EIA's second quarterly report of 1998, Piles of Wealth: Teacher Union Staff Compensation, is now available. The 28-page report examines teacher union payrolls, and sheds light upon a subject of interest to union members and non-members alike.
        
The salaries paid to many union officials are public records. However, these records are tedious and difficult to access, compile and interpret. Piles of Wealth makes them accessible and easy to understand. Each and every statistic related to union finances in this report came directly from the union itself.  No extrapolations or estimates were necessary. The union officers declare, under penalty of law, that the information is "true, correct, and complete."
        
EIA's previous report, One Yard Below: Education Statistics from a Different Angle, asked the question "where does it go?" instead of "how much should we spend?" Piles of Wealth continues that search, this time in pursuit of union dues rather than taxpayer dollars. However, there is a clear continuum from one to the other. If education spending rises, then teachers' salaries rise. If teachers' salaries rise, union dues rise. If union dues rise, union salaries rise.

Key findings of the report:

• The average NEA employee earned $69,583 in salary, $23,365 in benefits, and $5,635 in expenses for a total of $98,583. The average AFT employee earned $65,200 in salary, $24,488 in benefits, and $8,821 in expenses for a total of $98,509.
• Eleven national and state teacher unions were studied. They employed more than 500 people who earned over $100,000 in salary and expenses — led by NEA President Bob Chase with $301,302.
• Representing a profession where more than 74% of employees are women, the top-paying positions in unions belong to males. None of the top ten salaries in the Ohio Education Association belonged to a woman. New York State United Teachers has only one woman in its top 17 wage-earners.

AFT President Sandra Feldman is, as I write this, in sunny Naples, Italy — ancestral home of my branch of the Antonucci clan — addressing the convention of the Overseas Federation of Teachers.

President Julius Maddox of the Michigan Education Association told members of his staff that NEA President Bob Chase believes merger support to be about 50 percent for and 50 percent against. EIA estimates are slightly rosier for Chase, with merger support expected to be somewhere between 55 percent and 64 percent. The Michigan union approved spending $2,000 on a campaign to defeat the merger.

The tension is building at NEA HQ. Executive Director Don Cameron sent a message to all NEA staff, state executive directors and state presidents regarding the merger. "NEA is NOT neutral on this issue," Cameron wrote. "Therefore, neither is NEA staff. NEA strongly supports, and is actively advocating for, the approval of the Principles of Unity by the delegates to the 1998 NEA Representative Assembly. So, therefore, is the staff." 

Cameron made it clear what he wanted from NEA staff, who have been less than enthusiastic thus far about merger. "Consequently, it is my expectation that NEA staff will, whenever possible, use available opportunities to advance NEA's unity position and policy." One staffer characterized the letter as "marching orders."

NEA General Counsel Robert Chanin told the NEA Board of Directors that, should the Principles of Unity pass this year, the new constitution and by- laws will be drawn up in time for a vote of next year's convention. He explained that the 1998 vote will virtually commit NEA to merge. "The time to stop it is in 1998, not 1999," he said. "1999 should be consistent with what was done in 1998." Chanin also suggested that delegates be informed "that if this agreement is approved in '98, merger is not a done deal, it could still be derailed, but it is effectively a point of no return to merger."

The Washington Education Association has officially joined the pro-merger side. Here are the latest confirmed totals:

• Confirmed pro-merger — Wisconsin, Washington, Florida, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Georgia, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Wyoming. TOTAL = 20.5%
• Confirmed anti-merger — New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, West Virginia, New Hampshire. TOTAL = 24.6%

Remember the huge new teacher contract negotiated in Hawaii last year under the threat of a statewide strike? In return for a 17 percent pay hike, the Hawaii State Teachers Association agreed to add seven days to the school year (Hawaii has only 176 instructional days per year). Now, the budget subcommittee of the state Board of Education has recommended the seven days be cut from the school calendar and used as training days. Board officials say there is no funding to pay administrators, custodians and security personnel for the additional seven days.

Quote of the Week #1: "Answer is a product of what you have done before, but it's not the crucial thing. The crucial parts of it is — is the decision on what is it asking you, what are the best strategies to use, and then to be able to — to talk about why." — Karen Eason, fifth-grade math teacher in Corvallis, Oregon to Lee Hochberg of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Quote of the Week #2: "But at the school my kids attend, which seems fairly typical for Connecticut, students don't master the times tables until fourth grade. These children burn lots of class hours in second and third grades learning something other than basic arithmetic; have they mastered some marvelous new kind of mathematics? Not so you'd notice. It appears that, mostly, they've spent the extra time learning how to mouth off, which they were pretty good at already." — David Gelertner, professor of computer science at Yale University, writing in the New York Post.