Big Membership Losses for NEA

[proud2BlibKansan]

Delegates to the National Education Association's Representative Assembly knew the news about their union's loss of membership would be bad, but it isn't clear that they knew it would be this bad.

NEA officials said the union has lost more than 100,000 teachers and education support personnel since 2010, and it projects that it will lose even more in the future. By the end of its 2013-14 budget, NEA expects it will have lost 308,000 members and experienced a decline in revenue projected at some $65 million in all since 2010. (The figures are expressed in full-time equivalents, which means that the actual number of people affected is probably higher.)

There was no sugarcoating these ghastly figures at today's hearing on the NEA's strategic plan and budget.

"As I've said to many of you, it is a trifecta that we could not have imagined," NEA Secretary-Treasurer Becky Pringle said in opening remarks. "We're living with a recession that just won't end, political attacks that have turned brutal, and societal changes that are impacting us—from stupid education 'reform' to an explosion of technology—all coming together to impact us in ways that we had never anticipated."

The union anticipates the loss of 140,000 certified members and support personnel in 2012-13 next year alone. That amounts to a hole of $27 million.

more . . . http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2012/07/big_membership_losses_for.html

[elleng]

1. What about AFT?

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. I don't know about that.

But I would imagine they are also losing members.

[sulphurdunn]

3. This is what education reform

is all about. Public education is becoming a business, with a business model, a strategic plan and a profit profile. Busting teachers' unions means cutting labor costs to maximize profits. Kids in classrooms become meat in the seats. If you want to understand the privatization model for public education, you need only study prison privatization.

[HiPointDem]

4. The Bush-Obama plan is working.

[Reader Rabbit]

5. Maybe if they started fighting for their members, it would turn around.

Instead, they are doing their best to suck up to an administration that doesn't give a damn about teachers or public education, except how to help their friends in private business squeeze every last penny out of it.

[FBaggins]

6. I don't think this is primarily a measure of members getting fed up with the union.

Rather, it's evidence that lots of teachers are losing their jobs.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Exactly. That has a lot more to do with it than member dissatisfaction.