(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Over on NRO, Rick Hess points out that only 40% of the voters in last week’s UFT elections were actual teachers.
Do you think this sort of thing might have something to do with the problem of runaway, unfunded teacher pensions? Looks like at least one union is representing retirees at least as much as teachers.
This also sheds some light on why the unions favor policies that destroy the working environment for public school teachers. Only 40% of their voters are affected by the destruction of the teacher working environment.
And this is after the implementation of a new rule that counts each vote by a retiree as only 0.72 of a vote. If the retirees’ votes hadn’t been diluted, the teachers would only be 34% of the electorate and the retirees 46%.
In case you’re wondering, the other 22% of the UFT vote is composed of what the union calls “functional teachers,” i.e. almost entirely non-teachers (librarians, nurses, counsellors, etc.)
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
[…] National Review Online, and Greg Forster of the Milton Friedman Foundational Educational Choice, blogging with Jay Greene — trying to find some way to cast discredit on the UFT’s recently […]