United Teachers Los Angeles supports merit pay “on a cold day in hell”

The Detroit Federation of Teachers shut down city schools to stop 15 charter schools from being built for free

The California Teachers Association has compared school vouchers to child prostitution

The Washington Teachers Union has withheld kids’ college recommendations for parents who didn’t oppose school reform

In Illinois (outside of Chicago), two union-protected teachers out of 95,500 are terminated for incompetence annually

In Illinois (outside of Chicago), it costs $219,504.21 to fire a bad union-protected teacher

In New Jersey, five union-protected teachers out of more than 100,000 are terminated for incompetence annually

In New York State, seventeen union-protected teachers are terminated a year

In New York State, it costs $128,941 to fire a bad union-protected teacher

In New York City, only ten out of 55,000 tenured teachers were terminated in 2006-2007

In Los Angeles, only eleven out of 43,000 union-protected teachers are even considered for termination annually

The National Education Association received $50 million for shaky investment advice in 2004 alone

NEA members are suing over the union’s endorsement of “Valuebuilder,” a plan with over $1 billion of members’ money invested

New York State United Teachers received $3 million for shaky investment advice in 2005

Washington Teachers Union embezzlement tab: $5 million

United Teachers of Dade (Miami) embezzlement tab: $2.5 million

Massachusetts Teachers Association embezzlement tab: $800,000

Michigan teachers unions' embezzlement tab from one thief: $218,000 in bad checks

Political Power

In almost every state, teachers are automatically signed up to have their dues money diverted to their unions’ political funds. But the facts show that when “paycheck protection” laws require unions to get permission from teachers before taking money for political purposes, teachers almost always say “no.”

When teachers were given the chance to opt out of paying for the political causes of education unions, the number of teachers participating in Utah dropped from 68 percent to 6.8 percent, and the number of represented teachers contributing in Washington dropped from 82 percent to 6 percent.

Predictably, union officials fight tooth and nail against “paycheck protection” laws that give teachers a real choice about how their money is spent.

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 a lot to do with the nature of the beast, and the beasts who are our teachers.”

— NEA general counsel Robert Chanin

Money & Power

Education unions are perennial political powerhouses. Consider:

Click here to read our op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer describing the Washington Education Association’s fight to use teachers’ dues money for politics without permission.

Fortune magazine has consistently ranked the National Education Association in the top 15 of its Washington Power 25 list for influence in the nation's capital.
The NEA reported spending $32 million on political activities in its fiscal year 2007; the vast majority of the union's influence, including the impact of its hundreds of political shock troops during elections, goes unreported.
In 2005, the American Federation of Teachers/AFL-CIO PAC was the tenth-largest federal Political Action Committee by receipts, at $3.8 million.
The powerful California Teachers Association raised $68 million through a temporary dues increase on more than 300,000 members, and spent about $58 million to defeat ballot initiatives proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (as reported by the San Jose Mercury News). Earlier that year, the Mercury News also reported that the CTA also spent millions more on a lobbying campaign to sap the governor's popularity. An analysis from the Sacramento Business Journal showed that the California Teachers Association outspent oil companies by almost $5 million to become the biggest statewide lobby in the combined span of 2004 and 2005 -- including a six-fold increase from 2004 to 2005. (Union opposition to Schwarzenegger hasn’t always been deft: in 2008 a local of the California Federation of Teachers handed out signs and t-shirts protesting “Govenor” Schwarzenegger.)

Unions Don't Reflect Members’ Politics

The officials who wield teachers unions’ enormous political clout do so at the expense of their members, who frequently disagree with union bosses’ agendas.

The Education Intelligence Agency obtained results of a massive internal survey of NEA membership and leadership, issuing a report in October 2005 titled “The NEA Pyramid: The View Changes As You Rise to the Top of the Nation's Largest Union.” The report noted: “The larger a local affiliate is, the less likely the local affiliate president will reflect the demographics, philosophies and tendencies of his or her constituent members.” That certainly describes the NEA and AFT at the national level.

Political Money

Click here to learn about the NEA’s and the AFT’s political giving.

Between 1990 and 2004, 94 percent of donations made by National Education Association political action committees and individual officers went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Yet according to the NEA's own “Status of the American Public School Teacher 2000-2001,” only 45 percent of public school teachers are Democrats.

According to the Public Service Research Foundation, the NEA has long known that its political expenditures don't reflect the views of its members. PSRF obtained two 1980 internal surveys of NEA members, which showed:

As many members voted for Ronald Reagan (44%) as did for Jimmy Carter (44%)
More NEA members identified themselves as conservatives (27%) than liberals (21%)
A large number -- 29 % -- said they did "not trust" the union

Continue Reading - Dues & Don’ts: Conflicts of Interest