Tag Archives: National Education Association

Yesterday, I wrote about the latest developments in what I have begun to simply call “The Testing Mess.” It’s sticky, sticky stuff, and I find that it’s often difficult to decipher which piece of the puzzle I’m going to be talking about when someone brings up “testing” in conversation these days. But being the insatiable nerd that I am, I feel compelled to complicate things even further by taking a look at some of the more interesting—and bizarre—political wrinkles behind the scenes of the debate. I pointed you last time to an article written by Alyson Klein at Education Week. The article neatly sums up newly revealed Republican efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as No Child Left Behind, the Act’s current iteration, increasingly finds itself on the wrong end of the testing discussion. In order to achieve a reauthorization, our trusty (not really) politicians in Washington will need to navigate a political environment that I believe I accurately described yesterday as a “sausage-making process.” And just as you can never be quite sure which bits will be included in your sausage, politics can make strange bedfellows. Nowhere is that more clear than in the nascent (and highly […]

Back in the spring I told you about a local teachers union in Kansas that broke away from the National Education Association. Apparently the trend is growing. From a press release sent to my friends in the Education Policy Center this week about some happenings in Spokane, Washington:

For some reason, these days all the big people are talking a lot more about health care than education. Hey, I’m not a huge fan of going to the doctor or going to school. But at least at school, you’ve got some of your friends around you. And learning can be fun, too (but don’t tell my friends I said that). Anyway, my other friends in the Education Policy Center provide one overlooked example of how the two issues overlap with this post on the Independent Teachers blog: If you were a full-time member of the National Education Association (NEA) through joining your local teachers union, then you sent money during the 2007-08 school year to support the current proposal from Congress and President Obama to promote socialized medicine. According to the latest disclosure report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, NEA gave $500,000 in 2007-08 to the group Health Care for America Now, a 501c4 political organization that is backing President Obama’s health care plan. (It is likely that NEA has made further contributions to this group since 2007-08, since NEA is listed as being a member of the HCAN steering committee.) Wow, you think the union could […]

Alyson Klein, one of the ladies who cover happenings related to education on Capitol Hill for Education Week, reports about an important committee vote yesterday: A bipartisan effort to boost funding for the Teacher Incentive Fund by an extra $100 million went down to defeat today during the full Senate Appropriations Committee’s markup of the bill funding the U.S. Department of Education in fiscal year 2010. The bill already includes $300 million for the TIF, a teacher performance-pay program that is currently funded at $97 million. The proposed increase in the failed amendment would have been paid for by taking $100 million out of the federal State Grants for Improving Teacher Quality program. TIF provides competitive grants to state agencies, school districts, and charter schools that develop quality performance pay programs for teachers and for principals. As my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has outlined in his issue paper Denver’s ProComp and Teacher Compensation in Colorado (PDF) and elsewhere, local Colorado school districts have applied for and received a significant share of TIF grant money. Besides Denver, they include Eagle County, Harrison (El Paso County), and Fort Lupton. Our K-12 education compensation system badly needs a serious overhaul, and […]

Last week I helped bring your attention to the National Education Association’s open declaration about their priorities as a labor union first, and kids second — as well as the latest published criticism of NEA, this time coming from a traditional political ally on the Left. These are interesting times we live in, and my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow joined Amy Oliver on a new iVoices podcast to talk about these issues more in depth. I invite you to listen (click on the play button below): For those of you who have forgotten, here’s what retiring NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin told a crowd of 8,000 cheering union delegates:

For those who heard my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow discuss the National Education Association this morning on News Talk 1310 KFKA‘s Amy Oliver Show, here is the video clip you heard of the NEA’s retiring general counsel Bob Chanin explaining his organization’s priorities: The clip came from the end of Chanin’s keynote speech to the NEA’s annual Representative Assembly in San Diego on July 6. According to Education Week reporter Steven Sawchuk, Chanin received a 5-minute standing ovation at the end. Do leaders of the Colorado Education Association share Chanin’s priorities? Is there an intrepid reporter in our state who would dare ask? Inquiring minds want to know … Also, for those who listened to the radio interview, here is a link to the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights report (PDF) criticizing NEA, which Ben and Amy talked about this morning. Ben also wrote about these issues at length on the Schools for Tomorrow blog — here and here.

The teachers unions have a delicate dance to do when it comes to public charter schools. In the not-too-distant past, when charters were a new idea and still very small in number, outright opposition to nip them in the bud. Charter schools are largely non-unionized (with exceptions) and provide competition from within the public education system. But over the years has come a gradual evolution. In many states the unions have grudgingly accepted charters as part of the landscape, while working quietly to limit their successful expansion. Then along have come a Democrat president and secretary of education who advocate more charter-friendly policies. Union officials aren’t about to give in to the more radical anti-charter elements of their membership, but they decided they had to do something to make a statement and quell the growing tide of charter school opportunity and innovation. As explained by Nelson Smith of the National Association of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), the just-ended big to-do known as the NEA Representative Assembly provided the perfect opportunity to do precisely that:

I’m getting ready for all the hot dogs, swimming, and fireworks this weekend. But if you want to keep tabs on a different kind of fireworks, stay tuned to the Education Intelligence Agency’s coverage of the annual National Education Association Representative Assembly, this year in San Diego. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan kicks off the five-day event this morning with a “town hall” meeting of union members. So there might be some fireworks for you right there. In the meantime, Larry Sand of the California Teachers Empowerment Network welcomes the NEA delegates to town with a critical op-ed in the local San Diego Union-Tribune.

I’m back from the beach, and thankfully didn’t get sunburned too badly. A lot went on while I was gone. And though I sometimes have to pick and choose what to write about when I’m blogging almost every day, trying to catch up on a week’s worth of news is — well, it’s like trying to build a tall sand castle just a few feet from the water’s edge. You get the picture. What you really don’t want to miss though is a great op-ed written by U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman for yesterday’s Washington Post. The good senator from Connecticut notes that vouchers must remain part of the solution to help kids with educational needs in our nation’s capital: There are low-income children in the District [of Columbia] who can’t wait for their local schools to turn around. Without programs such as this one, their opportunity will be lost forever.

I’m 5 years old. Generally speaking, I like puppets and think they’re pretty cool. Recently learning that Kermit the Frog himself was a puppet (or muppet, you know what I mean) only increased my respect for him. But when heavily-funded teachers unions use other groups as puppets to oppose education reforms like choice and accountability — reforms that help kids like me, but especially kids in more dire straits — that’s a different story. Case #1: Thanks to the hard work of the Education Intelligence Agency’s intrepid Mike Antonucci, we learn that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the group Republicans Opposing Voucher Efforts (ROVE). The company that registered the ROVE website is run by a former high-level National Education Association (NEA) staffer. As Greg Forster notes, it “sure looks a whole lot like it has the NEA’s arm sticking out the bottom”.