The  largest union of education professionals is wounded and bleeding.  Membership in the National Education Association (NEA) has lost 100,000  members just since 2010. Those numbers are growing. Along with it dues  disappearing, revenue is getting less as well.

By  2014, union projections show, it could lose a cumulative total of about  308,000 full-time teachers and other workers, a 16% drop from 2010.  Lost dues will shrink NEA's budget an estimated $65 million, or 18%.

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.

"We may be a little  smaller, but we won't be weaker — we'll be stronger," NEA President  Dennis Van Roekel said. He said teachers "have been energized" by  lawmakers' bids in some states to make it harder to join a public-sector  union.

The losses hit as thousands of delegates convene this  week in Washington, D.C., for NEA's annual meeting. Democratic  candidates for the White House traditionally have lined up to court the  group and its 2.2 million members. This year, President Obama will skip  the event. Vice President Biden is scheduled to address the teachers  today.

Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation, a  non-partisan think tank, said it's unclear whether Obama skipped the  event because he can easily count on NEA's support or because its  political influence has waned, in part because of bruising battles over  collective bargaining in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan. Either  way, he said, proposals that NEA has long fought, such as private-school  vouchers, are gaining traction.

"Obviously in Democratic  politics, if they have a half-million fewer members at some point and a  lot fewer dollars, there's absolutely a point when they're going to  matter less than they do today — and that's going to hurt them," said  Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, a non-partisan think  tank.

Losing that many members is "the kind of shift in the  landscape that can force union leaders to shift their stance on issues,"  Hess said.

http://usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-06-28/Teacher-unions-education/55993750/1

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