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There is a growing backlash against National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel's recent collaborations with Teach for America leader Wendy Kopp on the issue of teacher preparation. Some NEA members have written on blogs that they are furious at Van Roekel, and early childhood expert Nancy Carlsson-Paige just declined an opportunity for her and her son, actor and activist Matt Damon, to be nominated for the Friend of Education Award from the NEA.

Delegates to the National Education Association's Representative Assembly knew the news about their union's loss of membership would be bad, but it isn't clear that they knew it would be this bad. NEA officials said the union has lost more than 100,000 teachers and education support personnel since 2010, and it projects that it will lose even more in the future. By the end of its 2013-14 budget, NEA expects it will have lost 308,000 members and experienced a decline in revenue projected at some $65 million in all since 2010. (The figures are expressed in full-time equivalents, which means that the actual number of people affected is probably higher.)

National Education Association delegates blasted Education Secretary Arne Duncan, passing a resolution that orders the NEA president to "communicate aggressively, forcefully, and immediately" to President Obama that the teachers union "is appalled" by a number of things Duncan has said and done in the name of school reform. The resolution of the country's largest union (see below) includes a list of Duncan's actions and statements with which the NEA disagrees, including his standardized test-driven reform policies.

I'm skeptical when folks who've seemed to drag their heels offer up nifty new proposals and innovations. So, I don't want to sound all "gee, whiz" here. At the same time, it's important that skepticism not morph into reflexive dismissal. With that in mind, we've seen a couple noteworthy developments from the AFT and NEA in recent days.

As I wrote in What if you feel betrayed by your union's leadership?, the President of the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel, by doing this USA op ed with Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, gave support to TFA while undercutting support for unions and their teachers. I was not the only supporter of NEA and teachers who was incensed by the editorial.  Later, my good friend Anthony Cody posted this blog.  Meanwhile, lots of supporters were sending emails complaining about the editorial.  

There has certainly been a lot of traffic about Teach For America (TFA) in the cyberworld lately. It all started with the audacious nerve of Dennis Van Roekel, President of the National Education Association, and Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach for America, daring to appear together with Secretary Duncan to support his new blueprint for teacher preparation. Then of all things, they penned together a commentary for USA Today. As a result, many of my fellow bloggers have launched a storm of criticism. I respectfully ask them to "cool their jets" on that and to look more carefully at the possibilities raised by this new open dialogue of TFA and NEA.

And so readers are left to wonder, ponder, deconstruct, and dissect this strange editorial duet in USA Today. Did the NEA sign on to TFA's agenda of minimal fast-track training, or did TFA sign on to NEA's demand for a full year of residency and a rigorous examination before teachers gain their license? Or was there something else going on?

Nonprofit leaders have long been told to behave "more like a business" and the corporatization of higher education, where I now labor, has gotten critical attention. But these issues are still not widely discussed in philanthropy, where I once toiled, except by a few intrepid souls who study and critique the field. 

The decision by Dennis Van Roekel to co-author a column with Teach For America director Wendy Kopp continues to generate negative reaction among educators, the latest being the decision by Nancy Carlsson-Paige and her son Matt Damon to reject the union's Friend of Education award. The response by the union has been defensive.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. 15 straight minutes of bashing on teachers unions, and no one - NO ONE - from the union itself is there to respond. No one from the NEA; no one from the NJEA; no one from the local union in Fort Lee; not even a MEMBER of the NJEA - a teacher! - appeared in this segment, or afterward (the teacher who showed up later is in Newark, and therefore not represented by NJEA, but by AFT).

Two of the most effective tools of propagandists are to tell a big lie so often that it is accepted as undeniable truth, and to create a scapegoat for the anger and frustration that the public feels. An op-ed by Ted Nugent published on Jul. 29 in the Washington Times is a page torn from the textbook used in Propaganda 101 ("NEA - master of disaster").

"What's got teachers stirred up? How real and potent is this upsurge of their activism? Why should people who identify with progressive causes care? Salon recently posed those questions, and others, to Lily Eskelsen García, the new president-elect of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, at the recent Netroots Nation conference in Detroit."

If a children's book were written about ALEC, the group that bills itself as an association of conservative lawmakers and supporters, it might be called "The Very Greedy Octopus." It would read like one of those creepy 19th-century fairly tales that most parents would never, ever read to their young ones-it's just too scary.

If many so-called education reformers really want to close the student achievement gap, they should direct their fire away from public school educators and take aim at the real issue-poverty. This was the consensus of a panel of policy advocates and academics that convened recently on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. to discuss the impact of poverty on student learning over the past 40 years. The panelists presented data that showed the current state of student achievement and discussed what changes needed to be made to address the needs of students and schools in low socio-economic areas.

If you're an educator, a parent, a student or anyone who cares about public education, you should know that ALEC, the radical conservative lobbying group, is eyeing your throat. The American Legislative Exchange Council has been drawing drams of lifeblood from the public school system for decades, but now that it has disbanded its controversial Public Safety and Elections Task Force (read "More Guns and Fewer Democratic Voters Committee") it is expected to redouble its efforts to decrease local control of schools by parents and elected school boards, privatize public school jobs, funnel public dollars to private entities, and limit or destroy the collective bargaining rights educators rely on to advocate for students.

A National Education Association commission issued a report today with specific recommendations for upping pre-service requirements, establishing career paths for teachers, and developing new evaluation systems.

The actor Matt Damon and his mother, a professor of education, on Wednesday turned down an award from the country's largest teachers union after reading an opinion article that the union's president had co-authored with the founder of Teach for America. Writing that she was "confused by your collaboration" with Teach for America, Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige said she and her son, Mr. Damon, no longer desired to be nominated for the National Education Association's Friend of Education Award.

Almost all of us say that as a nation we should work out our differences and unite to solve our problems. But we don't mean it. Exhibit A is the bad blood between the National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher union, and Teach for America, the most popular public-service option for graduates of selective colleges.

Is it true? Are TFAers just as good - uh, I mean just as bad - as ed school grads? Here's a policy brief from the Great Lakes Center that summarizes the peer-reviewed literature on TFA and student achievement