Falling Membership in Teachers’ Unions is a “Sign of Things to Come”
Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images
Jill Biden, wife of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, speaks at the National Education Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. this week.
One of Ohio’s largest unions, the Ohio Education Association, has been losing members. The Ohio teachers’ union is down about 6,000 members compared to five years ago, about 5 percent of its total current membership.
The OEA’s national affiliate, the National Education Association, is losing members overall too, USA Today reports. The NEA has lost more than 100,000 members since 2010:
NEA calls the membership losses “unprecedented” and predicts they may be a sign of things to come. “Things will never go back to the way they were,” reads its 2012-14 strategic plan, citing changing teacher demographics, attempts by some states to restrict public employee collective bargaining rights and an “explosion” in online learning that could sideline flesh-and-blood teachers.
Let’s see where Ohio stands on those changes:
- Changing teacher demographics? Check.
- Attempts to restrict public employee collective bargaining rights? Check.
- Growth in online learning. Oh yeah.
Education pundit Frederick Hess tells USA Today that losing so many members is “the kind of shift in the landscape that can force union leaders to shift their stance on issues.”
Kindof like this:
