NWPE Looks Back as We Celebrate AAE’s 20th Anniversary of Providing Teacher Choice |
posted by: Cindy Omlin | November 24, 2014, 11:13 PM |
This month educators and others who support teacher choice are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Association of American Educators (AAE). For two decades, AAE has valiantly provided educators a refuge for career protection and professional support as teachers have discovered that teacher union politics, tactics and priorities are not in line with what they believe to be in their students’ or their profession’s best interests. Northwest Professional Educators takes this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to Gary and Piete Beckner and their band of nationally recognized teachers who launched the organization with vision, courage, and tenacity 20 years ago.
My journey to the professional educator movement is a personal one. As a public school speech pathologist, I myself lived through union bullying and was, thus, primed to experience the need for an alternative organization that respected all teachers’ points of view. I was once a union member and served as a union representative, but the more involved I became and the more teacher union literature I read, the more distressed I became with how my dues were spent. Millions of teacher union dues were being funneled into political organizing and political organizations sharing NEA values with which I had major disagreements and which, frankly, had nothing to do with education or teacher representation.
We formed the “WEA Challenger Network,” educated our colleagues about their union opt out rights, and invited them to join us in a class action lawsuit challenging the dues refund amount for which nonunion teachers were eligible. In 1994, one hundred twenty one nonunion teachers threatened Washington Education Association (WEA) with a lawsuit. We settled out of court for a 50% reduction in dues for two years. The amount of the rebate was not surprising since in 1989, a group of ten nonunion teachers had received a 90% reduction in dues. NEA General Counsel Robert Chanin even admitted in Education Week, "So you tell me how I can possibly separate NEA's collective bargaining efforts from politics -- you just can't. It's all politics."
We look forward to our own 20th anniversary partnering with the AAE as well as the day when the flawed architecture of forced union fees that has oppressed our “public schools” under a private organization’s ideology is dismantled and teachers are truly set free.
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... written by Carrie Riplinger - Seabeck, November 25, 2014
So proud to be a very small part in this critical fight for rights! Cindy & Barb, you are my heroes for taking those first scary steps! I'm so thankful you were there when I was beside myself about "donating" my compulsory dues to political causes against my beliefs. I also thank the Freedom Foundation for their part and for giving me the opportunity to see the U.S. Supreme Court agree with us!! Twenty years already? Time flies when you're having fun. I wish all of you good health & happiness and God's blessings!
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