Tag Archives: teachers union

Robert Manwaring at the Quick and the Ed asks the timely, fair and relevant policy question: “Should New Era of Transparency Apply to Union Finances?”: Perhaps it is time to shed a little more light on how union funding is used. As union dues go up, what is the additional funding being spent on? Does the public have a right to know? Are union dues going up to compenate [sic] for all of the teachers that are being lost to job cuts, or are unions increasing salaries and expanding their influence. It would be interesting to know. Teachers unions represent government employees. They bargain over public services paid for by taxpayers that serve students in our communities. Therefore, not only do the educators who pay dues into the organization have a right to know where the money goes, so does the general public. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow makes this terrific point in a paper he wrote a few months ago, titled Setting the Standard for Pro-Worker Transparency (PDF). Transparency is good for governments, political campaigns, and corporations. Why not labor unions? Judging by the comments beneath his post, you would have thought Manwaring had advocated fire-bombing union […]

Hide-and-seek can be a lot of fun, but not when someone else — especially some big group — is playing it with your money. That’s why my friends at the Independence Institute make such a big deal about government spending transparency. But what about transparency for teachers who belong to, or have to pay fees to, a union? Following the story of the Indiana state teachers union that lost millions of dollars of members’ money through gross mismanagement, James Sherk and Dan Lips from the Heritage Foundation wrote a great piece for yesterday’s National Review Online called “Shady Dealings”. They explain how teachers unions have fought having to shine light on their financial activities:

A couple months ago I told you about the Kansas teachers local that fought for and won its independence from the state and national union. I’m excited, because the podcast I posted up there was quoted in the latest edition of School Reform News: In a March 30, 2009 interview with the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank based in Golden, Colorado, [Riley County Educators] spokesman Gary [sic] Sigle explained that last year only 14 of the county’s 56 teachers were NEA members, which gave those 14 members exclusive bargaining power. Others wanted a greater say in what was going on locally. Sarah McIntosh, the writer of the story, also interviewed my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow to get his take on the issue:

Update , 12:45 PM: It looks like Jeffco isn’t alone with the impasse problem. Some teachers in Boulder Valley School District have taken it even further, staging a sick-out at Broomfield High School (H/T Complete Colorado). And it’s not the first time. Five years ago — when I was just a wee baby — the Boulder Valley Education Association staged a major “sick-out”. Then, as now, the terms of their collective bargaining contract read: There will be no strikes or other individual or concerted action designed to deprive the youth in the schools of services of Unit B employees [ed note: teachers and other certified professional non-administrative employees]. Any employee who engages in such actions during the term of this Agreement shall be subject to severe disciplinary action. Such disciplinary action shall be subject to the Grievance Procedure contained in this Agreement, except where applicable the state statute will apply. Earlier this week I pointed you to a breaking story from my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow about teacher contract negotiations breaking down in Colorado’s largest school district. Well, the online journalists at Face The State picked up the ball with a full-length story today, including quotes from a […]

It seems the local teachers union in Hartford, Connecticut, resents outside experts from the National Council on Teacher Quality looking at the effect their collective bargaining contract has on school performance and student learning. One issue in particular made me chuckle. From the Hartford Courant: [Hartford Federation of Teachers president Andrea] Johnson also disliked the recommendation that Hartford teachers be given fewer sick days. According to the report, many large districts and most business-sector jobs have an average of 10 sick days a year, while a Hartford teacher gets 20. On average, Hartford teachers use 11 of the 20 sick days each year, according to the report. If all the allotted sick and personal time (an additional five days) was taken, teachers would miss 14 percent of the school year, the report says. Johnson said that working with children every day requires more sick time because teachers are more susceptible to catching illnesses from the students and also passing along an illness to a room full of children. *Cough, cough.*

Jay Greene’s blog has a humorous – but sad – story of how New York City teachers union operatives were caught red-handed passing out cue cards (including one with a misspelled word) to City Council members. Because we really need school boards and other policy makers to do the thoughtless bidding of adult interest groups rather than stand up for the interests of children and taxpaying citizens, right? I’m obviously being sarcastic there. But seeing that funny post made me wonder whether cue cards recently may have been passed out at the Colorado State Capitol: What cue cards were given to legislative opponents who slapped down school choice twice in the same day? Who wrote the script for the lawmaker who needed help from Grover to distinguish public from private (another legislator raised the same question on another bill at another hearing)? Who authored the cue cards for the education committee chair to ignore critical findings about school employee pensions so he could grandstand with frivolous attacks? What lobbying interest group told the same committee chair to thwart the will of the people and double-super kill school spending transparency? Or perhaps these lawmakers came up with these bad, silly, arrogant, […]

Recently, a group of public school teachers in rural Kansas were tired of being represented by the nation’s largest teachers union and decided to do something about it. From Education Week: Teachers in Riley County have voted to decertify from the Kansas National Education Association and the National Education Association. The approximately 58 teachers in the district voted earlier this month to have Riley County Educators serve as their negotiating agent. Riley County High School industrial arts teacher and track coach Garry Sigle, who also serves as spokesman for the Riley County Educators, was kind enough to record an iVoices podcast explaining why he and the other teachers chose this course of action and what the process is like: The Association of American Educators (AAE), which has provided assistance to the teachers in Riley, explains that these teachers in the Kansas district are not the first local to decertify from NEA in recent years. It has happened in several other states, though not yet in Colorado. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow tells me he is working to get more information on the decertification option to put up on the Independent Teachers website. I’ll keep you updated.

Last week the Christian Science Monitor featured a full-length article on the state of teacher performance pay, with special focus on Denver’s ProComp program. It’s an especially great piece for someone who has little familiarity with the topic — as some of the leading figures are quoted: Brad Jupp from DPS, Phil Gonring from the Rose Community Foundation, Paul Teske from the University of Colorado Denver, and Kim Ursetta from the teachers union, to name a few. Once you’ve read the article, if you still yearn to learn more, you should check out the Issue Paper Denver’s ProComp and Teacher Compensation Reform in Colorado (PDF) by my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow. He’s glad to give other groups an “honest education in ‘professional pay’”.

Earlier this month I let you know about the teachers union’s efforts to organize two New York City KIPP charter schools, and shared with you the insights of a couple people who know a lot more than I do about this stuff. But then I read something this nice teacher lady Kathy Kullback (who is a friend of the Independence Institute) wrote over at Backbone America about her own professional horror story with poor school administration. She concludes with this insight often overlooked among education reformers: Poor school leadership practices are why teachers’ unions flourish and why there is tremendous growth in the charter school movement. I applied for positions to charter schools close to my home and where I had previous relationships because they have their own hiring practices and do not participate in the non-renewal ban. Not only was I treated very well, but they also gave me recognition for a job well done. How often do any of us receive that! [emphasis added] Figuring out how to seriously improve school leadership across the public education system is a very difficult policy knot to untangle. But in the meantime, high teacher-friendly praise for charter schools!

Update: In a column for the New York Post, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Marcus Winters explains in more detail the potential problem posed by unionizing charter schools. Yesterday brought a report in the New York Times that the teachers union – namely, the American Federation of Teachers – is seeking to organize two New York City KIPP charter schools. In the article, a friend of the Independence Institute’s Education Policy Center brought up the problem with that development: “A union contract is actually at odds with a charter school,” said Jeanne Allen, executive director of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington group that supports charter schools. “As long as you have nonessential rules that have more to do with job operations than with student achievement,” she said, “you are going to have a hard time with accomplishing your mission.” To elaborate on this point, and to look at the development in the broader context of charter schools and unions, syndicated columnist and former Colorado education commissioner William Moloney joined Ben DeGrow for a 10-minute iVoices podcast discussion: Meanwhile, the Eduwonk tries to take a more “middle-of-the-road” approach in dealing with the conundrum of charter schools and unionization (H/T Alan […]