Heading down River Road to the IEA RA.

March brings daylight savings time, some sun, a crocus or two, Cubbies’ Spring training, the NCAA basketball tournament, Spring Break and the Illinois Education Association’s state convention (in IEA-speak, “The RA.”)

Ironically, it is held at the anti-union Hyatt Hotel in Rosemont, just down River Road from Park Ridge, where I teach. It is one of those rare state union meetings that takes place up north, twenty minutes from The Loop. Most IEA meetings are held south of I-80, in Springfield or Bloomington. It means I can sleep in my own bed. It starts Thursday morning and runs through Saturday, ending when business is done.

The main business is passing a budget. But there will be governance issues, legislative issues and policy issues, an election for the NEA Board of Directors, speeches from Governor Quinn and his Tea-bagger opponent, a speech from NEA President, Dennis Van Roekel and who knows what else. The election campaign for the next IEA prez will start as soon as the RA is over.

What there won’t be: Any small group discussion of the budget. A long-standing tradition that apparently stood in the way of the leadership pushing through a $10 per member dues increase to pay for a media campaign. It doesn’t matter what they do. I’m betting the members won’t let the increase happen. It needs a 2/3 vote to pass.

What there will be: A potentially hot discussion over the best strategy for defending our retirement system. The Government Relations department of the IEA (aka, the lobbyists), wants to be free to talk options with legislators. But the options are so odious that many members (including me) think the IEA should spine up and defend the system as it is. There is a strong principled current that has present teachers opposing throwing future teachers “under the bus” by going soft on some kind of two-tiered retirement system.

There will be talk about how to mobilize support for a tax increase. The RA is taking place against a backdrop of as many as 17,000 pink-slips going out to school employees this week. Without some kind of tax increase, the governor is calling for $1.3 billion is education cuts. Friday, all delegates will be wearing pink in solidarity with those education employees who are losing their jobs this week. This is when the governor is planning to address the delegates.

I’m hoping there will be some questioning of IEA support for those parts of Senate Bill 315 that call for linking teacher evaluations to student performance. Passed and signed by the governor with little public notice and almost no notice to IEA members, the evaluation components of SB 315 were  required as part of Illinois’ application for R2T money, estimated between $200 and $400 million.

SB 315 seriously undermines our rights to engage in collective bargaining of evaluation procedures at the local level.  I’m hoping questions will be asked about the IEA’s role in the Race application and how it can be justified in light of the NEA’s opposition to Duncan’s Blueprint for ESEA reauthorization. They are proposals that were born of the same mother, conjoined twins.

If you would like to meet up, I will be sitting with my Region 36. I’m on Twitter as fklonsky. My e-mail is fklonsky@mac.com.

I imagine I will be at the mic a few times. I may even get called on.