependent on one form or another of NEA subsidies, and will be more susceptible to any budgetary problems at the union’s national headquarters.

Last week we noted the unprecedented staff reductions NEA is preparing to make in light of stubborn budget deficits. Now we see some of the membership numbers prompting the corrective measures. The latest figures show total membership below 3,079,000 members, but even that paints a happier picture than the fiscal reality.

Membership levels are at their lowest since the 2005-06 school year – the year before the NEA affiliate in New York merged with the AFT-affiliated New York State United Teachers. The merger “added” more than 350,000 members to NEA’s ranks, but no additional funds. With roughly the same number of members in 2005, NEA was able to sustain a $300 million budget. Now its budget is more than $375 million.

The union is down more than 76,000 active working members compared with this time last year. Some losses in active membership are mitigated by increases in retired members. Retired members certainly add to NEA’s strength, but they pay only $25 annually in dues, as opposed to $178 by active working teachers. Trading active teachers for retirees keeps total membership numbers up, but greatly reduces the union’s bottom line.

By my estimate, NEA has lost 157,000 members after hitting its high-water mark in 2009. I have no current figures for state affiliates, except for Michigan, which is now below 116,000 active members – a loss of about 13,500 working employees since 2009.

NEA had already planned some cuts to close an estimated $17 million deficit, but evidently the union finds itself needing an additional $9.5 million to balance income with expenditures. Unfortunately, the union’s internal structure is not designed with swift and abrupt cost-cutting in mind. NEA has first transferred $1.9 million from its $3 million contingency fund into its general fund.

There is little relief to expect on the revenue side. Dues levels are set according to formula that is based on the average classroom teacher salary. Expected national dues for 2012-13 will be $180, a $2 per member increase.

But even that amount may be reduced or eliminated by continued membership losses. Last December 19, EIA reported: “It may take some time, and will probably happen under cover of darkness, but soon the claim that the National Education Association represents 3.2 million members will be adjusted downward, as the latest figures show the union’s total membership at well under 3.1 million.”

That occurred last week. A February 13 NEA press release claimed 3.2 million members. A February 15 press release reads, “more than 3 million.”

It is a measure of how serious the situation is that NEA executives see severe staff reductions as their only remaining option. NEA employees have been presented with an “exit program,” which is essentially an early retirement incentive. About 124 NEA staffers (out of about 580) are eligible to retire. The union is offering an additional 10 weeks of severance pay if they submit their paperwork by March 15. Most NEA employees are already guaranteed one week of severance pay for each year employed, up to 10.

The union is banking heavily on staffers accepting the offer, as “immediate” reductions in force and layoffs are the alternative. But there’s a problem.

Union “management” and confidential assistants may be dismissed right away, but most NEA employees are themselves members of unions, known as staff unions. And NEA is unable to lay off staff union members without 60 days of bargaining to come up with alternative measures. If no agreement is reached and NEA decides to go ahead with layoffs, the affected employees receive an additional 30 days notice. That means the school year will be over before the payroll can be reduced.

NEA’s financial troubles also have a ripple effect. Approximately one-third of the national union’s income is returned to its state affiliates in the form of UniServ grants. These grants help fund the cost of employing each state’s UniServ directors, who assist locals in contract negotiations, grievance processing and political action. Essentially, each UniServ grant is meant to provide services to 1,200 members. NEA expects that each 2012-13 grant will have to be reduced from the current $37,048 to $34,850 – almost a 6 percent cut. Affiliates will have to make up the difference themselves or reduce their own staffs in response.

As I have warned before, all these black clouds over NEA do not greatly affect its political action operations, particularly at the state level. The national union’s ballot measure/legislative crises fund is a segregated account with $27 million stashed away – of which only $6 million has already been awarded. The remaining amount is more than enough to exert a great influence on political campaigns in 2012.

A $1 million donation to support California’s Proposition 27, a redistricting initiative that failed, was the national union’s largest single contribution. A host of special interest groups, charities and religious organizations also received money from AFT, including Citizens for Strength and Security, Commonsense Ten, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Schott Foundation for Public Education.

Several payments totaling $413,534 were sent to TeamBlue Politics, Inc., an organization responsible for the NoVoucherTax web site in Pennsylvania last year. Many people, including myself, suspected the Pennsylvania State Education Association was behind the effort, but now it looks like it was really AFT.

These figures do not include grants and contributions made to other unions (such as Colorado WINS) or union coalitions such as the AFL-CIO.

Here is an alphabetic list of the recipients of AFT’s contributions, with relevant web links. All of these were paid for with members’ dues money (the union’s federal PAC is a separate entity funded through voluntary means):

Alliance for Ethical International Recruitment Practices – $5,000

Alliance for Retired Americans – $35,000

Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment – $28,233

America Votes – $150,000

American Constitution Society – $5,000

American Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center – $10,000

American Labor Studies Center – $5,250

The American Prospect – $100,000

American Rights at Work – $50,000

Annenberg Institute for School Reform – $20,667

A. Philip Randolph Institute – $10,500

Apollo Alliance – $15,000

Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance – $5,000

The Black Institute – $25,000

Blue Green Alliance Foundation – $96,408

Bnai Zion Foundation – $7,250

Building a Stronger Ohio – $150,000

California Community Foundation – $18,000

Catholics United – $25,000

Center for American Progress – $25,000

Center for Expansion of Language and Thinking – $20,000

Child Labor Coalition – $5,000

Christina-Taylor Green Memorial Fund – $5,000

Citizen Action of New York – $5,000

Citizens for Strength and Security – $500,000

Citizens for Tax Justice – $15,000

Clergy Strategic Alliances – $96,396

Coalition of Black Trade Unionists – $5,000

Coalition of Labor Union Women – $5,000

Committee for Education Funding – $17,713

Common Cause Education Fund – $5,000

Commonsense Ten – $400,000

Community Labor Coalition for Change Committee – $336,368

Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. – $46,000

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute – $30,000

Council on Competitiveness – $5,000

Demos – $10,000

Economic Opportunity Institute – $15,000

Economic Policy Institute – $350,000

Economic Research Institute – $5,654

Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate – $250,000

Educators Institute for Human Rights, Rwanda – $10,000

Freedom House – $25,000

Friendship West Baptist Church – $5,000

Gamaliel Foundation – $60,000

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation – $40,000

Good Jobs First – $12,500

Greater Wisconsin Committee – $250,000

Healthy Schools Campaign – $7,500

Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities – $10,000

Hispanic Heritage Foundation – $6,425

The House of the Lord & Church on the Mount, Inc. – $7,500

Imara Soul, Inc. – $5,000

Innovation Ohio – $25,000

International Labor Rights Forum – $12,500

International Rescue Committee – $20,000

James R. Hoffa Memorial Scholarship Fund – $6,000

Jewish Labor Committee – $8,500

Jobs with Justice – $10,000

Keystone Research Center – $15,000

Labor Council for Latin American Advancement – $5,000

Labor Project for Working Families – $35,000

Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State – $5,000

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights – $50,000

League of United Latin American Citizens – $15,000

Learning Forward – $27,500

Lubavitch Youth Organization – $8,000

Mini Men Mentoring – $7,500

National Action Network – $165,000

National Assembly on School-Based Health Care – $5,000

National Association for Bilingual Education – $10,000

National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund – $5,000

National Black Caucus of State Legislators – $10,100

National Coalition on Black Civic Participation – $12,500

National Coalition on Health Care – $10,000

National Conference of State Legislatures – $22,500

National Consumers League – $7,500

National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education – $66,638

National Council on Educating Black Children – $5,000

National Democratic Redistricting Trust – $300,000

National Endowment for Democracy – $12,500

National Jewish Democratic Council – $5,000

National Labor College – $226,427

National Newspaper Publishers Association – $220,973

National Public Pension Coalition – $135,000

National State Teachers of the Year – $25,000

National Urban League – $7,840

Netroots Nation – $27,500

New York Charter Parents Association – $5,000

New York Communities Organizing Fund – $10,000

New York Moves – $6,000

No Limits Foundation – $25,000

Organize Now – $50,000

Our Community Votes – $150,000

Parent Teacher Home Visit Project – $25,000

The Peggy Browning Fund – $8,050

Phi Delta Kappan International – $13,400

Policy Matters Ohio – $37,500

PowerPAC.org – $250,000

Pride at Work – $15,000

Rainbow PUSH Coalition – $75,000

Rebuild America’s Schools – $15,000

Reform California – $5,000

Save Our Schools March – $10,000

Schott Foundation for Public Education – $300,000

SHARE – $5,000

Special Olympics Missouri – $60,000

TeamBlue Politics, Inc. – $413,534

Tides Center – $50,000

Tk MaVazi Incorporated – $7,500

The Town Hall – $5,000

United Way of the National Capital Area – $15,000

USAction – $5,000

U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute – $10,000

Wake Youth Program – $5,000

We’re Not Going Back – $150,000

Women’s Campaign Forum – $5,000

Working America – $170,000

YES on 27 (California) – $1 million

The expenditures fall into broad categories of community outreach grants, charitable contributions, and payments for services rendered. In this list, EIA has deliberately omitted spending such as media buys, or payments to pollsters or consultants that have no obvious ideological component. The grants range from $3.15 million to America’s Families First, down to smaller grants to organizations such as People for the American Way, Media Matters and Netroots Nation.

Here is an alphabetic list of the 121 recipients of NEA’s contributions, with relevant web links. All of these were paid for with members’ dues money (the union’s federal PAC is a separate entity funded through voluntary means):

400% Is Too High – $50,000

AFL-CIO – $2.2 million ($1.2 million member communication research and strategy, $1 million legislative policy development)

AFSCME – $20,000

American Rights at Work -$10,000

America Votes – $1,721,000

American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education – $74,000

American Constitution Society- $10,000

Americans United for Change – $30,000

America’s Families First – $3,150,000

Center for American Progress – $25,000

Center for Economic Organizing – $25,300

Center for Law and Education - $25,000

Center for Tax and Budget Accountability – $20,000

Center for Teaching Quality – $318,848

Center for U.S. Global Leadership – $10,000

Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association – $50,000

Class Size Matters – $25,000

Clergy Strategic Alliances – $21,000

Coalition for Our Communities – $700,000

Coalition to Save Our Constitution – $25,000

Committee for Children – $10,000

Committee for Education Funding - $19,913

Committee on States – $60,000

Communities for Quality Education – $1 million

Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. – $170,000

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute – $55,000

Council of Chief State School Officers – $50,417

Council of State Governments - $19,750

Democracy Alliance – $85,000

Economic Policy Institute - $255,000

Education Commission of the States – $60,000

Education Writers Association – $11,500

Educator Compensation Institute - $25,000

Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate – $200,000

Employee Benefit Research Institute – $7,500

Everybody Wins DC - $8,000

Excelencia in Education - $15,000

Fair Districts Florida – $800,000

FairTest – $35,000

Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network – $7,500

Global Institute for Language and Literacy Development – $18,000

Good Jobs First - $15,000

Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice – $250,000

Health Care for America Now! – $125,000

Hip Hop Caucus Education Fund – $10,000

Hispanic Institute – $50,000

HOPE (Yes on SQ 744) - $1,500,000 ($1,758,000 last year)

Human Rights Campaign – $5,000

Idahoans for Responsible Education Reform – $157,000

Initiative for Responsible Investment – $5,000

Institute for Educational Leadership – $5,000

Jobs with Justice – $10,000

Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy – $11,700

Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law – $40,000

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights – $10,000

League of United Latin American Citizens – $70,000

Learning First Alliance – $22,800

Lincoln Center Institute – $75,000

MediaMatters – $100,000

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund – $10,000

Midwest Academy - $5,000

NAACP – $25,000

National Action Network – $60,000

National Association for Asian and Pacific American Education – $5,000

National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education – $17,500

National Association for Multicultural Education – $5,000

National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education Fund – $12,500

National Black Caucus of State Legislators – $5,500

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards – $10,000

National Coalition on Black Civic Participation – $22,500

National Conference of State Legislatures – $40,946

National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education – $400,373

National Immigration Law Center – $5,000

National Indian Education Association – $19,900

National Jewish Democratic Council – $5,000

National Labor College – $17,881

National Pan-Hellenic Council – $50,000

National Parent Teachers Association – $6,250

National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa – $10,000

National Public Pension Coalition – $135,000

National Women’s Law Center - $10,000

Netroots Nation - $24,999

New Democratic Network – $15,000

New Organizing Institute - $10,000

New Teacher Center – $333,834

North Carolina Citizens for Protecting Our Schools- $200,000

One Nation/TIDES – $250,000

Parent Teacher Home Visit Project - $10,000

Partnership for 21st Century Skills - $45,000

Patriot Majority PAC – $200,000

People for the American Way - $128,050

Pew Charitable Trusts – $5,000

Phi Delta Kappa International – $50,000

Progress Michigan – $10,000

Progress Now – $125,000

Progressive Future – $100,000

Progressive Majority – $46,625

Project New West – $333,498

Rainbow PUSH Coalition - $5,000

Rebuild America’s Schools – $60,000

University of Colorado Boulder Sponsored Project – $250,000

Republican Main Street Partnership – $20,000

Ripon Society – $10,000

Robert Russa Moton Museum – $50,000

Rock the Vote – $80,000

Saving First Things First – $50,000

United for a Fair Economy – $12,000

United for Missouri Priorities – $250,000

University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability – $25,000

U.S. Action – $80,000

U.S. Global Leadership Coalition - $15,000

U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute – $31,004

Voter Activation Network - $71,900

VoteVets.org – $270,000

WAND Education Fund – $15,000

Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation – $167,336

Washingtonians for Education, Health & Tax Relief – $750,000

Will Steger Foundation – $10,276

Win Minnesota Political Action Fund – $50,000

Women’s Voices, Women Vote – $50,000

Youth Service America – $20,000

Many of the largest donations from NEA headquarters went to state ballot initiative groups, but these do not constitute the sum total of the national union’s spending on state political measures.

For example, the national union sent millions of dollars directly to state affiliates to fund various activities, including $1.4 million to the Wisconsin Education Association Council during the height of its collective bargaining battle in the state legislature.

In another case, NEA sent $800,000 to Fair Districts Florida, in addition to $250,000 last year, but also sent $500,000 to the Florida Education Association PAC, and another $851,000 in financial assistance to FEA, outside of its regular UniServ subsidy.

This year spending reflects a greater interest in broad labor issues than in years past, spurred by events in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere.

For further information about the extent and purpose of NEA’s political spending, you are best directed to my 2010 article for Education Next, titled “The Long Reach of Teachers Unions.”

All of these figures were culled from NEA’s disclosure report for the U.S. Department of Labor.

This year, the Massachusetts Teachers Association wanted to nominate actor Matt Damon and/or his mother, Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige, who is a professor at Lesley University and an education advocate. Damon famously spoke at the Save Our Schools rally in DC last July.

The New York Times and the Washington Post report that Dr. Carlsson-Paige has rejected the nomination on behalf of herself and her son, because of what she calls a “collaboration” between NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and Teach for America. TFA, according the Post‘s description, “recruits newly minted college graduates who are not education majors and gives them five weeks of summer training before placing them in classrooms in high-poverty schools. Recruits are asked to commit to only two years of teaching.”

The collaboration consisted of an editorial co-written for USA Today by Van Roekel and TFA founder Wendy Kopp that listed three ways to improve the teaching profession.

This was apparently too much for some union activists, who accused Van Roekel of sending “mixed messages” about teacher training. You know we’ve reached the point of no return when the president of the national teachers’ union can’t pass Matt Damon’s ideological purity test.

10) “That’s what you’re deciding on today – about whether or not you want to inject yourself into the individual, private decisions that employees make about their money.” – Kevin Watson, a lobbyist for the Florida Education Association, on a bill in the state legislature that would require unions to get written authorization from members in order to use dues for political purposes. (March 21 Florida Times-Union)

9)  ”The governor has selected some of the smartest policy thinkers in California. They’re experienced, they’re thoughtful and they’re largely independent minded, with the exception of the CTA staffer.” – Bruce Fuller, professor of education at UC Berkeley, commenting on Gov. Brown’s appointment of California Teachers Association lobbyist Patricia Ann Rucker to the state board of education. (January 8 Los Angeles Times)

8“In the 30-some years we were part of the (American Federation of Teachers union), we never had to use their services. There were never any grievances that warranted that. We really – and I’m going to be honest – never really got much out of it.” – Becky Seitz, former president of the AFT affiliate in North Cape, Wisconsin. (December 10 Journal-Times)

7)  “It appears that budgeting errors were made. It’s not good fiscal sound practice to spend more money than what you have coming in.” – Broward Teachers Union communications director John Ristow. (December 6 NBC-TV Miami)

6)  “It makes perfect sense to me that students in the Education Department of a university would have the highest GPAs because they are being taught by trained educators. I would expect the lowest GPAs to be among the math and engineering students because mathematicians have still not figured out how to teach math.” – Educator and author Nancy Illing, commenting on a story about grade inflation at teachers’ colleges. (June 10 Teacher Beat)

5)  ”The fact that we have so many private schools is detrimental to the public school system.” – Shirley Parola, a retired teacher, speaking at an education reform forum in Hawaii. (May 5 Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

4)  “Sixty-seven is kind of advanced.” – California Teachers Association spokesman Frank Wells, commenting on the plan by 73-year-old Gov. Jerry Brown to raise the public employee retirement age to 67. (October 30 Bloomberg)

3)  ”I disagree with him completely that our system is broken. It’s not our system, it’s the preparation of our kids these days. For my school, is it my fault that students come to me in the eighth grade and read at a second grade level?” – Ruby Caliendo, a middle school teacher in Nevada, commenting on Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget address. (January 25 Las Vegas Sun)

2)  ”Even Jesus needed an executive session with his disciples.” – Bruce Cole of the Colorado Springs Education Association, explaining why the union doesn’t want teacher contract negotiations conducted in public. (March 9 Colorado Springs Gazette)

1)  “If you want to divide that $240,000 into the amount of hours spent, I think you would find that the per hour was probably not much at all, considering the work that had to be done.” – Former National Education Association President Reg Weaver, explaining why he deserves his $242,657 annual pension from the state of Illinois. (October 23 Chicago Tribune)

Over the last two calendar years, NEA has lost almost 139,000 total members, and more than 169,000 total members over the last three years. Since its ranks of retired members have been growing during that span, it understates the union’s losses among working education employees.

While NEA has instituted extraordinary measures to bring its budget in line with reduced revenues, the membership losses will require an additional $9.5 million in cuts at the national office.

Fewer members also means fewer dollars flowing to the national union’s ballot initiative/legislative crises and media funds, but the $10 per member increase approved at NEA’s convention last July insures that those accounts will contain more money than ever before.

The Seattle School Board is considering relaxing its ban on unhealthful food in high schools amid complaints from student governments that the policy has cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in vending-machine profits over the past seven years.

But board members now acknowledge they probably went too far. The restrictions, which are more strict than the now-crafted state and federal nutrition guidelines, allow only products such as milk, natural fruit juice, baked chips and oat-based granola bars.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many students are not particularly interested in those items.

In 2001, before the junk-food ban was passed, high-school associated student body (ASB) governments across the city made $214,000 in profits from vending machines, according to district data. This year, they’ve made $17,000.

Well, there’s a shock. In a television report on CNN they interviewed a few students who said they were simply either bringing their own treats to school or running out at lunch or during study halls to the store down the street and buying them. Gee… ya think? So the end result was just that they cost the student government a ton of funding with no real change in dietary habits.

Keeping children healthy is important. It involves a lot of personal choices involving not only what and how much they eat, but how much physical activity they get, as opposed to sitting in front of the television or a video game. And who do you suppose has the real power to influence those choices? At one time in the far distant past I seem to recall that parents were responsible for that, not the school or the government. And if the parents fail at that job, Seattle has demonstrated once again that the rest of the “village” is completely incapable of it.

We now have some indications of what NEA has been doing with the additional time. To begin with, the union cleverly melded its organizing in support of Obama’s latest edu-jobs legislation with organizing for Obama himself in 2012. Though the bill itself has little chance of passage, it does serve the purpose of emphasizing where the President and NEA align, rather than where they differ.

The union devoted the fall to identifying potential Obama activists from among its members in 16 states, presumably those NEA considers to be battleground states. They are: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. Along with this recruiting, the union’s PAC has a “Educators for Obama” web site where volunteers can sign up.

NEA is already spending time monitoring the Republican debates and issuing “Just the Facts” reports on issues that arise.

The union is also ramping up its Strategic Federal Initiatives, described as a cross-departmental unit that focuses on the White House and federal agencies and “connects NEA’s legislative, policy and political resources in order to coordinate and leverage our work with the executive branch.”

Important as it is, the Presidential election is only one of many elections in 2012, and the union must identify its preferred candidates for Congress and state legislatures. The selection is the purview of the NEA state affiliate, and the California Teachers Association has its criteria for choosing the perfect candidates:

* “Consistently votes according to NEA recommended positions, contacts NEA for information or questions, attempts to bring others along and takes leadership on NEA bills by being a sponsor, co-author or author.”

* “Consistently is available to NEA staff and leaders.”

* “Consistently is available to NEA staff and leaders at the district office. Calls local leaders before endorsing in local races, attends local NEA and coalition events.”

* “Consistently speaks positively about NEA, public education and unions. Participates in NEA press events and attends NEA functions in DC and in the districts.”

* “Leadership of the Senate or House of Representatives. Actively assists with “behind-the-scenes” activities to support NEA policy.”

The union pays special attention to friendly incumbents, categorizing their election in “tiers” in order to prioritize its support. A “Tier 1″ office-holder is “a candidate who is running for re-election in the same house of the legislature or in Congress and has evidence of all of the following in their CTA assessment: good voting record, access to CTA staff and leaders at Capitol, access to CTA staff and leaders in the district, ongoing communication with CTA, and leadership in state legislature/Congress or party.” A “Tier 2″ candidate would exhibit three of those characteristics, and a “Tier 3″ would exhibit none.

In California as of this writing, only two Congressional incumbents from California rose to the level of Tier 1 – Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) and Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles).

The NEA message will focus on Obama’s retention of public sector jobs, while downplaying or avoiding where the union differs with the President on many education issues. On education, we can expect NEA to devote considerable resources to lambasting GOP proposals.

Perhaps the next edition can provide kids with a full accounting of the Occupy-related illnesses, vandalism, rapes, deaths, and other criminal violations — and a related pop quiz on John Nolte’s Occupy arrest rap sheet.

The kids deserve the whole truth. The teachers unions’ Alinsky brigade won’t give it to them.

However, while Scholastic continues its love affair with OWS, it also has a hypocrisy problem (yes, go figure).  Seems Scholastic senior editor, Natalie Smith, who wrote this OWS puff piece dated well after this gem of a photo, conveniently forgot that her company is a $1.9 Billion publicly-traded company on the NASDAQ exchange.  Smith writes:

The Occupy protesters argue that large companies like those on Wall Street are making too much money while millions of Americans are struggling just to put food on the table. The protesters say they want average Americans to have more job opportunities and share in companies’ prosperity. They want their voices to be heard.  (emphasis mine)

What Smith fails to report is that Scholastic is in quite good shape financially:

In fiscal 2011 operating income was $100.7 million on revenue of $1,906.1 million, primarily reflecting lower sales of educational technology relative to a year ago, when the Company benefited significantly from the federal stimulus program, as well as increased strategic spending on digital initiatives in the children’s book business. Free cash flow was $120.5 million, which exceeded net income, compared to $171.6 million a year ago, which reflected that year’s strong educational technology sales. The Company also returned $176.4 million to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends in fiscal 2011.

Last year we celebrated the 90th Anniversary of the founding of Scholastic. From the launch of a single classroom magazine in 1920, Scholastic has grown to become the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books and a leader in educational technology and children’s media.

Ah, yes, the sweetness of a capitalistic economic system, vision, ingenuity, and success.  Scholastic has been able to grow due to the very capitalistic system OWS condemns.  It’s mind-boggling, to say the least, how Scholastic can support a movement that validates and teaches children class warfare, lawlessness, and lewd behavior.  But then again…

Reynolds talks about the dilution of the worth of a bachelor’s degree even while the price has risen exponentially. Something’s got to give.

But there’s no real incentive for institutions of higher learning to back off the price. Why? Because government has chosen to subsidize those prices by taking over the student loan business.

Sound at all familiar?

With no penalty for raising the price, colleges and universities continue to do so knowing full well that whatever they stick the student with that requires a loan they will get upfront. And if the the student defaults, we, the taxpayers, get stuck with the bill.

One of the big complaints about the Wall Street bailout from both sides of the political isle had to so with “privatizing profits and socializing debt”. That’s precisely what the current government loan program does as well.

Reynolds makes the argument that colleges and universities should be on the hook for the debt. After all they’re the institutions providing the product. Tying the price of the product to the worth of the product is such an old fashioned concept isn’t it? Instead this new-fangled way of doing business has led to bubble after bubble which the uninformed then try to pin on “market failure”.

In fact it is a government takeover of a market. There is no competition, no incentive to revisit pricing, no reason to worry about default. Charge whatever you like, make an outrageous profit and if the loan fails, stick the taxpayers with the cost.

Nice crony capitalist system if you can arrange it, huh?

We all know exactly how it will end up … with a big “pop” and a bunch of surprised politicians asking “how could this have happened?’

And the first words out of most of their mouths?

“Market failure”.

And what does that usually mean?

More government intrusion and control.

Then the cycle repeats.

Among them was the apparent reimbursement out of union dues for campaign contributions made by 26 “employees, board members and their relatives.” This is, needless to say, illegal. The Broward State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Elections Commission were notified, and both agencies opened an official investigation.

Members of BTU’s executive board accused union president Pat Santeramo of not only being complicit in the reimbursement, but also covering up a $3.8 million budget shortfall and accepting salary overpayments. Santeramo retains support among some board members, leading to infighting over corrective measures.

Santeramo blamed the budget shortfall on the union’s decision to absorb dues hikes from the national and state affiliates, rather than pass them on to the members. He also cited “a four year battle with an anti-union superintendent and school district trying to destroy this local.”

BTU accepted AFT’s offer of an outside financial manager to straighten out the local’s money troubles. AFT pledged to underwrite the cost of the manager’s services. Santeramo also promised to establish a PAC regulation training program for union officers, which presumably would instruct them that giving people union dues to donate to politicians is not only wrong, but could send you to jail.

Four executive board members moved to have Santeramo expelled, and was able to have a vote scheduled for December 7. They wrote:

In conclusion, along with the board, our members will consider it disgraceful that a president, of a teachers’ union, was able to mismanage and misappropriate funds without the board’s knowledge, and still be allowed to stay in office.

Since Santeramo shows no inclination to resign, the chances for an internal power struggle on top of criminal investigations prompted AFT to appoint an administratorship over the local.

BTU is an affiliate of both NEA and AFT, through the merged state affiliate the Florida Education Association. But, as has been past practice, NEA has let AFT take the lead with its former locals, and the FEA continues to take a back seat. In this case, FEA claims it “has little authority to leverage investigations or audits.” But it did trot out its spokesman to recite:

“This is an allegation that’s [been] brought against one individual or a small group of individuals. That shouldn’t be viewed as a representation of unions. It’s important that teachers have a voice.”

Of course, the whole point of the brouhaha is that teachers didn’t have a voice in their own union, and that Santeramo is more than “an individual.” He is the head of one of the largest teacher union locals in the nation, and is an AFT vice president to boot. The four BTU board members took their responsibilities more seriously:

Unlike anyone in the State of Florida, Pat’s actions have put in jeopardy the entire union movement and everything unions stand for. The word of what he has done as the president of BTU has spread throughout the state. All those who know about what happened are waiting for the Executive Board to do their elected duty – what is best for all unions and the members. Our members must have confidence in their elected leaders if we are ever truly to move forward and have any kind of future. The decision is inevitable and the longer the Executive Board fails to take the action on behalf of the members, the more damage will be done to the BTU and potentially all unions.

Whatever Santeramo has done, he is actually the least reprehensible recent BTU president. He took over the position in 2001 after his predecessor was charged and plead guilty to attempting to entice a minor into a sex act and sending child pornography over the Internet. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison. And Santeramo’s actions are small potatoes when placed aside those of Pat Tornillo.

Maybe it’s something in the South Florida water.

But while NEA has little experience in cutting costs, the union is highly skilled in applying cash and resources to its immediate priorities. For the next year and beyond, those will be political actions designed to turn back the tide of collective bargaining measures in the states.

NEA hasn’t been stingy with campaign grants for state ballot initiatives and legislative battles, yet is still sitting on a war chest of nearly $26.6 million for the 2011-12 school year alone. When coupled with the resources of its state affiliates, there is zero chance that anyone, anywhere, will outspend NEA on a political campaign.

The state affiliates are acting in the same fashion as NEA. The California Teachers Association suffered a 4.2 percent loss in active membership even before the latest round of layoffs. The loss of revenue prompted CTA to sell off three of its 35 regional resource centers. Yet the union budgeted $3.9 million for its media fund, maintained its $36-per-member initiative fund and its $20-per-member “advocacy” contribution, and recently approved a $2 increase to the union’s candidate PAC. CTA currently collects $18.45 per member in PAC money. Unlike federal PACs or PACs in many other states, California PACs are allowed to deduct contributions from paychecks along with union dues, so that objecting members have to request a refund.

Democrats control all the levers of power in California, so it is not entirely clear where CTA plans to spend this money, though it is well-positioned to launch a tax increase campaign, and may also seek to temper Gov. Brown’s more radical ideas.

All of which suggests that however beleaguered NEA may be in the current political climate, the practical effects will be mostly felt internally, through staff and program cuts on the fringes of the union’s normal activities. Those counting on reduced membership leading to weakened political campaigns are in for a rude awakening.

NBC New York reports that the new sex education curriculum, which will be mandatory for middle and high school students next spring, will provide a frank and comprehensive grounding in the birds and the bees that will be customized according to age group.

Middle school students will receive “risk cards” that rate the safety of different sexual activities, among them, the New York Post reports, “intercourse using a condom and an oil-based lubricant,” mutual masturbation, French kissing, oral sex, and anal sex.

High-school students get to go on field trips. These will include a visit to the neighborhood pharmacy, where they will compare and contrast condoms in terms of brand, price, and features such as lubrication. Others will research and map out a route from school to a clinic that provides birth control and STD tests. You just can’t tell when an emergency visit might be in the cards for your honor student.

While the city Department of Education hastens to point out that the curriculum “stresses that abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy and STD/HIV,” it will also feature a fair amount of role playing. One lesson focuses on just saying no, while another entails “negotiating condom use” with a partner.

Best of all, the Post writes:

Teens are referred to resources such as Columbia University’s Web site Go Ask Alice, which explores topics like “doggie-style” and other positions, “sadomasochistic sex play,” phone sex, oral sex with braces, fetishes, porn stars, vibrators and bestiality.

In case you were wondering, the classes will be coed. No word on whether students get to choose their homework partner and, if so, whether they will have a chance to specify cup size, length, and the like. In the meantime, think of the many rich opportunities for cross-disciplinary study afforded by the curriculum (“If Mary fakes two orgasms every hour and John has three real orgasms every two hours…”).

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NEA will send, and partially fund, the deployment of up to 100 staff volunteers from the union’s Washington, DC headquarters to Ohio to participate in the ballot referendum campaign. These employees are in addition to staffers recruited from other NEA state affiliates and, of course, the employees of the Ohio Education Association.

The NEA employees will begin arriving in Ohio this Friday, and contingents will operate through Election Day. EIA is unaware of any previous effort of this size, encompassing nearly one-fifth of NEA’s DC workforce.

What makes this undertaking truly unique is that the union will also provide meals, hotels and transportation for friends and family members of these employees, provided they also volunteer to work on the Issue 2 campaign.

It is not clear at this time whether these in-kind contributions are part of, or in addition to, NEA’s $5 million commitment to the referendum’s defeat.

The 2002 play, the book for which was written by Tim Acito, with additional lyrics and material by Alexander Dinelaris, is set in a fictional high school. It was, however, a recent performance at a real school, Hartford Public High, that generated headlines.

The Hartford Courant reports:

Members of Leadership Greater Hartford’s Quest, a program for professionals that develops leadership skills, put forth ‘Zanna’ as an anti-bullying community service project that helps lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.

In a partnership with the nonprofit True Colors, one Quest team raised $10,000 to show the musical three times at Hartford High this month. The Knox Foundation and the Samuel Roskin Trust at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving gave sponsorship money. Students from area high schools and Trinity College are the actors.

In one scene in the play two males of the species exchange a brief kiss. The scene was obviously meant to raise the consciousness of audience members. But when the play had its debut at Hartford High last week, the scene instead raised the blood pressure of some in attendance.

The Courant notes that

a piercing clamor rang through the auditorium. There were screams and loud voices and a bit of feigned or real disgust. Dozens of students, mostly male and a few in their Owls football jerseys, hurried out of their rows and walked out. A few jumped over seats to leave.

Before the day was out, one parent had stormed into the main office with a Bible, pointing out portions that condemn homosexuality as a sin. Others took their teenage children out of school early.

According to the Courant David Chambers, principal of the school’s nursing academy, had informed his students ahead of time there might be same-sex affection in the play. Some had asked to be excused, and Chambers had considered—but then rejected—the idea of sending home an opt-out letter.

Chambers is said to have hoped the play would help his students develop a sense of empathy toward gays and lesbians, or at least exposure to “that which makes them uncomfortable.”

“Our kids are not there yet,” he is quoted as saying.

But some evidently are. Oneida Fernandez, a 17-year-old law and government student, is quoted as saying, “To me, people are people. We’re human beings.… I don’t discriminate.”

Another, Dineily Vargas, told a reporter:

I think it opened a lot of people’s eyes.… This school never really had anything like this happen. I’m still happy. It was wonderful.

The only part I hated, was when some people left.

This story raises all manner of questions. Chief among them is where a school’s responsibilities to its students and to the community at large begin and end. There are also see clear-cut First Amendment issues here. Anyone with answers is welcome to weigh in below.

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According to its latest figures, NEA has lost 100,000 active members since the 2009-10 school year. Active members are working teachers, certified staff and education support employees – not students or retirees.

Officially released numbers from 2009-10 showed total active membership at more than 2,866,000. The union’s active membership at the start of the 2011-12 school year stands at just over 2,766,000 – a decrease of about 3.5 percent.

The reductions will require some interim cost-cutting measures at NEA headquarters until permanent budget adjustments can be implemented next month. It bears noting, however, that these measures have no effect on the national union’s Ballot Measures/Legislative Crises Fund, which is a segregated account for political action at the state level.

The $5 million comes from the national union’s Ballot Measure/Legislative Crises Fund, which was doubled in size by vote of NEA’s delegates in July. This contribution is in addition to the estimated $5 million the Ohio Education Association dedicated to the referendum campaign, funded by a $54 special assessment the state union imposed on its members.

EIA predicted the matching contribution back in April, and expects there to be a large presence of NEA national staff and UniServ directors from other states in Ohio over the next month. NEA believes a victory in Ohio will enable the union to turn the tide against efforts elsewhere to restrict collective bargaining.

Both men also went on to articulate who the real enemy is. Here is Obama:

We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam.

Maybe a Georgia school curriculum developer would have done well to read past the first sentence in either president’s remarks before creating an assignment that glorifies two of the more controversial tenets of Sharia law. (h/t The Blaze)

According to the Marietta Daily Journal, the overarching purpose of the assignment was to teach Campbell Middle School students about the pros and cons of school uniforms. Among the materials distributed to them was a letter from a woman that extols the virtues of Sharia law:

My name is Ahlima and I live in Saudi Arabia. … Perhaps two differences Westerners would notice are that women here do not drive cars and they wear abuyah. An abuyah is a loose-fitting black cloth that covers a woman from head to toe. I like wearing the abuyah since it is very comfortable, and I am protected from blowing sand. … I have seen pictures of women in the West and find their dress to be horribly immodest. … Women in the West do not have the protection of the Sharia as we do here. If our marriage has problems, my husband can take another wife rather than divorce me, and I would still be cared for. … I feel very fortunate that we have the Sharia.

One of the students’ parents found the lesson plan problematic, especially a line from the assignment that read, “I understand that some Westerners condemn our practice of polygamy, but I also know they are wrong.”

The parent, Hal Medlin, told station WSB-TV:

It’s promoting or positively depicting their belief that polygamy is fine, if that’s what they believe. But I don’t know how you could possibly state that and not have any kind of disclaimer that this is what these people think, but not necessarily what all of us believe.

In defense of the materials, their creator, Sharon Coletti, replied:

This particular sequence is a two-day social studies lesson. [Students] read this letter and then examine stereotyping. The next lesson is a compare and contrast on the role of women in the Middle East. Yes, the Muslim girl stereotypes Western women, but are there ways we stereotype Muslims? I have no idea what the objection is.

It’s important for kids to have some empathy for other people in the world. … [Emphasis added]

Ah, the E word! You had to be wondering when that would emerge as a part of the equation.

The Daily Journal notes that in the wake of the objections, the material was adjusted. In particular, the portions on the utility of slavery and the stoning to death of non-believers were stricken. Ha, just kidding! There were no such topics in the lesson. The scary part, though, is that there could have been.

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While their representatives conduct contract talks with WEA management, WEA employees have decided to continue working, although they have been engaging in various job actions. Those not directly involved with the Tacoma strike are “working to rule,” which means performing only those tasks that are explicitly stated in their collective bargaining agreement and not putting in extra time on their own.

The major staff contract issues appear to be pensions and retiree health care – the costs of which have plagued other NEA state affiliates for years.

Staff union issues have recently come the forefront in Wisconsin, but two dozen NEA state affiliates have been, or soon will be, in negotiations with their staff unions over new contracts. Since most states are experiencing declining membership and revenues, there may be more labor strife of the type currently on display in Washington.

There is no doubt, as we discussed this morning, that the decision by Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago to include a question (even voluntary) on it’s incoming freshman registration is severely misguided.

The problems with such a decision are numerous:

1. It violates the principles of the original Christian mission of the school. This is being laughed off of course as it has been with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but it is true nonetheless.

2. It draws uneven comparisons with legitimate “minority” status that might be helpful for the college to be aware of. How many times must African Americans draw attention to the obvious that genetically disposed skin color is not comparable to the issue of desiring to sleep with someone–whatever the orientation may be.

3. It further divides a school over an issue that should be relatively invisible to the issue of learning. It further separates students one from another based on random allocations of answers on the registration.

Elmhurst is hearing today from Alumni and donors over it’s poorly thought through silliness.

Let’s hope they listen!

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Texas has challenges. The record speaks for itself. Lots of other states have challenges too. But there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done in Texas and a lot of children who need a chance to get a great education.

Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college. I feel very, very badly [sic] for the children there.

Putting aside the secretary’s grammatical infelicity (after all, he’s only Sceretary of Education), his criticism is baseless.

In an article in “TIME,” Andrew Rotherman, head of a nonprofit organization aimed at improving educational outcomes for low-income students, challenges Duncan’s claims. Writes Rotherman:

Overall, Texas students scored right around the national averages in reading and math on the NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress ]. And according to an Aug. 17 report by the group that administers the ACT college-admissions exam, Texas high school graduates only narrowly trail national averages for college readiness. True, the national averages aren’t great, but Texas is right there with the pack. So why is Duncan dissing the Lone Star State?

But Rotherman’s criticism of Duncan doesn’t stop with the Ed Secretary wrong-headed assertions about Texas schools. Rotherman further states:

[Texas’s] minority students outperform minority students in Chicago, albeit by smaller margins. And with a high school graduation rate of about 73%, Texas may be slightly below the national average, but it’s doing a lot better than Chicago, which only graduates about 56% of its students.

Any why is that relevant? Because in Duncan’s previous life, hewas head of the Chicago school system.

After presenting his facts, Rotherman asks why Duncan is “dissing the Lone Star State.” The question is coy. I’m confident that the author knows that the state’s chief executive is running for the job currently held by Duncan’s boss. The attack on Texas schools is nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on Rick Perry. And a bogus one at that.

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Evidently state level investigations into Georgia public schools are nothing new, but the new revelations of the attempt to defraud test score results merely for enhanced funding status from the Federal Government–in my mind–should be a RICO complaint, with secondary charges of theft.

The majority of the nation doesn’t know that investigators have turned up a hatched-scheme in which Union bosses coordinated efforts with public education officials. Further that 44 of 56 school districts in the Atlanta Public Schools system strategically convinced Superintendents, Principals and teachers to cheat–primarily by going back and erasing answers on tests and replacing them with correct ones–in order to have a higher means score for the No Child Left Behind funding qualifications.

The evidence is overwhelming.

• 2100 Interviews…
• 178 educators involved…
• 38 principals involved…
• 80 confessions to the schemes…
• 800,000 documents as evidence…

And if the cheating is bad… then the cover-up should be counted twice as damning. Beverly Hall the Superintendent for APS was awarded recognition during the decade which the cheating was at it’s height. Her deputies were brought into the scandal and eventually teachers “grew to fear” for their jobs and well being if they did not play along:

The special investigators’ report describes years of misconduct that took place as far up the chain of command as the superintendent’s office. The report accuses Hall and her aides of repeatedly tampering with or hiding records that cast an unflattering light on the district.

In one case, Hall’s chief Human Resources officer Millicent Few “illegally ordered” the destruction of early, damning drafts of an outside lawyer’s investigation of test-tampering at Atlanta’s Deerwood Academy, the report said.

Another time, Few ordered staff to destroy a case log of cheating-related internal investigations after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested it, the report said. Few told staff to replace the old log with a new, altered version. When the district finally produced the complaints, the investigators wrote, it illegally withheld cases that made it “look bad” — either because its investigation was poor or because wrongdoing received minimal sanction.

Few also made false statements to the investigators, the report said.

The cycle of intimidation, corruption, fraud, and reward was at play for the better part of 10 years.

The Associated Press

The improved scores and seemed improvements of the children had caused others to point to APS as a model for how to base other inner city/large urban schools systems should operate.

Now the biggest question to be answered is just how many of the 178 deserve to do the perp walk right into prison?

I’m Kevin McCullough and that’s how I “Binge Think”
And I wrote the book that told you why he couldn’t!

UPDATE: My listeners responded…>

I thought we were through with World War II references after Saturday, but in his farewell speech ousted executive committee member Len Paolillo compared NEA to the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain.

It made me think of General Anthony McAuliffe – “Nuts.”

Still, it was clear that NEA is preparing for war. In his goodbyes, executive director John Wilson sought to rally the troops by reminding them that “CEO salaries are obscene.”

We also have a pretty good definition of what is considered obscene – it must be something above the $357,870 Wilson made last year advocating for underpaid teachers.

But not advocating for all teachers. We’ve recorded time and again union ambivalence and sometimes outright hostility to charter school teachers – even ones who belong to NEA. Add to that list teachers who got their training from Teach for America.

Delegates directed their union to oppose TFA contracts “when they are used in districts with no teacher shortage.”

Boy, it’s funny how quickly that NEA-hyped teacher shortage crisis disappeared (but not from their web site).

Still, the important business of the union was accomplished. There was a successful vote for an additional $20 million for the union’s political issues fund, to be spread around the necessary states, and NEA raised over $1 million in PAC money during the convention (bringing its fundraising year total to more than $4.1 million) – earmarking $48,740 for NEA director Shelly Moore, who is running in one of the Wisconsin senate recall races.

The delegates sent 18,500 messages to Congress during the convention – coming in a distant second to spam for generic Viagra.

I think we have moved past the stage of a “battle of ideas” or even debates about the best public policy. This is a raw political struggle of weapons, ammunition and troops in the field. NEA has the factories going and can never be dismissed in a battle of brute strength.

But as history shows, the biggest armies and the largest bombs don’t guarantee victory.

Background here.

Today the delegates approved the endorsement by a vote of 5,414 to 2,102 – or 72-28%. The margin of victory easily exceeded the 58% requirement to pass.

It also exceeded the 63-66% window I predicted yesterday and, frankly, isn’t much of a drop-off from the union’s endorsement vote in 2008, when Obama was able to secure only 79.8% of the delegate vote – a historic low for NEA.

The mood in the hall for the last few days indicates quite a few delegates held their noses while pulling the Obama lever, but that vote counts the same as that of the enthusiast.

It’s an unfortunate situation for teachers’ unions that they need Obama more than he needs them. His relative indifference to their agenda doesn’t seem to have hurt him among the general electorate, or even among Democrats. When Neil Abercrombie starts cutting teacher salaries, it’s tough to paint NEA’s woes as simply a right-wing plot.

In a similar vein, the delegates easily approved the new policy statement on teacher evaluation and accountability, which was also supposed to generate heavy resistance from the floor on account of including, for the first time, the use of student standardized tests as an indicator of a teacher’s “contribution to student learning and growth.”

That provision was essentially bowdlerized at the start of the convention when an additional sentence was added that reads:

Unless such tests are shown to be scientifically valid and reliable for the purpose of measuring both student learning and a teacher’s performance, such tests may not be used to support any employment action against a teacher and may be used only to provide non-evaluative formative feedback.

NEA’s officers have determined, and repeatedly reassured the delegates, that there currently is no test that fulfills these requirements.

You can add this to the list of things that NEA supports, but doesn’t really believe exist – like good charter schools, Republicans who support public education, and workers who freely choose not to join a union.

There are still dozens of new business items, amendments to the federal legislative agenda, and resolutions to be introduced and debated. But the headline moments are out the way, and most of the rest will be mopping up.