Merger mania is beginning to hit various groups within the National Education Association with the dissemination of the "Draft AFT/NEA Principles of Unity" to board members and state affiliate presidents (available from EIA). With the exact wording defined, the first organized opposition to merger is beginning to appear. By a vote of 644 to 220, the representative assembly of the Illinois Education Association voted against merger. IEA became the first state affiliate to formalize its opposition. NEA-New Hampshire and the New Jersey Education Association have expressed concerns informally. 

Union staffers are also worried. Although NEA President Bob Chase pledged no national staffers would lose their jobs, he admitted that possible staff reductions at the state level were beyond his control. The draft principles allow — for the first time in NEA — release-time teachers to become union staffers. The principles also refer to part-time staff. This is setting off alarm bells at state affiliates across the country. Staff unions in the Midwest and Northeast have asked the National Staff Organization (the union of teacher union staffers) to oppose the merger. NSO has its own "Declaration of 
Principles": 
        1) That pensions of NSO members be protected. 
        2) That staff jobs and salaries be protected. 
        3) That mergers do not create a new and larger bureaucracy more distant from its members. 
        4) That the current obsession with internal reorganization and merger does not interfere with our obligation to commitment to advocacy for the members of NEA. 

On January 27, EIA began disseminating the "Joint Progress Report" on the merger from NEA President Bob Chase and AFT President Sandra Feldman (dated January 21). EIA has just learned that on February 5, NEA sent an e-mail to state affiliate presidents, asking them to withhold those details from members. Part of the message read: "More appropriate now is coverage that lets people know that the negotiations with AFT set in motion by delegates to the 1995 NEA RA have been making progress, so much so that a vote on Principles of Unity for creating a new organization could take place this July at the NEA RA." In sum, nine days after you knew all about the joint progress report, NEA was still trying to keep it from its own members. 

The preliminary results are in from Oregon's "tough" new teacher tenure law. Only eight of the Portland School District's 3,300 permanent teachers (about 0.2 percent) did not have their contracts extended. Richard Garrett, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, told The Oregonian he thought the district went overboard and was "cruel" to teachers. 

The New Orleans Times-Picayune recently published a series of reports on the disappearance of school property. Orleans Parish School Board investigators discovered that more than $3.4 million in school computers, band instruments and equipment had gone missing in the past five years. McDonogh Senior High School topped the list with over $117,000 in missing and stolen property. "There has been a fatal absence of accountability in the school system," said District Attorney Harry Connick. Some thefts approached the comical. Custodian Ernestine Falls stole a refrigerator from Edwards Elementary School. When it stopped working, she called the school's maintenance department to come and fix it. "In a private business, if you lost those things, you would be held responsible," said former Audit Advisory Committee member Edward Jackson. "But that is not how it works at the School Board." 

A 13-year-old Jehovah's Witness threatened to sue the Highline School District when a teacher made him stand outside in the rain for 15 minutes because he wouldn't recite the Pledge of Allegiance. District policy allows students to remain respectfully silent during the pledge. Meanwhile, a school in one northern California district alternates the Pledge of Allegiance with a number of other pledges, including this "Pledge to the Universe": "I pledge allegiance to the world. To cherish every living thing. To care for earth and sea and air, with peace and freedom everywhere." 

Teachers represented by the Amphitheater Education Association in Arizona have a contract provision that allows them to save unused sick leave. When they leave the district, they are paid for the unused days. The problem is that the school district is building an unlimited liability at a rate of 5 percent per year. Eventually, the liability will grow beyond the district's ability to pay. Current contract negotiations address the issue, but union reps say they will not "bargain away any of our employee benefits." 

Quote of the Week: "Clearly, this is an orchestrated effort. We can expect to see more of these attacks. They have already appeared in other cities in our state. Every teacher should note that the people responsible are not friends of education. Their negativism toward teachers is consistent and pervasive. In reality, this attack is probably based on the fact that many people fear us. They are afraid of our numbers. The fact that we are everywhere and are united makes us strong. Do not waste reason on these critics. The facts about teacher absenteeism do not work with these people. We know that working conditions and pressures often dictate increased absence. 

CEA challenges all our critics to look more closely. A building by building analysis will paint the real picture. If the State Board of Education wants to become involved in this debate without finding the real data we will take each one of them to task, personally." — an editorial from The CEA Voice, the weekly newsletter of the Columbus Education Association, after a Columbus Dispatch story that showed Ohio teachers were absent more often than students.