YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT THE UNIONS WILL NOT FIRE ERRANT TEACHERS AND WILL NOT REMOVE
DISRUPTIVE STUDENTS.
I know of a case in Lawrenceville, NJ where a third-grade girl was being bothered so much by another pupil that the parents’ only recourse was to put their daughter into a private school.
What happens to Seniors living on a fixed income when property taxes become so high? They can no longer hold on to their homes, or they just exist with no frills. The labor union bosses don’t care, they are cold-blooded. The biggest threat is that the teachers’ labor unions give legislators and congressmen money to vote for legislation favoring them. And I fear more and more will accept this ‘dirty’
money because of the ever-increasing costs of running election or re-election campaigns. How does one explain that the teachers’
labor unions get away with illegal strikes (PA hit by 12 strikes in 2004 and the rest of the nation 8 altogether (Source School Boards’
Assn). Many of you in the area have read about the school strikes this year in Yardley, PA. Falls, PA residents too have been resentful toward the teachers’ labor unions because they think they earn enough in relation to other workers in the area and that they can make up the strike days without loss of pay by simply reporting to school and perhaps reading. Resident, Michelle Leitz said, ‘People out there who are self-employed have to pay their own health insurance, some don’t have any insurance at all, and they’re complaining about a co-pay?’ Albert Shanker, former AFT president said, ‘A strike in the public sector is not economic—it is politicalÉOne of the greatest reasons for the effectiveness of the public employees’ strike is the fact that it is illegal.’
After adjusting for inflation, the average teacher’s pay in 1993 was more than double of that in 1960 (one year before the unions got started) and per pupil spending 5 times more. 1998-99 average pay $40,574 (NJ $51,692); 2001-02 avg $44,604 (NJ $54,575) TRACK DOWN THE POLITICIANS DOING THE UNIONS’ BIDDING
Go to each of your legislator’s and congressman’s website and also to these: www.eiaonline.com, www.fedinfo.com, and
www.opensecrets.org. the eia website will give you per-pupil costs by state, number of teachers, teacher salaries compared to a state’s average income, etc. The other websites will give you all kinds of search capabilities for various election ‘cycles’ such as 2000 and 2004 mid-term elections. But all this is just a small portion of what politicians get from the NEA. The NEA contributes to allies like People for the American Way and the ACLU (both ultra-liberal groups), pro-immigration groups, local NEA chapters who in turn contribute to the candidate, and many more. On www.opensecrets.org, search under NEA for direct contributions to federal candidates. Check the ‘2004 Teachers Unions’ Expenditures, esp NEA’ word document. As an example, for the 2005-06 election cycle for NJ, see the following:
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2005-2006 NEA FUND FOR CHILDREN AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
Menendez, Robert, Senator D.-NJ $5,000 Lautenberg, Frank, Senator D.-NJ $2,000
Andrews, Robert D.-NJ $2,000 Lobiondo, Frank R.-NJ $1,000
Pallone, Frank D.-NJ $1,500 Ferguson, Mike R.-NJ $2,950
Pascrell, William D.-NJ $1,500 Rothman, Steven D.-NJ $2,000
Payne, Donald D.-NJ $1,000 Holt, Rush D.-NJ $1,800 (Go to
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00000860&cycle=2006)
EIA (Education Intelligence Agency) NEA Contributions
NJEA (New Jersey Education Assn) $791,715
Protect Our Public Schools (anti-charter-school organization) $500,000
National Council of La Raza (Pro-illegal immigration Hispanic group) $7,900
National Assn for Bilingual Education $5,000
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation $5,000
Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition $5,000
Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education (GLSEN) $5,000
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) $5,000
State NEA Affiliates $9.25 million
Gephardt Legacy Fund $10,000
Democratic Leadership Council $25,750
Wellstone Memorial Fund $5,000
People for the American Way $51.200
US Hispanic Leadership Council $10,000
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards $6,363
Great Lakes Center for Education, Research & Practice $200,000
Center for Teaching Quality $122,696
Council on Foreign Relations $6,000
Media Strategies & Research $2,966,123 (Advertising to improve unions’ images in the public eye) The Mehlman Group- $106,400
Donna Brazile & Associates $40,148
Some broad categories of NEA spending (Sept.’04--Aug.’05)
Representational activities $47 million
Political activities & lobbying $25 million
Contributions, gifts, grants $65.5 million
General overhead $64 million
Union administration $56.8 million
Elaine Chao, Secy of Labor, Bush Administration, got it through that the NEA and all other labor unions must file an annual LM-2
Report with the US Dept of Labor. The unions fought vigorously against this requirement but ultimately were unsuccessful.
U.S. News & World Report in a February 26, 1996 report on the NEA and AFT listed the top 1995 recipients of their political contributions.
NEA Rivers, Lynn D.-MI $5,000 AFT Ackerman, Gary D.-NY $5,000
Kildes, Dale D.-MI $5,000 Bonior, David D.- MI $5,000
Bonior, David D.-MI $5,000 Gephardt, Richard D.-MO$5,000
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Johnson, Tim D.-SD $4,000 Wellstone, Paul, Sen D.-MN$5,000
Gephardt, Richard D.MO$3,500 Levin, Carl, Sen D.-MI $5,000
Also listed was that from 1993 to 1994, the NEA contributed $3.5 million to Democrats and $37,300 to Republicans. The AFT’s campaign contributions were listed as $5 million.
Headline 5/15/06: Member-Hungry Unions Place Hope in Mass Immigration Some of what emerges when one studies the foregoing list is the extremely large amount of money the NEA uses to bully itself into and maintain power: they oppose charter schools (They are also public schools but with lesser restrictions, and they often work with the less able, but there’s an accountability factor.), the labor unions are pro-legal and pro-illegal immigration because they want more pupils no matter where they come from because this equals a need for more dues-paying teachers, they push gay marriage, they support the PUSH coalition’s extracting large sums of money from corporations (I studied this in DC.), they selectively support politicians’ legacies, they support an organization that wants to remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge and also support removing the Ten Commandments from public buildings, they are responsible for low teaching standards, and most importantly they influence the media and take part in gigantic self-image campaigns of all kinds—ever see any of their slick TV ads which in reality fudge the numbers. (See foregoing material which lists $2,966,123 spent last year for media strategies.) Jasper Ho, education activist, on sweetheart deals: ‘Because most elections are determined by the slimmest of margins, any organized special interest group capable of delivering more than 3% of the votes cast will more than likely control the vote of its endorsed candidate on that issue, should he win the election.
‘Teachers’ unions, who frequently can deliver up to 10% of votes cast in an election, are considered to be America’s most powerful political force. For at least the past 35 years, they have become synonymous with the Democrat Party. Not only do they field one of the largest Democratic Convention delegations and alternate delegations contingent to determine the Democrat Party Presidential nominee, they write some of the largest campaign contribution checks and staff one of the largest get-out-the-vote ‘volunteer’ forces for each election.
‘In return, their endorsed candidates vote for generous school fundings annually with little or no accountability for academic results.
These elected officials join the teachers’ unions in making nice-sounding but useless ‘education reforms’ whose sole purpose is to boost education spending for more unionized teachers (‘smaller class sizes’ and expanded ‘pre-K’ education), more expensive resources (‘free computers for ALL K-12 students eventually’), new expensive buildings, and higher pay and benefits for teachers (‘to attract and retain better teachers’).
Effectively, some of our increased property taxes for higher teacher salaries are siphoned off to write campaign checks to elect politicians who then reward the unionized teachers with higher pay and benefits and increase their unionized ranks to expand their political power and influence even more. This is the sweetheart deal between mostly Democrat politicians and the teachers’ labor unions. The losers are the children, parents, and taxpayers.’
In assessing this whole thing, I believe public school teachers are victims of a kind of Ponzi scheme in that they invest their college education, dedication in helping children, plus their annual dues; and the results that come out in the end cannot be what they hope for.
Teachers pay up to $900 in dues annually, although sometimes less. In exchange, the union buys loyalty from them by insuring them good pay, pensions, and healthcare, job security no matter what their job performance is, and protection from lawsuits. If teachers do strike, their pay is not affected. They can make up strike days.
Teachers, please read this. In 2006, union officials clearly recognize that they need to use coercion to raise the money that funds their political efforts. Robert Chanin, gen. counsel for the NEA, once said in U.S. District Court, ‘It is well recognized that if you take away the mechanism of payroll deduction, you won’t collect a penny from these people, and it has nothing to do with voluntary or involuntary. I think it has to do with the nature of the beast, and the beasts who are our teachersÉ (They) simply don’t come up with the money regardless of the purpose.’ (Capital Research in Washington D.C.) I’ve written mainly about the NEA or AFT, but the unions also go by their local or state names: for example, the UTLA, United Teachers of Los Angeles, or the NJEA, New Jersey Education Assn, NYC teachers usually go by the name UFT, United Federation of Teachers.
One example of the NEA’s influence over Congress was in 1995 when all the Democrats and 12 Republicans voted against a bill, HR
2546, which would have revoked the NEA’s property-tax exemption. It failed then by 3 votes.
It hardly seems fair that the NEA still retains its tax-exempt status like the American Red Cross ever since it became a labor union.
The NEA is a federally chartered corporation like the Boy Scouts which dates from its professional charter days. This saves them at least $2.5 million a year. Their primary weapon is political power not economic. They use it to redistribute income toward government and to insulate themselves from competition. Teacher strikes are illegal, but the law never is enforced. Strikes are so important to the unions that the national union president contacts all local presidents that are on strike. The cost of health insurance is bargained into contracts under the threat of strikes and passed on to taxpayers. This NEA insurance program included in dues further strengthens the union’s grip on teachers. Teachers must forgo merit pay in return. One study showed per-pupil expenditures in unionized districts to be 15% higher than in non-union areas. The collective bargaining process (put into law by Pres. Kennedy although FDR always disapproved of it) imposes direct and indirect costs that may go into billions of dollars. The unions are very successful in getting 5
control of the curriculum, but the performance can take up to 10 years to show deterioration. Have you ever noticed bulletins that go out to the public deal with self -esteem or similar aspects of socializing but hardly ever the academics. There are more atrocities. It has happened that teachers refuse to write college recommendations unless students and their families supported aspects of the unions’
agenda. That’s just like Abbie Walsh, a Midwestern college student from Lake Elmo, MN, writing a term paper on Wal-Mart to receive an F because the professor didn’t agree with her viewpoint politically. Her state senator intervened, and she received a good grade because the paper was good. Abbie, like millions of other Americans, does not agree with Joe Biden D.-DE and Howard Dean, Chairman of the DNC, who criticize Wal-Mart it seems mainly because its workers don’t wish to be unionized. They’re trying right now to kick Wal-Mart out of Germany for this very reason. They have, by the way, now succeeded.
Many people in the know have great difficulty with the knowledge that state legislatures are being bribed to do the unions’ bidding. Of course, many legislators would probably say that they need the money for their campaigns, but also there are a high number who are teachers, ex-teachers, teachers’ spouses, and other relatives of teachers.
The NEA started out innocently in 1857 in Philadelphia, the AFT in 1916 in Illinois; but both have been transformed into brass-knuckled labor unions.
‘Sometimes when you’re standing on the line and you got a brick in your hand, you have to throw it. Then it’s up to the union lawyers to get you out!’ - William Winpisinger, former union president.
I mentioned the million-dollar image campaigns they conduct, but there’s something else. Particularly the NEA cleverly and deceptively changes its stripes depending on the community—none of the thug tactics in upscale communities where the high property taxes make their activities a piece of cake. Not so, in lower tax areas. I personally saw what the unions did in New Brighton, PA, when a store owner on the school board had a brick or two thrown through his store’s plate glass window when he would not vote for teacher raises. Too, teachers often forget that when they get pay raises, their property taxes go up too. Perhaps, all in all, being a union member isn’t worth all that much! On top of that a high percentage of public school teachers send their own children to private schools, as many as 25% or more. There are instances when union ‘thugs’ key people’s cars or order a load of manure to be dumped on an opponent’s front yard. These cases never seem to be prosecuted. I personally suffered from this union mentality that some people nurture: a relative withheld distributions to me from my brother’s estate mainly because she knew I was opposed to teachers’
unions, and she had taken part in a strike in the above-mentioned town.
The union fights attempts to limit taxes, cut government spending, and even to curb illegal immigration. It’s no wonder then that union bureaucrats at the Department of Education (Just think, the NEA has its own cabinet office!) write all these bilingual programs. All these relationships give the NEA access to public policymaking which is arguably unconstitutional. Labor allies like FDR long opposed public sector unionization because of the potential for abuse (Boy was he ever right!), but these scruples were abandoned around 1960 when federal employee collective bargaining was first allowed. The NEA’s structure is DECEPTIVE, thus hiding the truth from the American public. It is highly centralized, but its public face is local. In this small town, no one I asked knew that the union had an office in the local high school. That’s another point of deception—usually the consolidated schools are located out of town or in out-of-the-way places.
In 1979, the Dept. of Education, through Jimmy Carter’s efforts, was established as part of the cabinet. Sharon P. Robinson, director of NEA’s research arm became head of research at the Dept of Education. This year it has a buedget of $89.9 billion. On March 27, 2006, then Senator Arlen Specter R.-PA with what seemed to be a flick of the pen added $7 billion just like that. (1 billion is a stack of $100 bills as high as the Empire State Bldg.) Of course, Specter had a safe seat in PA with all the unions there. What will stop another Senator and then another from doing likewise! And we’re footing the bill. The late Ted Kennedy D.-MA tried then to add an additional $6.3 billion on top of the 7 billion to restore nonexistent cuts. (Don’t you love the way they come up with these figures.) Ladies and gentlemen, this kind of abuse must stop. We are financing the complete ruination of our youth! At the end of this article, I will argue for removing all federal involvement in education. This alone would cost the union $89.9 billion in one fell swoop or actually a lot more since the education budget goes up astronomically each year and they would lose their revenue from publishing books tax-free. What a tremendous victory for children if this ever happens! You must lend your voice to this effort. As I proofread while I’m writing, I never cease to be amazed at man’s cruelty to man. How can Americans bring down America’s youth for a few pieces of silver!
You, one person, CAN do something. In 1995, when George Miller, D.-CA, introduced a bill in Congress which would regulate home schooling (force mothers to get a teacher’s degree before being able to teach their own children at home), the outcry was so great that 800,000 calls jammed the switchboards and the bill was dropped but only AFTER the public outcry. If you do nothing else after reading this, call or write (email) your state representative and senator in the legislature, your congressional representative, and your two national senators and demand that they support the idea that the Supremem Court needs to declare federal involvement in education to be unconstitutional and email your name and location to patty.degen@yahoo.com. For God’s sake, do this!
I’ll go on. In 1994 First Lady Hillary Clinton gave the keynote address at that year’s NEA Convention, boosting her health care plan.
She and Pres. Clinton with Marc Tucker went on to write Outcome Based Education and Goals 2000 which programs are now defunct after billions spent on them, but unfortunately many of the dumbing-down ideas are still used in our schools. Goals 2000, simply put, dangled funds before states in return for discouraging phonics. Educationists seem to have an almost religious faith in whole language reading and anything holistic. But intensive phonics is the only real way reading can be taught at least to the average child and below so that they are being unrealistic. Only children with excellent sight memories can learn to read and spell with the whole language method. One would think that the over 50% adult functional illiteracy rate in this country would convince them. I have proof that the 6
Dick and Jane method (whole language) does not work. When I returned from Germany after a year’s study under a Fulbright grant, I obtained a job teaching first grade. I had had no courses on how to teach reading. However, after using the Dick and Jane method for a month or two, I realized it did not teach reading. It was simply a memorization method. This whole thing simply goes back to John Dewey who thought school was for socializing the children not teaching them. VSSE in Vermont give out a John Dewey award! Here in this small New Jersey town, bulletins are sent to the public quarterly telling of self-esteem, not academic, programs. Dewey recommended starting reading at age 8 or 9, probably knowing full well that it was too late to learn phonics because there is a track in the brain that has closed for sounds including tone matching in singing. I know this from trying for years to teach children past the ages of 7 or 8 to sing; it can rarely be done. This is a fact. And when I tried to help pupils of 9 with letter sounds (phonics), I got absolutely nowhere. Think about little children being able to pick up a foreign language quickly whereas adults, even brilliant ones, have difficulty with correct pronunciation of a foreign language or being able to speak without a heavy accent. This is because they first learned English after the early school years.
After studying globalization, I believe there’s something even more sinister going on here, and that is to dumb down as many of the world’s people as possible. I have witnessed the dumbing down of German schools, and I know personally the head of Campaign for Real Education in England where schools are also not producing good academic results. This is reality. If the USA could get its schoolhouse in order, there would be a good chance other countries would follow suit.
Teachers’ unions can take over school boards which they did in 1994 in San Jose, California’s School District in order to divert land-sale proceeds to teacher salaries; they can smear anti-union candidates who run for school boards, and this is done frequently wherever union power is challenged. As one example, it turned out that in Virginia Beach, VA, that the victorious union candidate had a bogus Ph.D and later was convicted of campaign violations. It was reported that the unions caused NJ Governor Christie Whitman at the time to delay her voucher plans for Jersey City’s troubled school system. This is disgraceful! Here’s where we have miserably failed our African American citizens. We do not fight the unions enough so that these poor children who are even in fear of being shot to death on their way to school can get a decent education. I even volunteered about 15 years ago to teach kindergarten for a year in Trenton for no pay just so I could show how these little children could learn and get a right start in life, but no because the unions fear competition so much. Many teachers in Trenton have told me that they can only close the classroom door and babysit the children because there is no way they can be taught because of all the disruptive students. In NYC there are 100 pages of regulations to go through before an unruly student can be dismissed. I’m sure it’s about the same in Trenton. And just think of all the youth relegated to Special Education who are taking Ritalin and even selling it to other students. Recent reports have stated that the FDA did say that they’ll take a look at having tougher restrictions. (I doubt if anything will be done, at least not soon.) Ezola Foster, LA black teacher-amthor and supporter of Prop 187 to curtail education and welfare spending on illegal immigrants said,
‘There’s a lot of low morale in my school because of the union positionÉThey know their members are hurting because of overcrowding and bilingual education. They never do anything to help.’ She also says that union officials actively favor bilingual education, which brings a $5,000 salary increment for bilingual teachers. Guess what—the unions get more dues from teachers’ higher salaries, as the dues are a fixed percentage of the salaries.
A favorite tool of the unions to extract more money is funding equalization—the theory that different localities’ differing spending denies ‘equal protection’ to students and must therefore be unconstitutional. This argument was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1974, but at the state level, it works. It has led to an increase in jobs and additional NEA dues where upheld. Money goes for teacher salaries, reducing class size (more teachers) and specialized programs like Special Education that add personnel. The unions using this get higher spending in disadvantaged areas—Washington DC gets the most money and has the worst test scores. More money has not been proven to be the key to better education.
The NEA has published and is still publishing books on how to learn to read using the whole language method. William Scott Gray, University of Chicago faculty member from 1914-1931, was widely influenced by John Dewey. He published the ‘Dick and Jane’
series as chief editor of Scott, Foresman & Co. Actually this series was first used to teach the deaf. It was written by Thomas H.
Gallaudet, founder of the Hartford Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. Gallaudet College is still in existence today—in Washington, DC.
It was in the news recently because of a dispute about the new president. One study showed that the percentage of first graders scoring above the median on reading tests dropped by ½ after 18 months of whole language instruction. The NEA likes it because of the easier standards and because of its educrat loyalties, and could it be because it dumbs down and also provides a reason for writing new reading method books and reaping big profits. With no phonics, children can only skim through books and somehow absorb reading skills. When reading is taught, it’s done by endless repetition to memorize as many as 1,500 easy words, to be guided by pictures in reading a story, and to skip or guess at words. Therefore schoolbooks have been simplified. Some first grade reading books are now written at the level a farmer would talk to his animals. In upscale communities, these things are hidden because children can often read before going to school and know their colors and numbers.
When intensive phonics was used widely in our schools, the illiteracy rate was negligible. Now the adult functional illiteracy rate is over 50% as I stated earlier. Functional illiteracy means that a person can read street signs and simple instructions but cannot tackle even a very simple essay or set of directions. An expert in teaching reading, Regna Lee Wood wrote, ‘In 1929...hundreds of primary teachers, guided by college reading professors, stopped teaching beginners to read by matching sounds with letters that spell sounds, and started teaching them to recognize the 1,500 most commonly used words simply by seeing them printed over and over in the new
‘see and say’ readers.’ When doing the research for this article, I visited a distant relative of mine who was in a retirement home in Franklin, PA. She remembered well that she and her brother, a professor at Slippery Rock College in PA, tried to stop the use of whole language for reading but failed. In my teaching career, the simplification of the texts is what first alerted me to what was going on. A 7
friend in Tennessee said that some high school graduates in his town can only read 2- and 3-lett4er words. Early on, after college, as I wrote before, I taught first grade on an emergency certificate and remember vividly trying to teach these sweet children how to read with the ‘Dick and Jane’ readers. It is impossible to do, even following carefully the short teacher’s guide, at least so in 1958. My field was music at the time, but I certainly tried hard. In the same school system in PA, they used the Peterson System of Handwriting, and my pupils became exceedingly proficient in handwriting because the method was systematic and excellent. I remember being proud when every one of my pupils received a writing award from Harrisburg.
The PTA at the national level is merely an auxiliary of the NEA. Like the NEA itself, the PTA presents a very different local face—
bake sales, coffees, back-to-school nights, etc and provides a nice social atmosphere. Most of the local dues are funneled to the state and national bureaucracies which have tax-free status. This is another big source of funding for the NEA.
‘NEA teachers probably don’t know how fat and happy the union bureaucracy has become.’ (Forbes magazine) The union fat cats such as the president have 6-figure salaries with huge fringe benefits. Taxpayers are even funding retirement benefits for union staff.
Some staffers are former teachers who remain eligible for their teacher pensions on top of their union benefits. In the private sector, such employer-union subventions are illegal under the Landrum-Griffin Act.
The unfunded mandate idea was cooked up by the unions. It end-runs local voters to impose duties and costs on school districts. With the No Child Left Behind Act led by the Bush Administration and Ted Kennedy, school districts can have funding withheld if they do not follow the guidelines for teaching reading with phonics instruction. This is difficult for many teachers because the colleges of education do not teach the intensive phonics method, rather the whole language method which has led to functional illiteracy.
There are a few practical things that could lead to some reform: Restrict release time with pay for teachers to conduct union business.
Teacher tenure should be ended in favor of merit pay. School districts’ deducting union dues from teachers’ pay should be stopped.
This only helps the unions in that they get their money without clerical costs. At the same time, it makes it difficult for individual teachers who have opted out of part of the dues to get their money back.
Taxpayers also should not be required to fund the union-sponsored National Board for Professional Teaching Standards which
‘standards’ are excuses to raise salaries.
I hope the case for disallowing union control of our schools, at least for curtailing it, has been made. If not, perhaps their own words which prove that they are positively not interested in the education of our young people will convince you:
‘When schoolchildren start paying union due