MNEA TARGETS AREA SCHOOLS

Four years ago the Missouri National Education Association targeted Southeast Missouri as a growth region. The area has traditionally been a Missouri State Teacher Association stronghold.

While the MNEA and MSTA are both teacher organizations, they are divided on the issue of collective bargaining. The MNEA strongly favors the labor-union approach to teacher negotiations.

The MNEA membership effort has paid off, attracting 570 teachers in 29 school districts, despite the fact collective bargaining isn't permitted for teachers in Missouri. The chapters range from one member to more than 100.

Poplar Bluff boasts one of the largest MNEA chapters in Southeast Missouri. Jim Daniels, assistant superintendent, has worked in the Poplar Bluff district 23 years. He belongs to both the MNEA and MSTA. Although the organizations primarily are for teachers, both permit administrators to belong.

Daniels says the two groups, which are similar in size, work pretty much hand-in-hand in his district. The rivalry, said Daniels, remains friendly.

"We've had MNEA since they first emerged in the state in the early '70s," said Daniels.

He doesn't feel the national NEA is pulling the strings of the local chapter. But Daniels has seen conflicts in Southeast Missouri between administrators and teacher groups. Some of the apprehension on administrators' part may be the issue of collective bargaining, the cornerstone of NEA objectives.

Cape Girardeau Superintendent Neyland Clark thinks recent criticism against him is due to a struggle between the MSTA and NEA. He links the NEA with a petition drive seeking his resignation, a charge that local NEA officials deny.

But most area administrators are far less eager to mention the NEA. They don't want to offend the teacher union or attract undue attention. Most say they have enough day-to-day problems in their districts without inviting more.

Bob Buchanan, Sikeston's outspoken superintendent on most any education issue, is surprisingly silent on NEA.

All he would say was that the district has 202 MSTA members and 24 NEA members.

In Jackson's schools there is no NEA chapter, only an active MSTA group. Superintendent Wayne Maupin didn't want to speculate why NEA has passed them by.

In administrator training at Southeast Missouri State University, Richard Farmer discusses teacher unions and collective bargaining.

"There are some very good people in the teacher labor movement as well as some, I suspect, who are primarily interested in power," he said. "It would be wrong to paint with a wide brush the NEA as an evil force."

But Farmer thinks it is the NEA's business to try to influence educational policy at state and local levels across the country.

In Southeast Missouri, the MNEA efforts are directed from Sikeston by Gilbert Balderrama, who spends most of his time recruiting NEA members and organizing new chapters.

Martha Karlovetz, president of Missouri NEA, said myths abound about the NEA. The state organization has 25,000 members.

A June 1993 Forbes Magazine article refers to the NEA as the "National Extortion Association" and links the NEA's rise in power with the nation's decline in educational performance. The 2.3 million member NEA some years ago passed the Teamsters to become the country's biggest union. Karlovetz said the Forbes article is way off base and "a blatant piece of propaganda."

Superintendent Clark sees the NEA's so-called Alinsky model, a theory of change through conflict, at work in Cape Girardeau. Karlovetz said this model is obsolete.

The 11-page manual, "Alinsky for Teacher Organizers," is based on the organizing techniques of Saul Alinsky, who ran a training institute for community organizers until his death in 1972. The manual was designed by the NEA to guide teachers through the process of organizing.

Among its lessons:

-- Confrontation is a way to apply pressure until you get real power.

-- You can only mobilize around controversy. You can't move people on issues on which all sides already agree.

-- Conflict begins with people raising questions about accepted ways of doing things.

J. Michael Arisman, who authored the manual more than 15 years ago, still works with the NEA. In an interview, he told the Southeast Missourian: "We used it when we were first getting into collective bargaining. We don't really use that any more. For one thing, we became powerful."

The manual still circulates, especially among states without collective bargaining, Arisman said. The tactics in the manual can help a fledgling group gain power and support, he said.

The Alinsky manual also is used by administrators looking to lay blame when things go wrong.

Arisman said, "It's pretty easy to haul us out and use as a scapegoat."

Although the NEA may generate lots of attention, the MSTA remains Missouri's largest teacher organization. Ron Crain, assistant executive director, said his organization has 32,000 members.

He charged that NEA membership figures were misleading, padded by bus drivers, cooks, custodians and other support staff.

The two organizations are starkly different, particularly with regard to collective bargaining.

"We oppose collective bargaining, because we don't feel strikes and other demands are in the best interest of the kids," said Crain of the MSTA. "Unions aren't a good idea in schools."