Rare News Desk
Expanding early childhood education is the flavor of the month among both school reformers and defenders of public education with whom they have long sparred. It’s also part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to secure his rather troubled political legacy.
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So it wasn’t shocking when the U.S. Senate moved last month to pass an updated version of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act, the federal law that governs the $5.3 billion spent every year on providing prekindergarten and day care programs for poor families.
Obama and centrist Democrats backing school reform weren’t the only ones pleased with that vote. The American Federation of Teachers, which has never met a reform it didn’t oppose, also crowed. “[The nation is] one step closer to providing high-quality, universal early childhood education for all families,” proclaimed AFT President Randi Weingarten.
With Weingarten and the AFT, there is always an angle that has little to do with helping children. This is particularly true when it comes to the $152.8 billion (as of 2008) spent on early childhood education programs. Faced with declining influence over public education policy and coffers in need of a boost, the union is looking to preschool programs – and the 2.1 million teachers and other workers who work in the sector – as a growth opportunity.
The AFT has found itself weakened politically. This was particularly clear this week in Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, whose campaign was backed by the union to the tune of $1 million, lost his re-election bid to Muriel Bowser, a city councilmember and a protégé of Adrian Fenty, the school reformer Gray ousted four years ago.
These political losses, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s successful effort to abolish collective bargaining, are hitting the union’s bottom line. The AFT generated $203 million in revenue (excluding $117 million it borrowed and repaid from its line of credit) during its 2012-2013, a 15 percent decline over the $238 million generated (excluding $88 million in debt borrowings) during the previous year, according to an analysis of the union’s filing with the U.S. Department of Labor by my own Dropout Nation.
The AFT has found an opportunity in the effort to expand preschool programs. In spite of decades of evidence that Head Start is ineffective in improving academic achievement, Congress moved this past January to increase spending for the program by $1 billion for the remainder of the current fiscal year. States such as Indiana launched or expanded existing preschool programs.
Then there are the efforts by mayors, school reform-minded and otherwise, to start or build up preschool initiative. This includes New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo struck a deal under which the Empire State will provide $1.5 billion in funding over the next five years.
For the AFT, efforts to expand early childhood education programs offer opportunities to organize a new sector. But preschool programs are ineffective in improving achievement, so AFT has publicly promoted legislation that requires teachers and other workers to meet more-stringent job requirements. This increases the cost of hiring for child care centers, which must hire qualified workers or go out of business, and gives the union more cred for organizing.
So the AFT is doubling down on union organizing beyond the nation’s school districts. Since 2010, the AFT has spent $2.1 million on organizing child care workers. This includes $262,828 in Florida, where the AFT teamed up with its state affiliate to unionize child care teachers, and another $204,888 in Washington State.
The biggest spend for the AFT has been in New Mexico, where it has spent $728,846 on unionizing daycare teachers, as well as lobbying the Land of Enchantment’s state government to increase funding for preschool. The union proudly proclaims that 80,000 preschool teachers and other workers are among its rank-and-file.
The AFT is looking for ways to squeeze even more money from its members, by increasing wages for preschool teachers already in the rank-and-file. Last week, the AFT teamed up with the Service Employees International Union in Seattle to launch a ballot initiative that would require childcare centers contracting with the city to pay a $15 minimum hourly wage to its workers — about $1.05 more than the average hourly wage currently earned by preschool teachers in the area.
This proposed initiative, for which the AFT and SEIU are still collecting signatures, would also affect the Emerald City’s own plan to expand the current preschool program to serve all city residents.
Whether the AFT will pull it off is another question.
In the preschool sector, the AFT finds itself jostling with other unions for members. This includes SEIU and Child Care Providers Together, a joint venture between the sclerotic United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
Child Care Providers Together scored a victory in Michigan last year when it won federal approval to unionize 40,000 child care workers and force state and local agencies into collective bargaining. While the AFT is among nation’s most-influential public-sector unions, it is no match for either SEIU or AFSCME when it comes to union organizing.
The AFT also faces fierce opposition from preschool operators and local governments who have succeeded so far in blunting unionizing efforts. Only 14 states allow home-based child care workers to form unions to force state and local governments to the bargaining table.
Between 2010 and 2013, three states – Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin – revoked state laws that home-based unionization, according to a study (pdf) released this past February by the National Women’s Law Center. Even in California, where the AFT and other unions have state politicians under their thumb, Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a home-based unionization bill.
There’s also dissension within the AFT’s own ranks. Younger teachers, who now make up the majority of the AFT’s rank-and-file, are not happy with how the union ignores their concerns, including its support of last hired-first fired layoff rules that put them on unemployment lines while keeping veteran teachers on payrolls.
For preschool teachers, there may more attraction in remaining non-unionized than in paying the AFT’s hefty dues. For their part, school reformers are working hard to ensure that preschool programs aren’t burdened by the same union work rules that have hampered improvements in K-12.
The troubled teachers union has its work cut out for it.
