Media: Misled About "New" National Money In Tennessee

To its credit, this Commercial Appeal story from over the weekend notes in the 2nd graf that national money has long been a part of state and local school board and mayoral races -- in the form of national AFT and NEA contributions. Though they're not given in the story, perhaps the most obvious examples are the Wisconsin recall effort against Scott Walker and the primary contest between Adrien Fenty and Vincent Gray.

But the rest of the story focuses narrowly on the "new" money coming in from StudentFirst and other organizations, and doesn't seem very well contextualized at all.  Read lines like this opening line  -- "Tens of thousands of dollars poured in from political action committees, essentially allowing anonymous outsiders to shape education policy, long the domain of locals." -- and readers are bound to be misled.  

We're never told if the NEA or AFT contributed to the races that are mentioned.  We're just told that the StudentFirst money is new, and that it comes from mysterious outsiders.  I'm not sure how national AFT and NEA money is any less "outsider" than StudentsFirst money, or whether the union disclosure practices are all that much better than the c4 disclosures. Bottom line?  If you're going to talk about campaign contributions, you've got to talk about all of them.  

Comments

[CarolineSF]

Teachers' union donations represent stakeholders in the schools and districts -- the teachers -- and, however imperfect, the endorsement votes are democratic. The money comes from the teachers themselves through their dues.

Money from outsiders such as Students First and Stand for Children has no connection with stakeholders in schools, and so there's no democratic process involving stakeholders (or at all) used in determining how to allocate support.

Teachers' unions represent those with an immense amount at stake in schools. The "reform" organizations have no stake at all. The successful functioning of a school, a district and the state education system have a deep, direct effect on teachers. The functioning of a school, district or state education system has no effect whatsoever on the outsiders donating to "reform" operations.

Those are significant differences. It misses the point to treat them as equivalent or parallel.

[Alexander Russo]

not really -- teachers in a school or district don't have much if any say over what the national does or who they endorse, and the national doesn't have much real stake in the district or schools. so there's more in common between national union donations and reform donations than there is a difference. either way, readers deserve to know what the unions are spending.

[CarolineSF]

But the national union still represents those teachers (stakeholders) and is charged with promoting their best interests -- that's its mission; that's what it's all about. Campaign donations are in the interest of promoting that mission.

The reform orgs represent no stakeholders in schools.

That's a huge difference.

[Alexander Russo]

the national union represents national interests, not local ones -- the connections your describing are theoretical more than actual

[CarolineSF]

What is the purpose of teachers' unions if not to promote the interests of teachers?

[Sarah]

Agreed with Russo. It’s an inherent right that we know who paid for the policies we see, and how money is spent.

And from what I've seen of my father's "union," they do help get the workers amazing health care premiums, but the local heads help themselves to new gas guzzlers every year, frequent trips to "important" out of town meetings, and lots of drinks and dinners out with clients, while those in the union work from paycheck to paycheck after paying almost four times their hourly wage every month for the privilege of being in the union. It's a requirement of the job to be unionized though, so they don't have the option of saying no.

[CarolineSF]

I agree that it's an inherent right to know who paid for the policies we see. I disagree that union donations equate with so-called "reformers' " donations, for the reasons I've given -- unions exist to represent teachers, who are stakeholders in schools. So-called "reformers" are outsiders who don't represent, speak for or otherwise engage with stakeholders in schools.

Hmm, "Sarah," quite a cartoonish caricature.

[Art]

I thought the claim that government employees have stakes in government that are more legitimate than those of other citizens was rejected by Americans in 1776. Not by everyone, apparently.

[CarolineSF]

That's a misinterpretation from outer space of what I said, @Art.

[Lori]

I know that I every year I elect members from my local to represent us as members of the state delegation at the national level. Teachers I work with are on--two even head--committees at the national level. Our national reps report back to the local about what took place, the areas of agreement and disagreement (including endorsements and spending)and how our local was represented. We indeed are stakeholders and the members we elect know they are expected to conduct themselves that way because we actually debate and argue over all of this at our local level. The difference between actual and theoretical really comes down to whether members at their local choose to pay attention and involve themselves or sit back and allow others to do the work. To engage is always much more difficult, though, than to sit back and complain or offer imaginative sketches of local union "bosses" that seem to owe themselves to Elia Kazan or Hubert Selby, Jr.

[Sarah]

Maybe there are unions out there that operate correctly, but I just don't see it with my dad's local Teamsters. The local holds the meetings in a town that's 80 miles away from where the majority of the employees live and schedule those meetings for 8am on a Sunday. For those who attend church, it's impossible to attend both church and the meeting, for others, getting up that early on a day off simply isn't convenient, so the majority skip it. A letter went out in July that they'd voted to cancel August meetings due to lack of participation. If they really wanted the employees to attend, they'd pick a location that was more convenient to the members.