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4401-A
Connecticut Avenue, Box 294, Washington, DC
20008
Tel: (202) 244-7535, Fax: (202) 244-7584
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Education Exchange
Volume 2, Issue 9 -- September
1998
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Focusing on
Education Reforms at Your School, in Your State
Legislature, and in Congress
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NEA/AFT
State Affiliate Mergers Proceed As Expected
On September 28, the group advising the two teacher
unions on developing merger guidelines for state affiliates
will meet for the second time. Two members who have a
special interest in pushing the development of the
guidelines are Eric Feaver, president of the Montana
Education Association and Judy Schaubach, co-president of
the newly merged state affiliates of the NEA and AFT in
Minnesota.
Education Minnesota now claims 65,000 members, led by
co-presidents Judy Schaubach and Sandra Peterson, former
state presidents of the NEA and AFT Minnesota affiliates,
respectively. Education Minnesota now utilizes combined
office space, personnel, field staff, legal staff, crises
funds, lobbying experts, and other services previously
provided by each union. Both Minnesota unions approved their
state merger documents in March 1997 and await formal
approval from the NEA and AFT.
Eric Feaver believes the Minnesota merger may be a bit
premature because NEA delegates withheld approval of the
proposed national merger last summer. Delegates at both the
NEA and AFT conventions, however, authorized NEA/AFT leaders
to proceed with unity talks, if appropriate.
In addition, under pressure from Minnesota, Montana, and
other state delegations, the NEA/AFT leadership was directed
to develop guidelines to deal with NEA and AFT state
affiliate mergers. Regardless of action on a national
teacher union merger, under guidelines accepted in 1994,
local NEA and AFT affiliates are already permitted to merge;
13 local NEA/AFT affiliates have merged in Minnesota, two
have merged in Montana, and several others have merged in
California and Florida.
The Montana NEA and AFT affiliates have adopted a
constitution for the merged MEA/MFT which is expected to go
into effect June 15, 2000. President Feaver is hopeful that
by May 1999, the NEA and AFT will have completed the
guidelines for state affiliate mergers, keeping the Montana
merger on schedule. Neither Feaver nor Schaubach feel that
these or other state mergers will affect the NEA and AFT
merger negotiations at the national level.
A major concern about merger at the national level,
affiliation with the AFL-CIO, was readily accepted by
members of these state NEA and AFT affiliates. Schaubach
said that affiliation at the local level with the AFL-CIO
has never been an issue in Minnesota; however, she added
that having the Minnesota head of the AFL-CIO address their
state convention was very helpful in dispelling myths about
the organization. She likens paying dues to the AFL-CIO to
paying dues to other coalitions which the state teacher
union affiliates join.
According to Feaver, the Montana affiliate of the NEA
already "looks more like an AFT affiliate than the NEA,"
because anyone who is not an administrator may join.
Consequently, the union already represents teachers,
classified staff, nurses, and prison guards. Nevertheless,
the MEA/MFT constitution will allow its locals to opt out of
the AFL-CIO "no later than six months after the effective
date of the constitution," with reinstatement any time.
The AFL-CIO is the 13 million member umbrella federation
of 72 autonomous national unions. If a national teacher
union merger is successful, the combined membership will be
the largest in the AFL-CIO. The International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, with 1.4 million members, will drop to second
largest. Many NEA members oppose AFL-CIO affiliation because
they consider the NEA to be a "professional organization"
rather than the union it became in the late 1960s. The AFT
has been affiliated with the AFL-CIO since its founding in
1916.
The most controversial item among Montana teachers is
"Who shall our members be?" Many teachers believe that
representing a diverse membership of public employees,
school support staff, higher education faculty, nurses, and
others will weaken the focus of their lobbying efforts. This
issue will not be resolved until the spring of 2000 when a
joint convention of the merged MEA/MFT will vote on this and
other issues.
The NEA and AFT have a unified dues structure which
requires members to support local, state, and national
offices. The NEA claims 2.3 million members, the AFT 985,000
members; annual dues range from $400 to $700.
School
Choice Test Case Headed for Supreme Court
In a 4-2 ruling on June 10, 1998, the Wisconsin Supreme
Court upheld the expanded Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,
which now includes about 6,000 students in 86 private
schools. The following points were made in the court's
68-page decision:
- The First Amendment issue was carefully considered.
The opinion tracks recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions
holding that a program allowing the use of public funds
in religious institutions is permissible if (1) the
program is neutral between religious and secular options
and (2) parents or children direct the funds. The Court
recognized that private and religious schools are
available within a broader array of educational choices.
- The Court ruled under the Wisconsin Constitution that
the program does not operate primarily for the "benefit"
of religious schools, but rather that children are the
beneficiaries.
- The Court dismissed all other claims, including the
NAACP's claim that the program unconstitutionally
segregates Milwaukee schools.
- The Court ruled that children who were eligible in
1995 but who subsequently enrolled in private schools
with Partners Advancing Values in Education (PAVE)
scholarships retain their eligibility.
- The one paragraph dissent only addressed the
Wisconsin Constitution provision on religious
establishment which was decided by a 4-0 vote.
As expected, the Wisconsin ruling was appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court. Among the groups fighting to reverse
this decision supporting school choice are Americans United
for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil
Liberties Union, People for the American Way, the NAACP, the
National Education Association, and the American Federation
of Teachers.
Clint Bolick, the Institute for Justice's litigation
director, said, "We welcome an appeal. Giving parents a
choice does not violate the Constitution."
Four other state supreme courts--Ohio, Vermont, Arizona
and Maine--face similar questions. The Institute for Justice
is litigating in all of these cases, as it did in Wisconsin.
North
Carolina Charter School Files State Lawsuit Challenging
Racial Quota Requirement
Despite its academic success, North Carolina's first
charter school, Healthy Start Academy in Durham, faces the
threat of its charter being revoked due to the racial quotas
clause in the state's charter school legislation passed in
1996. Currently, more than 97 percent of the school's
students are black.
In a lawsuit filed by the North Carolina Foundation for
Individual Rights in Wake County Superior Court against
state officials, plaintiffs Healthy Start Education, Inc.,
and John and Lynette Cradle, claim "both state and federal
equal protection and vagueness challenges to N.C.G.S. §
115C-238.29F(g)(5)."
According to the court filing, the relevant part of the
state statute reads, "Within one year after the charter
school begins operation, the population of the school shall
reasonably reflect the racial and ethnic composition of the
general population residing within the local school
administrative unit in which the school is located..."
The State Board of Education, in an attempt to clarify
the meaning of "reasonably reflect...the general population"
adopted the following policy in July 1998: "All charter
schools shall have open admission procedures and policies.
Charter schools shall provide racial/ethnic balance in their
student enrollments. A charter school must have a student
population that reflects the racial/ethnic composition of
the school system in which it is located..."
Attendance at Healthy Start Academy is voluntary, and
similar in racial makeup to other nearby public schools. The
public schools, including magnet schools, are not, however,
threatened with violation of racial diversity laws, since
the wording in question was added only to the state's
charter school act.
The lawsuit claims "Healthy Start has discovered ways of
developing the hidden potential of Durham's impoverished,
generally fatherless, inner-city black youths in ways no
other public school has yet discovered." In fact, the
kindergarten level students rose from the 42nd percentile on
the Iowa Test of Basic Skills to the 99th percentile. The
first and second grades also showed double-digit gains in
test scores.
Thirteen of the 34 charter schools founded one year ago
in North Carolina are currently in jeopardy of losing their
charters due to non-compliance of this racial quota
provision of the state's charter school law.
North Carolina Foundation President Vernon Robinson
states, "The desire for parents and students to learn should
take precedence over the experts and their quest for
diversity."
The case is slated to be brought up in Superior Court on
October 19, 1998.
National
PTA Faces Criticism on Commercialization
The National PTA is facing a chorus of criticism after
agreeing to let Office Depot use its name and logo in
back-to-school television and in-store advertisements. The
agreement, approved earlier this summer by PTA president
Lois Jean White of Nashville, has resulted in a program
called Supporting School Values that was created by the
office-supply chain.
Television and print advertisements include the slogan
"Proud to Sponsor the National PTA" and include the PTA's
telephone numbers and web site address. The deal included
laptop computers for every state PTA office as well as the
national office. Office Depot discount coupon books were
mailed to millions of PTA members.
In addition, its stores in 44 states featured a
back-to-school sweepstakes, sponsored a teacher appreciation
breakfast, teacher tote bags, and Office Depot shopping
sprees for teachers.
Critics include PTA officials. "I took offense at the
commercial," in which the Dilbert character in it said,
"Don't be a dork when you go back to school," said a Texas
PTA officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Manya
Unger, National PTA president from 1987 to 1989 told the
Associated Press, "There's a very fine line to maintain your
purity and virginity. Once you overstep it, I think you open
yourself and your organization up, to continue the analogy,
to prostitution."
According to Shirley Igo, the PTA's vice president for
legislation, the consensus of the leadership and legal
counsel were that they were not in violation of PTA policy
which prohibits endorsements. However, as anyone who has
attended a National PTA convention in the last few years
knows, the National PTA has been smudging that "fine line to
maintain purity" for some time.
In 1996, evidence of Microsoft as the "lead technology
sponsor" dominated the convention floor as well as the
exhibit area. Last June, PTA convention sponsors included
questions about antihistamine products and web site services
in the official PTA evaluation form.
Patty Yoxall, a staff spokesman at the PTA's headquarters
in Chicago said that after the first two weeks of television
advertisements, she had received only "three phone calls" of
protest. Yoxall also said, "We are pleased by the initial
response to the program."
So was a manager at one of the Office Depot stores in
Washington, D.C., who said that he was tremendously
satisfied with the program, and that the increase in its
school supply business exceeded his expectations.
Others, including Merede Graham, associate director of
the Center for Commercial Free Public Education, says the
PTA appears to be endorsing the company's products. Graham
added, "I think the bigger issue, though, is what does that
mean when the Parent-Teacher Association of America starts
to crawl in bed with corporations in terms of the broader
issue of commercialism in schools?" According to PTA
literature, it means "Corporate sponsorships can help fund
our future. We need to do this to not only succeed, but to
survive."
As more parents turn to local, autonomous parent groups,
membership in the PTA is declining. And, for a membership
organization that receives 80 percent of its current
revenues from that shrinking base, we now know that PTA
leaders have apparently done this to survive.
Samaritan
Project Plans Rally for School Choice
At a National Press Club event on October 8, the
Chesapeake, Virginia based Samaritan Project will announce
plans to organize parents across America who are unhappy
with the public school system and believe that the teacher
unions stand in the way of real education reform and school
choice. Following the press conference, the organization
will lead a Let Our Children Go! rally in
front of the National Education Association headquarters in
Washington, D.C.
Bishop Earl W. Jackson, president of the Samaritan
Project, sees the struggle for school choice as a civil
rights issue. He stated, "The enemy of quality education is
not someone wearing a white sheet waiting to spring from the
shadows, but a much more subtle and pervasive evil. It is
teacher unions standing in the way of educating our
children."
Noting that the teacher unions collect hundreds of
millions of dollars each year in dues, Bishop Jackson
remarked that the NEA and AFT "use that money to oppose
every legal and grassroots effort to reform education and
bring about choice."
Speaking as a black minister, Bishop Jackson asks a
rhetorical question, "Why would organizations such as the
NAACP oppose something so obviously beneficial to black
children?" He answers, "Follow the money trail."
EPI's
Education Quick Facts
- According to the National Center for Education
Statistics, total K-12 enrollment in public and private
schools this year will reach a record-breaking 52.7
million students. Private schools are expected to enroll
5.9 million students, 11.2 percent of the nation's total.
(Source: CAPE Update, Sept. 9, 1998)
- Although overall youth drinking levels are
decreasing, adolescents who do drink are beginning
earlier. The current average age of drinking initiation
is 15.9 years, compared to 17.4 years in 1987. (Source:
The Youth Connection, Sept./Oct. 1998)
- Home school advocates are having a growing impact in
American politics. Overall, there are now 40 home school
parents who are also state legislators in 23 different
state houses. (Source: Home School Court Report,
July/Aug. 1998)
- The information management systems market is
approximately $1.9 billion in size according to Carole
Cotton, president of CCA Consulting. She breaks the
market into six segments: administrative and financial
systems are $520.3 million; non-comprehensive courseware
- $485.8 million; software that increases productivity -
$362.9 million; library management systems - $237.6
million; instructional management systems - $185.3
million; and comprehensive administrative and
instructional management systems - $114.9 million.
(Source: The Education Industry Report, Sept. 1998)
- In a study on the influence of teacher qualifications
on student achievement published in the Harvard Journal
on Legislation, Ronald Ferguson found that individual
teachers' expertise -- as measured by scores on licensing
examinations, master's degrees and experience --
accounted for over 40 percent of student achievement in
reading and math in grades 1 through 11. (Source: Nevada
Journal, Sept. 1998)
Copyright 1998
Education Policy Institute, PMB 294, 4401-A Connecticut
Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008-2322 202/244-7535, Fax
202/244-7584 http://www.educationpolicy.org
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