Union Candidate Quiz Ignored Ed Issues

NOV. 15, 2010

I used to think school boards were about schools, and the kids they are charged with educating. At one time this was the case. But today, the majority of school board positions appear to be union labor representatives.

My friend Paige Powell ran for the Sacramento City Unified School District board this past election against an incumbent, known for union allegiance. Powell is not a politician, and has never run for public office before. She’s a credentialed high school English teacher, a parent and a resident within the city school district. She is also a member of the California Teachers Association.

As part of the endorsement process for running for the school board, Powell received a nine-page questionnaire from the AFL-CIO, a labor federation of 57 national and international labor unions. Since when does the AFL-CIO get involved in local schools? This is standard operating procedure. CTA is part of the AFL-CIO umbrella.

Powell’s reasons for running for school board were simple, particularly for any concerned parent: The lack of academic achievement for students, the financial stability of the school district and a lack of community involvement in the schools. Powell said she is a staunch advocate of financial responsibility for schools and districts, as well as teacher accountability.

The union questionnaire asked surprisingly probing personal and ideological questions, not one questions was about education, or the students. The nine-page questionnaire was an entirely about employment and the employees within a school district.

Powell said that upon receipt of the labor questionnaire, she started to immediately fill it out. And then she stopped herself. However, at the moment she made the decision not to complete the union questionnaire, Powell said she knew she would lose the race.

Powell announced during the campaign that she terminated her contributions to the California Teachers’ Association political action fund to protest its endorsement of her opponent, the incumbent, who is not a teacher.
 “It is amazing to me that the union would rather support the reelection of an incumbent non-educator rather than help elect at least one public school teacher to a school board badly in need of educational expertise, particularly an award-winning public school teacher who enjoys the broad support of both her teaching colleagues and administrators,” said Powell.

“It was clear from my interview with union officials that they were only willing to support a candidate who would oppose independent charter schools like Sacramento High,” added Powell.

Citing some of the questions within the AFL-CIO questionnaire, Powell said they were entirely about labor and employment. “Do you believe in involving employees, through their union, in coming up with creative ideas to improve the work place (employee empowerment)?

Another question asked, “As a board member, would you vote to spend school district budget money to hire certified staff to educate teachers about implementing “Labor History” courses into the curriculum?

An entire page of the questionnaire was devoted to “The Right To Organize,” and stated, “The quality of our life depends on the quality of our jobs. Union membership gives employees a voice at work, improves productivity and contributes to the economic vitality of our communities.”

Powell said she was appalled at the blatant union organizing language within the questionnaire, and felt that the election should not be about unions, but about how to provide a quality education to students.

Critical of the current school board Powell said, “An observer of board meetings will hear a lot of discussion about adults but very little about students. This board has spent a lot of time in workshops and meetings talking about how they should govern themselves.”

The AFL-CIO questionnaire included a section about “Public sector privatization/contracting out,” and asked if the school board candidate supported the concept of privatization. One of the questions in this section asked if the candidate supported requiring a cost accounting analysis of Requests For Proposals, contracts, change orders and “other hidden costs of contracting out.”

The questionnaire asked if the candidate supported the idea of using prevailing wage calculations on projects using public funding, and the use of project labor agreements.

And in the questionnaire section titled “Labor Appointments,” it asked “Would you as a school district official, agree to have your prospective appointees to boards/commissions/committees, meet jointly with the leaders of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, and Sacramento Building & Construction trades Council to ensure working people have a full voice in school district policy decisions before you make a commitment to appoint them?”

Powell said she is supportive of the charter school movement, and received the endorsement of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, founder of Sacramento Charter High School, which has been under attack since it’s founding, for bucking the local teachers union.

Powell was critical of the unions’ attacks on Sacramento high and said, “While the teachers union is obsessed with trying to shut down a single charter school, they are largely ignoring the chronic educational and financial problems that are besieging the rest of Sacramento schools.”

Powell said she was frustrated during the campaign because union supporters would not address the poor academic achievement of a majority of public school students, or even the Sacramento school district’s ballooning debts, which threaten to devastate the school district.

Nowhere in the entire nine-page AFL-CIO questionnaire were students’ needs ever addressed, which Powell said was her primary purpose for running. “Our student dropout rate is scandalous,” said Powell. “I ran for school board because we need board members who are close enough to kids to know that every decision they make has an impact on the children’s lives – and not to be a union tool.”

— Katy Grimes