{"id":41371,"date":"2012-07-10T08:43:22","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T14:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=41371"},"modified":"2012-07-10T16:52:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T22:52:23","slug":"teachers-personal-info-is-a-hot-commodity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/07\/teachers-personal-info-is-a-hot-commodity\/","title":{"rendered":"Teachers\u2019 personal info is a hot commodity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heath<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

Two situations that have recently made headlines show how sought-after teachers\u2019 personal information is. Teachers, like the students they work so hard to educate, are caught in the middle of a war.<\/h4>\n

I didn\u2019t know until this weekend that, if you want to be an Albuquerque Public Schools teacher, you have to give up your right to keep personal information private.<\/p>\n

As the Albuquerque Journal reported<\/a>, the APS contract<\/a> with the Albuquerque Teachers Federation requires the district to \u201csubmit to the union updated reports of all teachers\u2019 home addresses, home phone numbers, Social Security numbers and educational experience\u201d twice a year.<\/p>\n

In the case of those who vote to join the union \u2013 about half of the district\u2019s 7,260 eligible teachers and other employees \u2013 that\u2019s perfectly understandable. They join a group that is authorized to bargain on their behalf and it gets their personal information primarily so it can contact them outside school. Fine.<\/p>\n

But what about the other half, those who choose to not join the union? I understand that they still benefit from the union\u2019s bargaining, but does that give APS the right to waive their legal right to privacy without their consent?<\/p>\n

A legal right to privacy is exactly what\u2019s at stake. APS considers employees\u2019 home addresses, home phone numbers and Social Security numbers exempt from release under the Inspection of Public Records Act and won\u2019t give them to anyone else. But the union contract says APS shall give them up, so give them up APS does.<\/p>\n

If I was a non-union member who didn\u2019t particularly like the union, or being solicited in general, I think I\u2019d be upset. If I was a non-union member who didn\u2019t agree to the release of my Social Security number and had a past experience with identity theft, I think I\u2019d be livid.<\/p>\n

The union could argue that it has a duty to inform non-union members of the increased benefits they receive after a new contract is negotiated. In fact, that\u2019s what ATF President Ellen Bernstein was quoted by the Journal as saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a federal law that we negotiate (a bargaining agreement) for everybody, so we have an obligation and a right to inform everybody,\u201d Bernstein said.<\/p>\n

If that were all her organization sought to use non-union personal information for, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d see a problem.<\/p>\n

But the union is using non-union teachers\u2019 home addresses to influence opinion and organize, not just to disseminate information. In a May 31 letter<\/a>, it attacked the state Public Education Department\u2019s teacher evaluation proposal, saying a call for nominations to serve on an advisory council is a suspected \u201cfa\u00e7ade, intended to hide the fact that the team is probably preselected to do work that has a predetermined outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

AFT will call on employees \u201cto rally against the proposed changes,\u201d the letter stated. It also urged non-union members to \u201cjoin today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guv\u2019s political advertiser also wants info<\/h3>\n

That\u2019s not the only concerning situation related to teachers\u2019 information to recently come to light. The Public Education Department compiled a statewide list of teachers\u2019 government e-mail addresses earlier this year and then divided it by unionized and non-unionized districts. It sent the list<\/a> to Gov. Susana Martinez\u2019s political adviser, Jay McCleskey, who runs her political action committee and isn\u2019t a state employee.<\/p>\n

The move has caused quite a stir, leading to an attorney general investigation and accusations from the American Federation of Teachers and others that McCleskey is plotting a political attack using government resources.<\/p>\n

The list didn\u2019t include personal information. PED denied McCleskey\u2019s second request for home addresses. All PED did was put publicly-accessible information together in one document. Staffers took teachers\u2019 government e-mail addresses off public websites and divided them up based on which districts have union contracts and which do not.<\/p>\n

PED spokesman Larry Behrens said the list was compiled before McCleskey made his request. And McCleskey said the list Behrens sent him wasn\u2019t what he wanted, which is why he followed up with a second request for teachers\u2019 addresses.<\/p>\n

But in a statement to NMPolitics.net, McCleskey acknowledged that he suggested PED should create a statewide list of teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have long believed that information about PED efforts on education reform is not being accurately disseminated from union officials and administrators\u00a0to classroom teachers and have freely shared my opinion that direct communication is the logical solution, whether e-mail or otherwise,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s simply good policy and commonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCleskey said the list he requested \u201cfor political purposes\u201d \u2013 the list of teachers\u2019 addresses \u2013 \u201cis nothing like the list PED developed for their own use.\u201d He said a list \u201cto be used for political purposes would necessarily be of personal contact information, not government contact information, and the only way to accurately update a voter file with any public list would be by matching the registered address.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, he said, it\u2019s \u201ccompletely illogical\u201d to accuse PED staffers of compiling a political list when it contained no personal information.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s the fact that Behrens divided the list by unionized and non-unionized districts. If I were a unionized teacher, I would probably suspect a political motive. Even if it doesn\u2019t contain the personal information needed to contact teachers, such a list is a good starting point for an attempt to contact, for example, non-union teachers who might be friendlier to Martinez\u2019s proposals.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with McCleskey using such information if it\u2019s available in the public record, regardless of his motive. But if PED used government resources to compile the list for the governor\u2019s political machine, that might be illegal.<\/p>\n

Caught in the middle of a war<\/h3>\n

The AG is investigating the possibility that PED staffers violated the Governmental Conduct Act<\/a> by compiling the list of teachers for political purposes. And, back to the ATF issue, the Journal quoted APS Superintendent Winston Brooks as saying he will raise his concern about giving the union Social Security numbers next time the contract is negotiated.<\/p>\n

Both are positive steps that help air out these important issues. The union\u2019s access to the personal information of APS employees who didn\u2019t consent to it being shared is concerning. And though employees can opt out of ATF mailings, Bernstein acknowledged that they are inadvertently put back on the list sometimes. Besides, even if they opt out, ATF still has their personal information.<\/p>\n

And on the PED issue, even if Behrens and others didn\u2019t have a political motive, their actions created the appearance of one. In addition to the dividing of the list into union and non-union districts, the fact that Behrens sent the list to McCleskey from his personal e-mail account and copied a number of Martinez administration officials on their accounts creates the appearance that this deed was intended to be off the books. Behrens has said he should have sent the list from his government e-mail account.<\/p>\n

Most unionized teachers may think the PED situation is far worse. And perhaps non-union teachers see the release of their personal information to the union as the larger offense. I think issues in both situations are questionable.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, both are about lobbying teachers in a polarizing battle over education reform. There\u2019s much at stake and tensions are high. Teachers, like the students they work so hard to educate, are caught in the middle of a war.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been discussing the issue with several people in recent days. One teacher\u2019s comment to me stood out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think\u00a0teachers are smart enough to read and don\u2019t need either unions or public officials \u2013 certainly not McCleskey \u2013 telling us what to think,\u201d the teacher told me.<\/p>\n

Well said.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Commentary page<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two situations that have recently made headlines show how sought-after teachers\u2019 personal information is. Teachers, like the students they work so hard to educate, are caught in the middle of a war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[299,125,111,107],"class_list":["post-41371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-aps","tag-education","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}