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| 7/17 |
| 2004/1/6 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:11671 Activity:high |
1/5 A Poll for the majority of you out there who do not support
School vouchers:
Do you think that the advent of FedEx and UPS made the USPS
better or worse in the long run?
And, while i know it is ridiculous to expect any sort of
restraint or accuracy from a motd poll, i am JUST asking anti-
voucher folks. Feel free to comment/flame though. -phuqm
Better: ...
Worse:
No effect:
\_ There's a much better argument for vouchers based on an analogy.
America has competition in it's university system, which is
widely regarded as the best in the world, and no competition
in it's k-12 system, which is close to the worse in the
industrialized world. Also, we already have school choice for
those whose parents care enough about education and have enough
money to move to a town with a better school system. The
current form of school choice benefits only those lucky few whose
parents fall into this category, and already has destroyed inner
city schools in exactly the way voucher opponents claim "will"
happen. The irony is that the people who excersise school choice
now, by moving to an expensive town to get a good education for
their kids are the very middle class liberals who most vocally
oppose school choice. I also think it's worth pointing out that
presently the k-12 education system in the US is so bad that
the burden of proof is actually on those who *don't* want
change, not the other way around.
\_ but there are no vouchers for going to a private university
so that argument makes no sense.
\_ It's not just the Evil Middle-Class Liberals:
http://csua.org/u/5fx
\_ This is a very good short argument. tnx. And I plan to steal
it, and since you didn't sign you name, claim it as my own.
:). I have also said the same thing re: burden of proof
many times, but the college analogy is not perfect since
1.) it has always been there. (i.e. no sudden change is
involved) and 2.) even at the cheapest of public Us the
student still pays some. -phuqm
\_ I would say the same thing about the burden of proof re:
health care. Would you?
\_ yes, actually. perhaps you've mistaken me for a
conservative? I happen to agree with the conservatives
on school choice, but that does not mean i support their
love of the insurance industry. For the record, I'm
\_ K-12 education is simply not that bad nationwide. What makes
you think that it is? If you compare us to other industrialized
nations, we do fine. Our worst schools are far worse, but that
is true for everything in America, due to the income disparity.
also not a libertarian, and am ashamed to agree with
"phuqm" on any issue.
\- I am not sure what you are suggesting by mentioning school
vouchers. Are you going to suggest "since the existence of
FedEx improved USPS, we should have subsidized FedEx"?
maybe that would have "benefitted the taxpayers" but that would
have benefitted the fedex stockholders much more. i think the
better question has nothing to do with school vouchers. the usps
is obligated to deliver mail to everybody for the same price.
i assume there is no reason fedex cant charge more to send a
package to a cabin in the montana woods [or just refuse to
deliver there ... surely they arent obligated to have an office
near by or poll the denizen of said cabin 6 times a week to see
if he has anything to mail]. so if fedex gets to cherrypick
routes and packages, do what extent does that adverse selection
put the usps in a bigger and bigger hole. you should lay your
cards on the table. --psb
\_ Are you against vouchers? If so, please vote. I will
happily "lay [my] cards on the table" soon, but i'd like to
get some votes first. (you seem to be suggesting "worse")
\- i think the vouchers will be underfunded and will be a
total boondoggle. the way they might cause some improvement
is by causing the teachers unions to keel over or maybe
the unions will panic enough to be more reasonable. but
it would seem to make more sense to just take on the unions
directly. i think if money is given to decent private
school and they are continually allowed to pick their
students you will have the quality of the schools improve
but the students getting shafted now will continue to be
shafted. it's hard to be "for or against vouchers" since
it isnt self-evident what you mean by them. --psb
\_ Subsidising is beside the point. The USPS pays
for itself. Taxpayers already do more than "subsidise"
EDU, they pay for it outright. My suggestion is that, imho
the USPS has gotten markedly better since FedEx and UPS have
arrived on the scene. Since the only reasonable objection
to vouchers is that it will make the existing public schools
much worse, I would suggest that this is an indication that
it might not. Your point about CherryPicking is highly
pertinent though, and I think that it is obvious that any
legislation re: vouchers should attempt to address the
problem of voucher schools rejecting hard cases. ( Which
has been a major problem in the "corporate" schools in SF
and other places ). Self-selection is an insolvable problem
but I believe that advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
\_ The point here is that private schools already exist, so
there is already a FedEx equivalent. I don't relate FedEx
to vouchers in any way. --dim
\_ But parents are forced to double pay. I can choose not
to ever pay the USPS but even if I pay full rate to put
my kids in private school, I am also paying full rate
for them in the public schools which I'm not using. If
vouchers meant that money was no longer a double payment
you bet your ass the public schools would improve... right
after breaking the spine of the very evil teacher's union.
\_ Union bad! Neocon Hulk smash!
\_ Ah, but "parents" aren't the only ones who pay for
public school. Childless taxpayers put into the system
too. Do they get their money back too? You are for
private school for extra performance, by your choice.
Why pay for an airplane ticket when your tax money
already pays for the interstate road system?
\_ If you don't pay into the system for education,
you end up paying down the road with crime and
prison costs. Even if you libertarian gun nuts
take over, and all justice is meted out by
vigilantes, uneducated masses of criminals will
cost you time in gunning them down when you could
be doing something profitable. Remember,
time is money.
\_ I think the university argument is a good one. There
are no vouchers for university students and those
who go to private colleges still end up paying to
support public colleges. If there are no vouchers
for universities and it works so well then maybe
vouchers aren't the answer. --dim
\_ BZZZT! University isn't a requirement. I'm not
required by law to send my children to a U. but
I am required by law to send them to k-12 (or
until 18 or whatever age). If U. attendance was
required then the same voucher concept would
apply.
for universities and it works so well then maybe
vouchers aren't the answer. --dim
\_ You are required to *PAY* for a U, though,
whether you send your kids or not. --dim
\_ Delivery service is like utility companies. There isn't enough
of them to compete for free market, and instead, each and every
one has a monopoly in it's small niche. UPS delivers big packages,
Fedex delivers next day reliably, and USPS delivers mail. All
three domains end up not really competing with each other, and
all three end up overcharging the consumers. Like utility companies
I think delivery service should be highly regulated.
\- i dont mean to insult you but this is too confused to be easily
corrected. you may wish to read a book like "optimal regulation"
by K. Train, although you will probably need to read some
prerequisits ... not sure how far you will have to recurse.--psb
\_ you know that by law fedex and ups are not allowed to deliver
\_ so there's no real freedom in this market, as I said.
regular mail or touch your mailbox, right? the market is not
even remotely free.
\_ Yeah and FedEx and UPS aren't required by Congress to deliver
mail to BFE at the same price as the house next door.
\_ so there's no real freedom in this market, as I said.
\_ The teacher's unions are the largest unions in America. They
have a monopoly on public education monies and are not
constrained by the Hatch Act like federal employees. Guess
who they donate almost to exclusively, and why the Dems
are so anti voucher.
\_ The teachers' union comprises under-paid and largely
idealistic people who see kids for 8 hours a day (i.e.,
more time than the kids' parents). They are well-educated
and know they could earn more money elsewhere (the ones
who couldn't earn more elsewhere can't teach and leave
the profession). I have no problem with the teachers' union.
I have a problem with the administrators who never taught
and never intend to teach and who get paid ridiculous
amounts of money only to squander the meager budgets of
their districts.
\_ I know lots of teachers like that. And I know teachers
who have left the profession and made more money
elsewhere.
amounts of money only to squander the meager budgets of
their districts.
\_ HOLY SHIT IN A CUP! I don't think you've actually *met*
any teachers! Under paid? Idealistic? 8 hours? Well
edjumikated? Earn more elsewhere? Leave the profession
because they can't teach? *None* of these things are
generally true. I think I've been trolled.
\_ Well there is no incentive to get rid of the
whose incentive is to increase their budget and number
administrators. The ratio in the 1950s was 5:1 teacher
to administrator, today it is 2:1. The private schools
whos incentive is to increase their budget and number
cost is ~ 3000$ per student, the public > 7500$ per
student. The public cost per student is something
like 30% higher than in the 1980s but test results
have declined. The inner city schools are nothing
but affirmative action self-perpetuating bureaucracies
whose incentive is to increase their budget and number
of employees, not educate children.
How I Joined Teach for America -- and Got Sued for
\_ private schools get to pick and choose students. The
ones that would cost too much to educate (the disabled,
the retarded, the violent, etc) get the boot while the
cheap ones get welcomed. It is the 90% for 10% of
the cost type situation that exists everywhere.
$20 Million
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5528
As for pay, if you prorate it over 12 months they are not
underpaid in a majority of communities.
\_ Are you referring to that article as a source for your
argument?
\_ No, but here's more:
The Union That Killed Education
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/846177/posts |
| 7/17 |
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| csua.org/u/5fx -> www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2003-11-12/cityside.html/1/index.html Building desperation: There's room for some classroom expansion, but it probably won't be enough. Bottom Feeder 29 Soul on Thin Ice Black media war: Tribune reporter hopes to start a station to compete with Oakland's Soul Beat -- if Comcast doesn't kill it first. Letters 30 Letters for the week of November 12-18, 2003 The Alameda power plant is still on the drawing board. Hanging behind the front desk at Hercules City Hall is a framed bit of packing crate stamped with the words "Hercules Powder. Now residents sit atop a new powder keg, a short-fused struggle between city leaders and the West Contra Costa County school district over the city's future, insofar as that future depends on classroom capacity. And the latest flashpoint -- the city council's approval of $75,000 for private eyes to conduct background checks on students -- has ignited a controversy in its own right. City leaders want to stem what has become a common problem for small cities with successful schools: an influx of children from nearby towns whose parents enroll them using the address of a friend or relative. Berkeley Unified, for instance, has long been wary of Oakland residents claiming Berkeley addresses. And in tiny Albany, the superintendent personally goes door-to-door to investigate fishy-looking residency claims. Hercules city officials believe they have several hundred illegal attendees -- according to one unconfirmed rumor circulating this fall, the district had discovered fourteen kids sharing a single address. Council members are concerned the illicit influx is straining the capacity of local schools even as the town seeks space for a massive wave of new Herculeans. And the city's brand-new middle/high school, they believe, only increases the temptation for outsiders to sneak in. The details of which PI firm to hire and how the sleuthing would proceed remain to be worked out. Yet the proposal, besides stirring fears of racial profiling, poses a direct challenge to the school district, whose job it is to enforce residency requirements. While Hercules officials have held off hiring the sleuths until the school board gets a chance to weigh in -- November 18 would be its earliest opportunity -- their action has underscored the rift between the two bureaucracies, which itself stands as perhaps the biggest obstacle to the city's future. It is perhaps a measure of the strained relations, or the potentially problematic private-investigator proposal, that not a single school board member, nor district spokesman Paul Ehara, nor three of the four members of the Hercules City Council, nor the city's mayor, responded by deadline to interview requests for this story. The PI plan has even trickled down to the kids, including Hercules tenth-graders Ryndell and "Moose," who were hanging out last week near their school parking lot. Hercules students widely acknowledge the allure of their new school to outsiders. The proposal has already generated plenty of concern about which kids will be singled out. I'm sure it would be a spot check," says Carolyn Willing, a resident with three kids in local schools. Still, giving a private firm access to student records raises confidentiality issues, says Sarah Creeley, a second-grade teacher who opposes the plan. And even if the city generates a list of students in violation, it is powerless to remove any of them from local schools. Hercules bills itself "the dynamic city," and it is indeed expanding at a rapid clip. After decades of minimal growth, its leaders have within the past several years paved the way for 2,847 new housing units. Although building them all will take five to seven years, work has already begun on hundreds of pastel-tinted tract homes with perky model names like the Peacock, the Finch, the Daffodil, and the Begonia. As a result, the city's population is expected to balloon from 20,000 to 30,000 over the next decade. When those new families start moving into their Begonias, will there be any space left in the schools? Right now, the city has three elementary schools plus the new junior/senior high. City leaders are expanding Hercules Elementary and looking for a site for a separate junior high, but few residents believe that will be enough to meet the growing demand for classroom space. Parents fret that the combination of new kids alongside kids falsely claiming Hercules addresses will crowd classes, overtax teachers, and even push aside children of longtime residents. So far, the enrollment crunch has been felt mostly at the junior high level. In an attempt to pare classes down to 35 students, administrators have reportedly instituted overflow classes staffed by substitutes, to which students are sent on a rotating basis. Sterling Bell, principal of Ohlone Elementary, says his school still has space, but adds that enrollment was up by about fifty students this year and is expected to keep increasing. City leaders are hoping the proposed residency checks will buy the city some time. Officially, at least, the school district requires parents to produce utility bills, mortgage statements, or similar documents to prove they live in Hercules. We have had numerous public hearings and they have not participated in them or kept track of what we have been doing," says Steve Lawton, the city's director of community development. It's still recovering from a 1991 bankruptcy, and district resources are going into repairing dilapidated schools rather than building new ones. In addition, its two Richmond high schools regularly post among the lowest test scores in the state, a situation that has brought federal sanctions. Some Hercules residents have rallied for their schools to secede from the district and join the much smaller John Swett district, which includes Crockett, Rodeo, and Port Costa. That proposal even made the 2001 ballot as Hercules Measure G, but was defeated by a seven-point margin. As for long-term solutions, the most obvious one -- building more schools -- is a tricky prospect in Hercules. The safety of potential sites has to be cleared by the state, and by virtue of being a former dynamite factory, the whole town is a semitoxic brownfield. The community development director urges the council and the school board to start getting along so that sites can be rehabbed and schools built before the masses move in. Otherwise the situation, like everything else in the dynamite town's history, risks ending with a bang. |
| www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5528 Well, when push came to shove, I didnt want to devote my life to helping the rich get richer or crunching numbers to see what views were most popular for the vice president to adopt. My doctor parents had drummed into me that education was the key to every door, the one thing they couldnt take away from my ancestors during pogroms and persecutions. I couldnt help feeling guilty dismay when I thought of the millions of kids whod never even tasted the great teachingnot to mention the supportive familyId enjoyed for my entire life. Weird as he might have thought it, I had decided to teach in an inner-city school. Five weeks later, I found myself steering my parents old Volvo off R Street and into a one-block cul-de-sac. There it was: Emery Elementary School, a 1950s-ugly building tucked behind a dead-end streetan apt metaphor, I thought, for the lives of many of the children in this almost all-black neighborhood a mile north of the United States Capitol in Washington. I had seen signs of inner-city blight all over the neighborhood, from the grown men who skulked in the afternoon streets to the bulletproof glass that sealed off the cashier at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. This was the other half of Washington, the part of the city I had missed during my grade-school field trips to the Smithsonian and my two summers as a Capitol Hill intern. I parked the car and bounded into the main office to say hi to Mr. Bledsoe, the interim principal who had hired me a few weeks before. As he showed me around the clean but bare halls, my head filled with visions of my students happily painting imaginative murals under my artistic direction. I peered through windows into classrooms, where students were bent over their desks, quietly filling out worksheets. I smiled to myself as I imagined the creative lessons I would give to these children, who had never had a dynamic young teacher to get them excited about scholarship the way I knew I could. The one thing you need to do above all else is to have your children under control. But as I learned to my great cost, that was easier said than done. I was supposed to pick up that skill over the summer from Teach for America TFA, an organization, affiliated with AmeriCorps, that places young people with no ed-school background, and usually just out of college, in disadvantaged school districts suffering from teacher shortages. Applicants request placement in one of over a dozen rural and urban school districts around the country that contract with TFA, and I got my first choice, in the city I hoped to live in for the rest of my life. Teach for America conducts an intensive five-week training program for its inductees during the summer before they start teaching. It was there that I quickly figured out that enthusiasm and creativity alone wouldnt suffice in an inner-city classroom. I was part of a tag team of four recruits teaching a summer-school class of low-income fourth-graders. Even in one- to two-hour blocks of teaching, I quickly realized that my best-planned, most imaginative lessons fell apart if I didnt have control of my students. In the seminars we attended when we werent teaching, I learned the basics of lesson planning and teaching theory. I also internalized the TFA philosophy of high expectations, the idea that if you set a rigorous academic course, all students will rise to meet the challenge. But the training program skimped on actual teaching and classroom-management techniques, instead overwhelming us with sensitivity training. My group spent hours on an activity where everyone stood in a line and then took steps forward or backward based on whether we were the oppressor or the oppressed in the categories of race, income, and religion. The program had a college bull session, rather than professional, atmosphere. And it had a college-style party line: I heard of two or three trainees being threatened with expulsion for expressing in their discussion groups politically incorrect views about inner-city povertyfor example, that families and culture, not economics, may be the root cause of the achievement gap. Nothing in the program simulated what I soon learned to be the life of a teacher. Though I didnt know it, I was completely ill equipped when I stepped into my own fifth-grade classroom at Emery Elementary in September 2000. The year before I taught, a popular veteran principal had been dismissed without explanation. Bledsoe finished out the rest of the year on an interim basis, hired me and four other Teach for America teachers, and then turned over the reins to a woman named V. Savoy had been an assistant principal at the Districts infamous Anacostia High School, in Washingtons equivalent of the South Bronx. Before the start of school, she met with her four first-year TFA teachers to assure us that we would be well supported, and that if we needed anything we should just ask. Most of my veteran colleagues, 90 percent of them black, also seemed helpful, though a few showed flickers of disdain for us eager, young white teachers. By the time school opened, I was thrilled to start molding the brains of my children. I could see clearly enough that the vast majority of my fifth-graders genuinely wanted to learnbut all it took to subvert the whole enterprise were a few cutups. On a typical day, DeAngelo a pseudonym, as are the other childrens names in this and the next paragraph would throw a wad of paper in the middle of a lesson. Whether I disciplined him or ignored him, his actions would cause Kanisha to scream like an air-raid siren. In response, Lamond would get up, walk across the room, and try to slap Kanisha. Within one minute, the whole class was lost in a sea of noise and fists. I felt profoundly sorry for the majority of my students, whose education was being hijacked. The daughter of Senegalese immigrants, she would tolerantly roll her eyes as Darnetta cut up for the ninth time in one hour, patiently waiting for the day when my class would settle down. When he needed help with a division problem, I tried to give him as much attention as I could, before three students wandering around the room inevitably distracted me. Twenty more students educations were sabotaged, each kid with specific needs that I couldnt attend to, because I was too busy putting out fires. Though I poured my heart into inventive lessons and activities throughout the entire year, they almost always fell apart in the face of my students disrespect and indifference. To gain control, I tried imposing the kinds of consequences that the classroom-management handbooks recommend. I tried to take away their recess, but depriving them of their one sanctioned time to blow off steam just increased their penchant to use my classroom as a playground. When I called parents, they were often mistrustful and tended to question or even disbelieve outright what I told them about their children. One parent who was also a teachers aide threatened to kick my white ass in front of my class and received no punishment from the principal, beyond being told to stay out of my classroom. The failure of the principal, parents, and teachers to react more decisively to racist disrespect emboldened students to behave worse. Such poisonous bigotry directed at a black teacher at a mostly white school would of course have created a federal case. Still, other colleagues, friendly and supportive, helped me with my discipline problems. They let me send unruly students to their classrooms for brief periods of time to cool off, allowing me to teach the rest of my class effectively. But when I turned to my school administration for similar help, I was much less fortunate. I had read that successful schools have chief executives who immerse themselves in the everyday operations of the institution, set clear expectations for the student body, recognize and support energetic and creative teachers, and foster constructive relationships with parents. Successful principals usually are mavericks, too, who skirt stupid bureaucracy to do what is best for the children. To start with, from all that I could see, she seemed mostly to stay in her office, instead of mi... |
| www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/846177/posts They are not run by people you can hold accountable, such as teachers, superintendents and school boards. The NEA opposes merit pay, charter schools and any decision by any school administrator that has not been determined in advance by collective bargaining. In Connecticut, the teachers union filed a grievance demanding pay for an extra two minutes a week that the union claimed teachers worked. In Pennsylvania, a grievance was filed because coffee and doughnuts were not provided during a teacher training day. Jaime Escalante, a teacher whose extraordinary success in teaching calculus to inner-city Hispanics resulted in a Hollywood movie, was run out of his California school district by the teachers union. Escalante, it seems, violated union rules by complaining about teachers who used the teachers lounge as a real estate office and called in sick to extend their weekends. A high school principal who requested that teachers write daily objectives on the classroom board was denounced by the union as a draconian zealot. The vocabulary of the average American 14-year-old has dropped from 25,000 words to 10,000. San Francisco Examiner reporter Emily Gurnon asked teen-agers to identify the country from which America won its independence. Sara Boyd, a recipient of many awards and accolades during her teaching career, experienced difficulty passing a mathematics competency test. She sued the state of California, claiming the test was racially discriminatory. But at her deposition she was unable to answer the question What percent of 80 is 8? Schools of education have turned teachers into agents of the therapeutic state, a new form of government analyzed by Paul Gottfried in his recent book, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt. Indoctrination and social reconstruction have replaced the traditional emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic. Brimelow has a chapter describing how the NEA bribes the media for favorable stories by handing out media awards. The Dallas Morning News won three awards for promoting a trip by area teachers to the state capital to lobby for money for teachers raises. In 2000, when NEA delegates voted to strengthen their policy against merit pay for teachers, The Associated Press reported the opposite. Newspapers across the country then editorialized on the basis of the erroneous AP report. The problem, says Brimelow, is that the NEA is the backbone of the Democratic Party and public education is a government monopoly. Teachers themselves are dropping out, demoralized by lack of professionalism, chaos and crumbling educational standards. As readers recently pointed out to me, teachers are being imported from India and other Third World countries under the H-1B visa program to take the jobs that American teachers are abandoning. Brimelow uses the wrong tense when he writes that the teacher unions are destroying American education. Roberts latest book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, has been published by Prima Publishers. NEA 1 posted on 02/18/2003 12:14:52 PM PST by paltz Post Reply Private Reply View Replies To: paltz NEA Not Educating Anyone 2 posted on 02/18/2003 12:16:19 PM PST by Sgt Hulka 123 Post Reply Private Reply To 1 View Replies To: paltz If my tech job goes by the wayside Im thinking of becoming a teacher. Anybody know if one can be a teacher without being forced to join the NEA? Note that the teachers criticism isnt that the new textbooks arent effective: its that they force the teachers to actually teach. Whats more, in K-8 schools, the district has to choose from textbooks approved by the state Board of Education. If they dont, they have to apply for a waiver from the state board or find a way to pay for the books themselves. Districts have only two choices for language arts in kindergarten to sixth grade, and some teachers prefer the old textbooks. One curriculum, Open Court, is so methodical and scripted that some teachers say it leaves little room for creativity. They are put off by being told exactly what to say and how to teach. The new textbook choices reflect the states new instructional standards, guidelines for what students should learn at each grade level. Politicians ceaselessly pledge their support for education, but public-school performance continues to decline. Why has educational quality deteriorated in recent decades while funding has increased and the quality of other goods and services has improved dramatically? And what reform strategies have the best chance of giving school children the high-quality education they will need to thrive in a dynamic, information-based economy? Please join us as journalist PETER BRIMELOW and economist JOHN MERRIFIELD discuss the causes of and cures for Americas faltering public schools. SPEAKERS: - PETER BRIMELOW is columnist for CBS MarketWatch and former senior editor of FORBES magazine. Even families that send their children to private/parochial schools or homeschool still have to pay taxes to support the disintegrating public ones. Thats the crux of why the education system wont reform: they still get a paycheck even as enrollment drops. Maybe when we are confronted with the spectacle of a functionally illiterate educationist presiding over a classroom of empty desks and still getting her full salary and bennies, America will wake up. But by then the country will be too dumbed down to think of a solution. Help Defund the National Education Association Union 28 posted on 02/19/2003 7:01:31 AM PST by EdReform Post Reply Private Reply To 27 View Replies To: paltz; Education News Fortunately, the National Education Association Union and their state affiliates are beginning to experience financial problems: Education Intelligence Agency COMMUNIQUE - February 3, 2003 2 Lean Years Begin as Troubles Plague NEA. In January 1997, the Kamber Group informed NEA that the union was an institution at risk. Many NEA officials took the warning seriously, most notably new President Bob Chase. But whether through inertia or the abstract nature of the threat, NEA did not change as dramatically as Kamber suggested it should. On May 13, 2002, EIA asked Are the Fat Years Over for NEA and AFT? NEA membership growth in 2001-02 was half that of the previous year, even as the number of potential members grew. Today EIA feels confident in proclaiming that the lean years have arrived: NEA had its worst recruiting year in 20 years, showing growth nationally of only 14,000 members, many of whom are paying discounted dues. Nearly 40 percent of this growth came from one state - California - whose own growth rate was half the previous year and expected to decrease even further in 2003-04. Perennially strong affiliates, like New Jersey, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, lost members. Perennially weak affiliates are getting weaker despite extensive assistance from NEA HQ. The Texas State Teachers Association, already in desperate financial straits, declined to 39,000 members this year. Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina and Mississippi also registered significant losses. The Nevada State Education Association lost 1,000 members - mostly education support personnel to Teamsters Local 14. And NSEA stands to lose another 5,000 members if the Teamsters are successful in gaining and winning a representation election in Clark County this year. Membership loss by the Michigan Education Association is the least of its problems. The union faces a $107 million deficit this year, a deficit it blames on the rising costs of staff retirement plans and staff retiree health care plans - the same problems that hit the Ohio Education Association two years ago, resulting in a large dues increase there. MEA officials are threatening to lay off of as many as 48 staffers, in a state where the staff union has often had an acrimonious relationship with management. The Maine Education Association also suffered a deficit this year, noting that while its revenues have grown an average of 25 percent annually for the past 10 years, its spending has grown 35 percent annually. Union officials say they have only 80 more full-time equivalent members than they did in 1992. Missouri NEA, which locked out its s... |