Posted on 12/12/2022 6:46:11 AM PST by george76
The nation’s largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), declined by at least 59,000 members during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) disclosure reports.
The NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union, lost 40,107 members while the AFT, the nation’s second largest teachers union, declined by 19,078, according to the DOL reports. The decline comes as public schools added 95,000 educators from September 2021 to 2022.
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The decline in the NEA’s membership leaves the union with 2,496,627 million educators, the lowest union membership since 2006, 74 million reported. The AFT has 1,189,904 with just 43.5% of its members working full time.
The decline in membership comes after the unions dropped 82,000 members in the 2019-2020 school year, the 74 million reported.
The Oregon Education Association (OEA) reported dropping from 48,774 members to 41,127 over the last two school years, according to OEA documents. New York State United Teachers reported being down 4,384 members while the Florida Education Association has dropped 4,682 members, according to the 74 million.
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The decline in membership comes as the teachers unions have pushed for gender identity lessons in classrooms; in August, the NEA suggested a book about kneeling for the national anthem as a part of a summer reading list for k-12 students. The New Jersey Education Association hosted a drag queen story hour at its 2022 educator convention in November.
They’re an abomination, only ONE reason for their existence and it isn’t for “the best interests of education”.
Bravo!!!!!
> You can blame the teachers union for protecting the bad teachers. <
I have seen my share of bad teachers. These bad teachers obviously do harm to the education of their students. They also do harm to their fellow teachers. For example, I taught physics. And sometimes I’d get students who had a bad algebra teacher. So I’d have to teach algebra along with the physics.
But it is NOT the union’s fault that those bad teachers are still teaching. Think of a union as a lawyer on retainer. It is the lawyer’s job to represent his client, period. Same goes with the union.
Most of the blame lies with the school’s administrators. They are either too apathetic or preoccupied to go after the bad teachers. So instead of fighting the teacher (and the union) as they should, they let everything slide.
It can be very discouraging at times.
Oh, and let me add one more thing. There really aren’t that many bad teachers, teachers whom I’d fire in an instant if I were in charge. I’d guess maybe 5% are either too lazy or incompetent to be in the classroom. They have to go.
Then there are perhaps another 15% who are doing just enough to get by. Those 15% are not “bad” teachers. But they do need a kick in the pants.
yep
But I disagree that the union is not a problem, it is. They do support rubber rooms and defend terrible teachers and their contracts prevent teachers displaying or acting out terribly from being fired on the spot. I'm talking about inappropriate conduct and unethical relationships which are increasing at an alarming pace.
Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, West Virginia and Wisconsin have all become “Right to Work” states in the last 10 years. This is having a gradual effect on union memberships as people slowly realize they don’t have to surrender up to 15% of their income to unions that oppose their values.
Check
I thought teachers were in a closed shop.
Union slavery states. I was watching the rail union talks. If they fail… it goes to the President’s board. I forget exactly the details. Still trying to figure out what unelected, unaccountable panel this is.
“Also, Arizona has plenty of charter schools (public, but typically non-union)...”
For which I’m grateful - my grandchild has attended a charter school for the past two years and the “traditional” curriculum (focus on the basics, the pledge of allegiance every morning, etc.) has been quite good.
Anyone who believes the teachers’ unions look out for students also believes the purpose of the UAW is to produce quality automobiles.
Agree!
Boy was I PRAYING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS!
Public education is a cesspool. If you are a college student, why would you major in education? Administrators are refusing to take action against feral youth. So the schools have deteriorated and the students are not learning anymore.
Health systems in NYS are doing something similar.
Public school teachers have the highest salaries in the neighborhood, around here.
I once got involved in trying to circulate a petition to force public union contracts to be made public before approval.
The effort was quickly abandoned, in part as it was nearly impossible to find a public venue that would allow the signature gathering.
Any place allowing it was quickly threatened by every available union into rescinding permission.
I also learned that ‘our’ local public parks are not utilized by locals, but are almost exclusively used by Californians who contribute nothing to their upkeep.
I agree with your premise.
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