Professional development at the Legislature

by Michael Moore
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 2:23 PM MDT

“The Wyoming Education Association is not a union.”

We’ve heard that line time and again from the members of that group, who will defend the organization to their dying breath as “professional development.”

Most reasonable people would define “professional development” for an educator as doing something that helps that teacher better do his job. Taking a class, attending a seminar, undergoing training n- those are all valuable things that can help a teacher better educate students.

But for the members of the WEA, “professional development” apparently also includes lobbying against legislation.

Senate File 45, which would have made it illegal for school districts to pay dues for its employees to belong to “professional development” associations like the WEA, was killed in the Legislature last month.

Why did it fail? Because members of the WEA traveled to Cheyenne to attend the Legislature for a little professional development.

Their goal was to convince legislators to vote against SF45. The bill died in the Senate, because WEA members were able to convince Natrona County legislators to change their votes.

Some of our local legislators -- who originally backed the bill -- caved under pressure from these folks who were in Cheyenne for some professional development.

This is a problem that originated in our backyard n the Natrona County School District is the only one in the state that pays its employees “association” dues n and it was sabotaged by our own legislators.

And who paid for that professional development? We did, of course! The taxpayers of Natrona County handed the money over to the NCSD, who then gladly doled out the money to these folks for their dues to belong to this union that isn’t a union.

Not only did the WEA succeed in crushing this legislation, but it then turned around and gloated about its accomplishments. In the organization’s latest newsletter, it counted the defeat of SF45 among its accomplishments of the 2008 legislative session.

When it comes time to negotiate NCSD employees’ salaries, the taxpayers will be footing the bill while members of these supposed non-unions lobby for pay raises that come from n you guessed it n more public money.

That must be more professional development.

Natrona County is blessed with world class teachers. If some of them believe belonging to a union benefits them, then more power to them.

But let’s call a spade a spade and a union a union, and stop supporting that union with public money.

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