The Board of Directors of the California Teachers Association will recommend a vote of support for the Principles of Unity at next weekend's State Council meeting. The council is expected to approve the measure. A large margin of victory in California — by far NEA's largest state affiliate — would provide a badly needed charge to the flagging merger cause.

The Connecticut Education Association voted to oppose merger at its delegate assembly — despite a speech by NEA President (and former CEA President) Bob Chase. AFL-CIO affiliation continued to be the main stumbling block. Maine and Massachusetts held their assemblies over the weekend. No word yet on their votes (why everyone is so close-mouthed is a mystery), but the resolution offered up for vote in Maine was a measure to oppose, which may indicate where the prevailing sentiment lies. 

Here are the latest totals:

• Confirmed pro-merger — Wisconsin, Washington, Florida, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Georgia, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, Mississippi, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Wyoming. TOTAL = 20.8%
• Confirmed anti-merger — New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Connecticut, West Virginia, New Hampshire. TOTAL = 26.0%

Unreported in the Enquirer was the fact that there are 2,833 teachers in the Cincinnati district, 2,751 of whom have worked the necessary three years to qualify for "professional" status. The 10 teachers dismissed therefore constitute 0.4 percent of the teacher workforce. The three veteran teachers comprise a whopping 0.1 percent of the veteran workforce. Only in today's climate could the rehiring of 99.9 percent of the tenured workforce be worthy of newspaper headlines for improved performance review.

More and more references to the racial make-up of the nation's teaching force are beginning to appear in print. Kathryn J. Spaziani wrote an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled "What view of the world comes if faculties are all white?" A detailed report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted the district's student population is 60 percent African-American while its teaching force is 75 percent white. The teachers' contract limits the percentage of African-American teachers at most schools to no more than 5 percentage points above the districtwide average. School board member John Gardner calls the racial quotas in the contract "obscene." But the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association believes the provision prevents segregated teaching staffs. "It's easy for someone who isn't familiar with the complexities of the staffing situation and who doesn't understand the history from where this came to just kind of toss out flippantly, ‘Let's get rid of this'," said MTEA Executive Director Sam Carmen. "Merely allowing Milwaukee Public Schools to redeploy the number of African-American teachers in the system doesn't get at the fundamental issue of increasing the number of teachers of color."

So, let's see... if you're a black teacher and you want to work at School A, and School A wants to hire you, you could be sent to School Z instead because School A isn't allowed to hire any more black teachers. So a white teacher gets the job you wanted. Sounds pretty progressive, doesn't it? 

School board and teacher union officials held a rally in Oklahoma City in support of proposed legislation to set aside 62 percent of all state general fund revenue for education. Senate President Pro Tem Stratton Taylor, who plans to introduce the bill, gave the keynote address at the rally. "We're about to lose our lofty national ranking of 47th (in per-pupil spending) to, of all people, Arkansas," Taylor told the crowd. "They don't even wear shoes over there."

Due to an unexpected windfall in state aid, teachers in Indian Prairie School District 204 in Illinois will receive a 3.8 percent salary bonus. The bonus, however, will last only three years and is not a permanent increase to the salary scale. Carolyn Gloeckle, president of the Indian Prairie Education Association, said 95 percent of teachers "voted to accept the raise reluctantly." How do you overwhelmingly approve of accepting something reluctantly?

The Los Angeles school board voted in secret not to accept millions of dollars in state aid to add a teaching day to the school calendar. Why? Because board members considered it "too much trouble to negotiate with the teachers' union for the extra day's work."

Harry Kelber, writing in his pro-union column Labor Talk, reported that after years of trying, he finally persuaded the AFL-CIO to publish a booklet with photos and short biographies of the members of the organization's executive council. Previously, Kelber wrote, "most union members could not identify council members either by name, face or reputation. It was disconcerting to know that these unidentifiable individuals, accountable to no one but themselves, were making decisions affecting the livelihood and well-being of millions of working people."

Today, three years later, Kelber can't get a copy of the booklet. "I was told there were no copies available," he wrote. "I could not get any information as to what had happened to them."

Kelber criticized the climate of secrecy. "The executive council still meets in secret," he noted. "There are still no published minutes of its proceedings. Its members still remain faceless and, by their clubby, self-imposed rules, tight-lipped about what goes on behind those closed doors." 

Quote of the Week: "The problem is that the systemic reform has often stopped at the classroom door." — Marion Joseph, member of the California Board of Education, on why past school reforms have been unsuccessful.

EIA's 1998 reports — One Yard Below and Piles of Wealth — are available via U.S. Mail at no charge. Contact EIA at the numbers below or write EIA at PO Box 2047, Carmichael CA 95609.