Title: Teacher Unions - OVERVIEW, INFLUENCE ON INSTRUCTION AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES - Teachers, National, Nea, and Aft   - StateUniversity.com
Headings: Teacher Unions
Teacher Unions
OVERVIEW, INFLUENCE ON INSTRUCTION AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES
OVERVIEW
The National Education Association
The American Federation of Teachers
Union Influence
Other Teacher Groups
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Overview
Electoral Politics and Lobbying
Collective Bargaining
Peer Review
Induction
Professional Development
Performance-Based Pay
Programmatic Reform Initiatives
Dissemination of Information about Best Practice
Effect on Educational Reform
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Additional topics

Content: A 1997 membership survey commissioned by the NEA warned that it faced "organizational death." While that is probably overly pessimistic, the NEA recognizes there are difficulties even beyond what might be expected in an influential organization with a budget of nearly $250 million, a national staff of nearly six hundred and, with its affiliates, an additional staff of thousands. One source of tension is that nearly all of NEA's political endorsements go to Democrats, although its Democratic members, while they comprise a larger political block than either Republicans or Independents, still make up less than 50 percent of its membership. Reportedly 40 percent of NEA members regularly vote contrary to the organization's recommendations and sometimes more than half do so, as in President Ronald Reagan's 1980 and 1984 campaigns. There is also unhappiness with the NEA's adoption of positions on social issues such as abortion and gun control, which many members feel detracts from the attention that should be paid to educational issues. Externally, both unions face challenges not only from the private school sector but from such growing trends in education as home schooling, tuition vouchers, and charter schools, all of which weaken teachers' perceived need for a union. Unions face a dilemma in dealing with these issues. If they oppose vouchers, charter schools, and private schools, it becomes extremely difficult for them to appeal to teachers in such schools once they are established. As a result, very few charter schools or private schools are unionized. While it is unlikely that the NEA will disappear, some of its leadership advocates a "new unionism," and its future depends upon how it deals with these challenges.