Add Georgia and Iowa to the list of NEA state affiliates with serious concerns about the proposed merger. The two biggest gripes are possible loss of staff jobs and affiliation with AFL-CIO. Dues for member organizations in AFL-CIO are 45 cents per member per month. Combined, NEA/AFT boast of 3 million members, but will begin their affiliation with AFL-CIO on the basis of 1.4 million members. That's a minimum of $630,000 per month, or $7.56 million per year. If all teacher union members join the happy family, it will cost the merged union about $1.35 million per month, or $16.2 million per year. Ready for a $10-15 annual dues increase? 

Mountain and Midwestern NEA state affiliates also revealed their own dues increases for next year: Iowa up $6 to $268, Wyoming up $4 to $266, Utah up $3 to $241, Missouri up $10 to $242, South Dakota up $5 to $236, Nebraska up $6 to $227, Arizona up $3 to $216, New Mexico up $4 to $216 and Texas up $9 to $197. North Dakota will actually reduce its dues $7 to $196. 

People who have been complaining for years about NEA's nearly exclusive support of Congressional Democrats may soon wish they had kept their mouths shut. NEA President Bob Chase briefed six GOP House members on the union's $30 billion school modernization proposal. In attendance were Jim Leach (IA),  Nancy Johnson (CT), Connie Morella (MD), Steve Horn (CA), Michael Castle (DE) and Thomas Petri (WI). Three cheers for bipartisanship! 

Remember those questionnaires from the California Teachers Association to determine the future of the organization? Apparently the return rate is somewhere around 30 percent. Keep that in mind when the survey results are announced in May or June. 

Virginia Gov. James Gilmore put $66 million in his state budget to hire 2,000 new teachers. His aim was to reduce class size. Oops. The Legislature took $37 million of it to subsidize the salaries of 1,400 existing teachers. 

Reporters from the Cleveland Plain Dealer discovered 192 convicted felons working for the city's public school system — 27 of whom had 3 or more felony convictions. The newspaper investigated the criminal records of school employees after district officials revealed that 78 percent of new employees had never undergone a background check. 

Developing story: Lawrence Lane, president of the Union Classroom Teachers Association in Oklahoma, was suspended from his teaching job for "unspecified reasons." The superintendent will recommend whether Lane should be fired or not. Contacted by a reporter from the Tulsa World, Lane would not comment, citing "a gag order from the Oklahoma Education Association." 

Internal news: EIA's good friends at CalNews are posting these communiqués on their web page at www.calnews.com. They are also archiving past communiqués, so you can access information you may have missed. I encourage you to visit. 
 

I have it on reliable authority that these communiqués are also being posted on the Political Action board of NEA Online, the members-only service of the National Education Association. Welcome! You join an already significant number of teacher union members who are subscribers.

EIA's report, "One Yard Below," received major press coverage in the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Reuters and CNN Online also picked up the Pennsylvania story). Greg Toppo of the New Mexican referred to me as a "rogue educational researcher." I liked that so much I put it on my office door. 

A California Teachers Association source tells EIA that visitors to last weekend's State Council meeting had to be signed in and receive a name badge. The reason? Someone had "spied" on CTA at the Equity and Human Rights Conference. Some spying. I had a name badge that read "Mike Antonucci, Education Intelligence Agency" and wore it during the entire conference. I shared an elevator ride with CTA President Lois Tinson. What are they afraid of?

Quote of the Week: "Salaries in themselves are fairly meaningless." — Ron Aiello, region field director for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, on EIA's report that disclosed the average Pennsylvania teacher made 65 percent more than the average Pennsylvania worker. Aiello's salary was $93,089 in 1995-96, more than double the average state teacher's salary that year.