When teachers have a choice

One of the best indicators of whether the extreme political ideology of Washington Education Association officials is selling well among teachers is the number who contribute to the union’s political action committee, WEA-PAC. Four elements of this chart have a story behind them.

First is the effect of making PAC donations optional, which occurred in 1994. As you can see, when union officials were forced to ask permission instead of automatically taking funds, PAC enrollment dropped from 80% to 11% in one year.

The second striking element is how teachers have responded to the exposure of WEA’s electioneering activities. In 1998, EFF began to inform teachers of the ideology and political goals of union officials. Contributions have continued to decline.

Third, in 1999 we found some of WEA’s claims about enrollment simply unbelievable. For example, the union claimed that 31% of teachers in the Everett area were contributing to the PAC, but only 4% of the teachers in Seattle. This seemed fishy, so we visited key districts to see if one third of the teachers had actually authorized payroll deductions. We found that the Everett district simply took money from every teacher on a list provided by the union. When district officials were asked to produce authorization forms, only 3% of the teachers were voluntarily contributing.

Finally, after our investigations resulted in districts requiring complete records of authorization from WEA, the union decided to end its use of school payroll deductions for WEA-PAC. When teachers are asked to write a check to support the union’s politics, less than ten percent do.

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Contact: Marsha Richards, Communications Director, (360) 956-3482

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org