NEA & AFT Convention Daily Report
Up-to-the-minute news from the Education Intelligence Agency
UPDATED JULY 4

NEA Convention Coverage -- July 4, 2004:
1) NEA Representative Assembly Opens with Politics as Usual. The 2004 National Education Association Representative Assembly opened today with 8,814 delegates present, down significantly from the 9,992 who attended last year's convention in New Orleans (where the food is much better).
The honor guard, pledge of allegiance and national anthem went off without a hitch, and the invocation by Herb Levitt, president of the National Council of Urban Education Associations, started off well. "Only you know what's best for you," said Levitt, in a sentence sure to please the two or three libertarians in the audience. Unfortunately, the invocation soon descended into what sounded suspiciously like a reading from the Democratic Party platform. Whatever happened to simply invoking the blessings of God upon a group of people and leaving it at that?

The delegates were then welcomed to Washington by U.S. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. The mayor of the host city usually performs this chore, but since DC Mayor Anthony Williams supports school vouchers, he was nowhere to be found. Norton's welcome included a call for people to support a piece of legislation she has introduced in Congress, and a pitch for full representation in Congress for the District of Columbia.

The representatives of the host committee then spoke. The presidents of the Maryland and Virginia affiliates invited delegates to visit places of interest in their states, while Leslie Richards, president of the University of the District of Columbia Faculty Association, evidently couldn't think of one place in the entire District someone would want to visit, so she used her time at the mike to rant about the war in Iraq, the Bush administration, and education budget cuts.

NEA President Reg Weaver's keynote address was noticeably less angry, and contained many of the same elements of last year's address. Most of his remarks concerned NEA's opposition to the No Child Left Behind Act. Weaver talked about NEA's attempts to work with the Bush administration. "We have had meetings with members of the President's staff, and with the Secretary of Education, and despite our best efforts there seems to be a continued lack of acceptance of the professionalism and the expertise that this organization brings to the table," he said.

Weaver stated that the federal government has a vital role to play in education, but "it cannot micromanage 15,215 school districts, with 47.6 million K-12 students, in every state across the country."

In that, he's absolutely right. But Weaver's proposals for what the federal government ought to be doing includes "microfunding" every conceivable government program - from universal preschool to parental involvement to class size reduction, "much as the state of California has been doing since 1996," said Weaver, without mentioning the indifferent results for the expense.

Weaver then turned to the November election. "Our message to the Democrats is going to be: Don't take us for granted. We'll support you if you demonstrate support for public education," he said. "And our message to the Republicans is going to be: Don't write us off. We will do all that we can to support you if you demonstrate support for public education."

He concluded with a call for delegates to "give me five." Weaver then made his only reference to the union's need for renewed membership growth. "Give me five new members," he said. "If each one of you went home and recruited five new members, can you imagine how many new NEA members that would bring to our state affiliation to help them to accomplish everything that we want to achieve for our students and our members?"

Well, if my math is correct, I can imagine it would bring exactly 44,070 new members, but it's hard to imagine what they could accomplish that the current 2.7 million members aren't already doing. They would bring NEA and its affiliates about another $22 million, though, which the NEA budget tells me would just about pay for "bipartisan state legislative support," "bipartisan federal support," and "bipartisan member political education and support," all on behalf of "public education focused on student achievement."

2) Action on New Business Items. An unprecedented 10 new business items (NBIs) were moved on the first day of the convention. Since NEA put out the word to hold down to number of NBIs to under 50, this bodes well for those of us who like to get out of the convention center before 2 a.m. Here are a few NBIs of note:

* NBI 5 called on NEA to oppose the use of Professor William Sanders' value-added method of measuring student (and teacher) performance. Since NEA officials have met with Professor Sanders several times and are cautiously interested in his model, it was no surprise when a substitute motion passed requiring NEA to study and analyze Sanders' work. Since the union is already doing this, check this one off as accomplished.

* The delegates approved NBI 7, which requires NEA to inform members about Project Censored, a left-wing project that lists the top 25 new stories that have been spiked or ignored by the mainstream media. The debate centered on the supposed fact that NEA members and the American public are unaware of certain stories that their institutions are trying their best to cover up. I found this amusing, considering my current occupation largely consists of writing such stories about NEA.

* The delegates passed NBI 8, which calls on NEA to explore the feasibility of filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of poor students, using the same legal grounds as Brown v. Board of Education. They took this action despite hearing from NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin, who told them that NEA had already explored the idea, and that legal precedent would make this approach a non-starter. So check this one off as accomplished, too.

* The delegates unanimously passed NBI 10, which called on NEA to oppose federal funding of the American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE). Since NEA already opposes ABCTE, check off yet another box.

3) Kerry to Address Delegates on Tuesday. Tomorrow, the delegates go to the polls to vote on whether to recommend U.S. Senator John Kerry for the presidency of the United States. It will take a 58 percent "yes" vote to ensure the recommendation. This margin is not in doubt, especially since Kerry is scheduled to address the delegates on Tuesday afternoon.

EIA will be looking for three indicators of Kerry's relationship with NEA:

1) Will Kerry match the 89-92 percent recommendation margins achieved by Bill Clinton and Al Gore in their tries for the White House?

2) What words will Kerry use to describe his plan for differential pay for teachers? (Hint: It won't be "performance pay.")

3) Will Kerry experience any "moments of silence?" This is when a speaker inadvertently breaks an NEA policy taboo, as Hillary Clinton once did when she mentioned her support for charter schools, and is met with an awkward silence after hearing non-stop cheers.

Whatever happens, I guarantee there won't be any Sister Souljah moments.

A dose of the patrician liberal Kerry may not be enough to stir the blood of the real fire-eaters in the crowd. For them, there is a special screening of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" immediately after Kerry's speech, with the proceeds of the $20 tickets going to NEA's political action committee.

4) Quote of the Day. "I don't care where the money comes from." - National Education Association President Reg Weaver, explaining his philosophy concerning the cost of implementing NEA's education policy agenda.

NEA Convention Coverage -- July 3, 2004:
1) Handful of States Mask NEA's Membership Losses. Greetings from Washington DC, where the National Education Association will open its annual Representative Assembly tomorrow morning. Today was a day for committee hearings and the gathering of information on the state of the union.

NEA used to provide membership figures at the convention that were no more than six weeks old. That practice ended a couple of years ago, so delegates are presented with figures that are a year old. It remains to be seen how the 2003-04 numbers will turn out (the annexation of the 6,000-member Utah School Employees Association will help greatly in that regard), but the picture painted by the 2002-03 numbers isn't bright and happy.

NEA picked up only 9,262 new active members in 2002-03 - an increase of less than 0.4%. This is even worse than it looks, because if you add the gains from only three states: California, Pennsylvania and Illinois - it accounts for 10,689 new active members. This means all the other state affiliates combined for a net loss in 2002-03. It also bears mentioning that Pennsylvania and Illinois experienced severe budgetary problems this year.

Here are the official NEA active membership numbers for each state affiliate for the 2002-03 school year, along with the percentage increase or decrease in membership from 2001-2002. These numbers do not include 244,000 NEA student, substitute and retired members. Though these members contribute support and resources to NEA, it is the working classroom teachers and education support personnel that constitute the organization's strength and account for almost all of its revenue.

Alabama: up 1.3% to 68,627
Alaska: up 1.6 percent to 10,494
Arizona: up 1.6% to 30,768
Arkansas: down 3.2% to 13,863
California: up 1.6% to 320,049
Colorado: up 3.7% to 34,855
Connecticut: up 2.6% to 36,386
Delaware: up 1.4% to 9,897
DC: down 5.6% to 403
Federal: down 3.4% to 6,031
Florida: up 1.0% to 106,668
Georgia: up 3.1% to 33,784
Hawaii: down 1.9% to 12,270
Idaho: down 1.3% to 11,274
Illinois: up 2.4% to 115,536
Indiana: up 0.2% to 46,835
Iowa: down 0.8% to 36,177
Kansas: down 0.6% to 25,472
Kentucky: down 2.2% to 30,531
Louisiana: down 3.7% to 15,641
Maine: up 0.7% to 20,568
Maryland: up 3.7% to 56,485
Massachusetts: up 0.2% to 92,140
Michigan: down 0.1% to 135,345
Minnesota: down 0.7% to 73,928
Mississippi: down 4.0% to 5,632
Missouri: up 2.1% to 27,623
Montana: up 2.0% to 13,436
Nebraska: down 0.4% to 21,688
Nevada: down 4.4% to 20,533
New Hampshire: up 6.7% to 13,861
New Jersey: down 0.1% to 161,705
New Mexico: up 1.8% to 6,720
New York: down 3.3% to 36,890
North Carolina: down 1.1% to 50,587
North Dakota: up 1.0% to 7,069
Ohio: up 1.7% to 120,750
Oklahoma: down 2.6% to 24,283
Oregon: down 2.3% to 38,410
Pennsylvania: up 2.2% to 144,602
Puerto Rico: from 539 to zero
Rhode Island: up 1.7% to 9,443
South Carolina: down 2.8% to 10,118
South Dakota: down 3.2% to 6,274
Tennessee: down 3.7% to 45,612
Texas: down 7.2% to 39,352
Utah: down 1.7% to 17,796
Vermont: up 2.8% to 9,558
Virginia: down 1.2% to 53,872
Washington: up 1.4% to 76,210
West Virginia: down 2.1% to 13,866
Wisconsin: down 0.3% to 88,369
Wyoming: down 3.4% to 5,391

An additional factor not reflected in these numbers is that the bulk of the active membership growth is in the education support categories, whose members pay less in dues than classroom teachers. Budget figures show that full-time teachers make up 77 percent of NEA's membership, but contribute 90 percent of its revenue. Without growth in the teacher sector, NEA will face budgetary problems even if ESP growth improves.

It is unclear whether the union grasps its predicament. Among the recommendations of NEA's committee on membership are that "NEA investigate the feasibility of developing a new membership category for parents and friends of education," and that "NEA develop a plan to actively recruit distance education online teachers."

2) Can NEA Face New Budget Realities? As EIA has previously reported, NEA put together a no growth budget for both 2004-05 and 2005-06. NEA Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen pointed out that the 2005-06 budget was virtually identical to the 2004-05 budget, but that she and the budget committee expected to significantly revamp the second year's assumptions by next July. This seems to defeat the purpose of having a two-year budget, but what the heck.

Though NEA budgeted for no membership growth, the $3 per member dues increase will boost revenue by an estimated $7.2 million in 2004-05. Of that amount, almost $4.9 million is earmarked for increases in NEA staff salaries and benefits.

NEA's strategic priorities will face a mixed financial future, based on the organization's current outlook. Programs affecting education support personnel and those focused on public, parental and business support will see a minor (1 percent) cut next year. Programs for "quality school systems" and other new unionism priorities will see a more drastic cut of 8.3 percent. Administration costs will rise by one percent, though costs for the convention itself were reduced by $327,000. NEA's small state affiliates will also see a small increase in their subsidies, but the only real growth sector of the union's budget is in organizing. NEA plans to spend an additional $2 million on organizing projects, with the "membership and affiliate support" portion of the budget seeing a 5.4 percent hike.

The union also will increase spending on UniServ grants, member "political education," and personnel costs. It will cut spending on consultants and staff travel, though a promise was made to increase staff travel to states where organizing is a priority and those that are political battleground states.

NEA's financial status may prompt some significant changes in the near future. The union's dues are set by a formula that is based on the average teacher salary nationwide. The NEA Advisory Committee on Membership asked to be given the additional charge of studying "the impact of the changes in the financial status of states and state/local affiliate budgets on the current dues structure at NEA and its affiliates and make recommendations as deemed necessary." This recommendation was referred to NEA President Reg Weaver for a decision. If the committee is given the responsibility, it may float several new methods for establishing a dues level.

3) California Got Almost Half of NEA's Ballot Initiative Fund. The 320,000 active members of the California Teachers Association (CTA) contributed almost $1 million last year to NEA's Ballot Measure/Legislative Crises Fund, but they have little reason to complain. That's because CTA got almost $3.5 million back from the fund to help pay for its various initiative campaigns.

Each NEA member contributes a $5 assessment to the national union, $3 of which goes into the initiative fund, and the other $2 into a media fund (see next story). Of the approximately $7.5 million of ballot initiative money raised last year, CTA received $3,498,000 for three ballot measures on the March 2004 ballot and the aborted property tax initiative that had been planned for November 2004. No other NEA affiliate received as much as $500,000.

Here are the 2003-04 allocations from the fund:

California - $3,498,000
Florida - $499,000
Maine - $315,000
New Mexico - $20,000
Nevada - $210,000
Oregon - $200,000
Alabama - $250,000
Arkansas - $21,000
Colorado - $469,000
Connecticut - $121,035
Iowa - $150,000
Kansas - $105,000
Minnesota - $250,000
South Carolina - $60,000
Texas - $100,000
Wisconsin - $300,000

Additional grants are in the pipeline for Connecticut (another $111,705), Nevada (another $285,000), Ohio ($450,000) and Virginia ($50,000).

EIA previously reported payments from NEA's contingency fund to CTA for its charter school organizing project ($250,000) and to Florida for an organizing project in Miami ($200,000).

4) State Affiliate Demands Overwhelm NEA Media Fund. NEA receives about $5 million annually for its media campaign fund. It historically has split these dollars by sending about $1 million to state affiliates to support their PR projects, and using about $4 million on national media. Last year, NEA sent a total of $934,820 to its affiliates in California, Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

For the 2004-05 budget year, NEA received 30 requests totaling almost $4 million, but could only allocate $950,000 in the following amounts:

Florida - $150,000
Louisiana - $80,000
Nebraska - $165,000
New York - $51,400
North Carolina - $80,000
North Dakota - $107,000
Ohio - $107,600
South Dakota - $114,000
West Virginia - $95,000

Where did the other $4 million go? See the next story.

5) Communities for Quality Education Makes Bread with NEA Dough. For more than a week, EIA has been trying to square a circle regarding the finances of Communities for Quality Education (formerly known as American Learns), the advocacy group created by NEA and introduced to the public for the first time on these pages in March.

EIA reported that NEA was soliciting its state affiliates for a $1 per member contribution to get CQE off the ground. That effort bore fruit. EIA has confirmed donations coming in from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and several other state affiliates. But if every affiliate sent its quota, that still only comes to about $2.5 million. This was confusing, because last week a campaign media analysis organization estimated that CQE had already spent $2.9 million on political advertising in the month of June. How could it be?

The answer became apparent today. Not only did NEA raise money from its state affiliates for CQE, but it also placed its entire $4 million share of the media campaign fund into CQE coffers. But that's not all. The union also took $1.8 million from the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education - its PAC - and gave that money to CQE.

An estimated $8 million from NEA buys a staff, a nice office, slick TV production values and broadcast air time, but it doesn't seem to merit a mention in press releases or web pages. I wonder why.

6) Bits and Pieces. Here are a few miscellaneous items:

* The NEA Standing Committee on Professional Standards and Practice will "develop a plan for next year to discuss the impact of alternative compensation on student achievement; alternative compensation and current economic realities; and the role of NEA staff around alternative compensation among other subjects. The plan will involve gathering and sharing information through case studies and an analysis of that information within the context of NEA resolutions."

* Questions were asked about OWL.org and its drain on the NEA budget. Delegate Chris Miller of Iowa wanted to know, "What would it take to remove it?"

NEA Vice President Dennis Van Roekel announced that OWL would be folded into NEA Interactive, which will contain elements of NEA's Internet presence: OWL, the NEA public web site, and Connect, the union's intranet site. "We will be working this year to integrate all three," said Van Roekel.

Considering it took almost three years to get OWL to its current pathetic shape, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for NEA Interactive.

* In response to a new business item passed at last year's convention, NEA "has completed an initial search for studies showing teacher unions in relation to student achievement, teacher satisfaction, salaries and conditions of work. A very modest amount of empirical research has been completed on these topics in the last 10 years." The results of this search? "No clear conclusions have been drawn that would indicate a strong causal relationship between labor relations and outcomes."

* Several written questions were passed to the budget committee concerning NEA's IRS audit and the U.S. Department of Labor investigation, including one that asked, "When will this be publicized to our members?"

Subscribe to the EIA Communiqué and your union delegates will never have to ask such a question.

7) Quote of the Day. "We are facing membership and economic trends that are very, very different than what we faced in the past." - NEA Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen, offering an understated assessment of NEA's proposed budget.

Communiqué for the Week of June 28, 2004:

1) NEA Lawsuits: One Up, One Down. Many newspapers this morning carried an Associated Press story on NEA's failure to find a state willing to sue the federal government over the funding provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. "I would have thought they would be jumping at this," said NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin. "We have a solid legal theory. We're prepared to do all the work. We just want to enlist them, but for a variety of reasons we haven't been able to push any state over the hump."

The story suggests a number of these reasons, except for the most obvious one: state governments don't want to be tools of the NEA, even if they agree with the union. What governor or state legislature with any self-respect wants to be "enlisted" for a union lawsuit, then turn over the handling of it to NEA's lawyers?

While the NCLB suit stalls, NEA's legal team is keeping busy by filing statements in the union's suit against the U.S. Department of Labor. Last year, the agency ruled that all NEA state affiliates were subject to the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) and required to file a "labor organization annual report," known as an LM-2. These financial disclosure reports were previously only required of NEA national headquarters and about a dozen state affiliates who have private sector workers as members.

EIA believes NEA is on firm legal and precedential ground, but not all of its arguments hold water. NEA claims its state affiliates "were not established by NEA to function as, and in fact do not function as, operational units of NEA subject to NEA's control" and that each state affiliate "is an autonomous entity that is governed by and operates to its own articles of incorporation, constitution and/or bylaws, elects its own officers and governing bodies, establishes its own membership eligibility criteria and maintains it own membership roll, levies its own membership dues and adopts its own budget, establishes and implements its own policies and programs, and employs and directs it own staff."

Each state affiliate does have a large degree of independence, but NEA neglects to highlight unified membership rules, the UniServ program, and the program by which almost half of its state affiliate executive directors are, in fact, paid by NEA.

We'll leave all that for the judge to figure out, but there is one other segment of the NEA filing that deserves mention. In non-bargaining states, NEA affiliates commonly claim they are not labor unions, but professional associations. The argument is specious, though it has had some success among teachers in states where labor unions are not particularly admired.

In attempting to present the best legal argument against the Labor Department, NEA unwittingly undermined the PR of its own affiliates in its motion for summary judgment. In it, NEA states clearly that its state affiliates "are public sector labor unions that Congress... purposefully excluded from the LMRDA's coverage." NEA asserts that the central question is whether the LMRDA applies to the state education associations, "all of which are public sector labor unions." Res ipsa loquitur.

2) EIA Convention Coverage Begins July 3. EIA will issue its first communiqué from the National Education Association Representative Assembly the evening of Saturday, July 3, and each evening thereafter until the convention closes on July 7. Subscribers will automatically receive those bulletins via e-mail as usual, but this year they will also be posted on the EIA web site shortly after transmission. The direct link is http://www.eiaonline.com/convention.htm and there will also be a permanent link to the bulletins on the home page at http://www.eiaonline.com.

I will be available via e-mail for your questions and comments during the convention, but please make allowances for delays in my response. Delegates and guests are welcome to visit with me by the press section (left of the stage as you face it), but be aware I am restricted from wandering around the convention floor.

3) The Handwriting on the Wall. For many years public and private sector unions have been divided by their outlooks. Public sector unions generally have seen growing membership numbers and stable market share. Teachers' unions have had the most consistent growth in this group. Private sector unions, on the contrary, have seen declining membership numbers and steadily worsening market share for the past 50 years.

The key question for union officials is whether public and private sector unions are entirely separate entities, subject to different forces, or simply at different stages along the same continuum.

Last week, the United Auto Workers announced efforts to reduce its work force by 15 percent. "We are rightsizing," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told the Detroit News. The News also published an eye-opening chart that showed UAW membership declining by 18 percent over the past four years. Dues income declined by $5 million over the same period, while spending on union employee salaries and benefits rose by almost $32 million.

Meanwhile, Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), told convention delegates that they must "either transform the AFL-CIO or build something stronger that can really change workers' lives." According to the Washington Post, Stern said, "Our employers have changed, our industries have changed and the world has certainly changed, but the labor movement's structure and culture have sadly stayed the same."

"Rightsizing" and serious introspection in the labor movement is long overdue, but it may be too late for UAW and many member unions of the AFL-CIO. The teachers' unions may be heading down the same road. Union reform and school reform are two distinct issues, but the fortunes of one will certainly have a lasting effect on the fortunes of the other.

4) Student Strike Strikes Out. Last fall, the teachers of Marysville, Washington, went on strike for 49 days. Those days are now being made up and Marysville students don't like it. Last week, about 50 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders walked out of Cedarcrest School to protest.

"Us kids are on strike because the teachers went on strike... and they took away our summer," 14-year-old Josh Briggs told the Seattle Times. Josh has yet to learn to use the nominative case for his pronouns. "We kids" is the correct usage, although "All of us kids" is also acceptable.

Some of the students waved signs, including one that read: "We shouldn't suffer for there mistakes." The students have yet to learn the difference between "there," meaning "in that place," and "their," a plural possessive pronoun.

Some parents supported the student strike by supplying coolers filled with soda and water. Some brought sunscreen. "Kids don't deserve the treatment they're given," said Kristina Bains, mother of two of the striking students. "I'm ashamed of the school district I brought them to." Ms. Bains has yet to learn to avoid ending sentences with prepositions.

"I think it's definitely them voicing their opinion, and everybody has a right to their opinion," said Marysville School Board President Vicki Gates. Ms. Gates has yet to learn that "everybody" takes singular pronouns, so that "everybody has a right to his or her opinion" is correct.

The strike evidently fell apart as many students "lounged around on blankets, blasted music out of stereos, bickered and threw ice at each other," according to the Times account.

5) Your Choice of Malamalama. After the conclusion of the NEA Representative Assembly, EIA will return to the Washington, DC Convention Center for coverage of the AFT Convention. But NEA President Reg Weaver will head to the Aloha State, to deliver an address to the University of Hawaii College of Business on the topic "Is America Preparing Its Students for a Competitive Global Environment?" The lecture will be held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. Tickets will cost $32. Choose your source of enlightenment wisely.

6) Recommended Reading. With the 9/11 Commission featured prominently in the news, many people are interested in intelligence failures, how they come about, and how they can be prevented in the future. They may be surprised to find answers in The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich, published this year by Schocken Books.

Rabinovich's history of the war is comprehensive, but most timely are his accounts of how the Israeli intelligence apparatus and government ignored or reasoned away the overwhelming evidence that Egypt and Syria were about to launch a concerted surprise attack on October 6, 1973. Israel had impeccable physical, electronic and human intelligence, along with analysts who had extraordinary Arabic language, cultural and political knowledge, and they were still caught with their pants down.

Apart from its benefits as a history, The Yom Kippur War also teaches a lesson about the consequences of groupthink, and the dangers of failing to periodically reexamine even our most basic assumptions.

7) Quote of the Week. "It's difficult to think that in 2004, there is fear of reprisal, intimidation and harassment." – National Education Association President Reg Weaver, expressing his dismay about the failure of states to sue the federal government over the No Child Left Behind Act. Left unsaid is the fact that without "the fear of reprisal, intimidation and harassment," NEA would have no leverage at all. (June 27 Associated Press)