Picking a fight.
When my colleague Lill wrote a letter to IEA lame-ducker Ken Swanson complaining about the IEA’s position on a variety of issues, Lill told Ken that she and other members have considered withdrawing their membership from the IEA and going Fair Share.
Fair Share means you pay the dues equivalent, but you’re not a member.
She’s right. A number of members have said the same thing to me.
But I disagree.
This is my union.
Our union.
If someone came to the door of my house and said, “move out,” there would be no way.
So here’s the difference between Charlie McBarron, who has kept disagreeable members from commenting on the IEA website, and me.
We’re members of the IEA and NEA and he’s not.
And when Audrey Soglin negotiates away our rights to bargain local teacher evaluation procedures, they’re our rights and not her rights.When Ken Swanson bargained away tenure and seniority, those were our rights. He’s retiring.
Ken Swanson writes to President-elect Cinda Klickna accusing Lill of being “Klonskesque.” What does that mean?
Ken thinks that if you’re PREA member and a woman, you couldn’t possibly think for yourself.
Swanson in the same email to Klickna (which he didn’t intend for anyone else to see, but hit the “reply all” button by mistake), referred to our former Local President by a school yard epithet. The nerve of a member to disagree with Ken!
The NEA leadership may be dismayed that a member could think that an early no strings NEA endorsement of President Obama at the Chicago RA might just be sending the wrong message to the Administration.
Here’s the news. I ain’t alone.
The delegates that voted no confidence in Arne Duncan at last year’s RA are coming back to Chicago.
Van Roekel may win the fight that he has decided to start. But it won’t be pretty.
Check out Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post. She reprints Anthony Cody, a teacher and main organizer of the teachers March on DC to Save Our Schools in late July.
Ask any NEA member or AFT member about Obama. “Well, I’m not thrilled about his education policies,” is the universal response.
Who would be thrilled? From the administration’s support for charters, Race to the Top, school closings, and test based teacher evaluations to their open union bashing in places like Central Falls, it is a sorry record.
For this they deserve an endorsement a year and a half before the election? With no strings attached?
It has never been done in the history of the NEA.
Is this what the Obama administration deserves from the country’s largest teachers union?
Someone is picking a fight.
It’s not the members.
Update: In a earlier version of this post, I made reference to NEA communications people who attended the Net Roots meeting. My comments were based on misinformation and I have removed them. My apologies.
