TALLAHASSEE — A tough year for the state’s largest teachers union is sparking a rare leadership fight within the 140,000-member Florida Education Association, the largest labor organization in the Southeast.
Current President Joanne McCall is being challenged for the top post by FEA’s vice-president, Fedrick Ingram in a fight that could distract one of the Florida Democratic Party’s staunchest allies, heading into a big election season.
The FEA presidency will be decided in October, just weeks before state voters go to the polls with a host of big contests on the ballot, including a governor’s race and a nationally watched U.S. Senate battle between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and three-term Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.
“We must stay united and strong to elect more pro-public education senators and House members along with a pro-public education governor so that our students have the best quality educators and the resources they deserve to do their jobs,” McCall said.
Rep. Shevrin Jones, D-West Park, the highest ranking Democrat on the state House Education Committee, acknowledged that the timing of the intra-union clash is not good.
“But I hope it doesn’t hurt,” Jones said. “We have to remember that what we fight for on a daily basis is a good education system and the right of our teachers to be paid fairly.”
Ingram said his run for the presidency comes as teachers grow increasingly frustrated by Republican leaders’ focus on charter schools and private schools instead of traditional public schools attended by most of Florida’s 2.8 million school children.
In the past two years, Scott and the Legislature have created a new program to steer students in low-performing public schools into charter schools and another that allows bullied children to get taxpayer dollars to attend private schools.
“We should be more proactive and better able to use a coalition of partner groups around the state to get our message across and protect public education,” Ingram said. “We have to fight in a better way.”
As part of Ingram’s team, Volusia United Educators President Andrew Spar is running for vice-president and St. Johns Educational Support Professional Association President Carole Gauronskas is seeking the post of secretary-treasurer.
“We want to play more offense than defense,” Spar said of the goal behind the leadership challenge.
Florida has been enhancing private school and charter school programs for more than 20 years, since Republican Gov. Jeb Bush created the nation’s first statewide voucher program.
Although these “opportunity scholarships” were later ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court, they set the state on its current course toward expanding alternates to traditional schooling.
The FEA, which was part of that voucher lawsuit, became one of Bush’s chief antagonists, helping bankroll Democratic challenger Bill McBride’s unsuccessful bid to unseat the Republican governor in 2002.
Since then, lawmakers have created a tax credit scholarship program to help students attend private schools. The union also has tried - but failed - to stop the scholarship program.
House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, hardened the battle lines between the Republican Legislature and union by calling the FEA “downright evil,” for its opposition to the scholarship program.
The FEA’s campaign arm spent about $3 million on state legislative races two years ago, records show, and plans to spend heavily again in this year’s contests.
The union also will help direct its federal allies, the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, which plan to spend in Florida races for Senate and Congress.
Union support, both financial and in get-out-the-vote efforts, is directed almost exclusively to Democratic candidates.
“Hopefully, the union leadership race won’t be nasty,” said Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach, who is fund-raising for House Democrats. “Does the timing of this limit FEA’s effectiveness? That’s a legitimate question. But knowing the people and the organization involved, that won’t be the case.”
McCall was elected to a three-year term in 2015. She had been vice president for the previous 12 years, when Andy Ford served four terms as president before retiring from the post.
Ingram had been head of the United Teachers of Dade before being elected FEA vice president.
The union was working late this month with Jones in a failed bid to have the Legislature hold a special session to increase school funding for the budget year beginning July 1.
Teachers and superintendents argue that spending on school security prompted by the February shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has drained needed dollars from the classroom.
Republican lawmakers, however, refused to go along with the push to revisit the issue in a special session.
McCall said that criticism of her leadership from within the union’s ranks is misguided, but she can understand its roots.
“We play offense and defense,” she said. “However, we have been dominated by a very conservative, anti-public education Legislature for two decades. We are proud that FEA has consistently defended public education in this state.”
The Legislature this year took a direct swipe at teachers unions around the state, approving a measure that could decertify local bargaining units if they fail to enroll at least 50 percent of their eligible members.
McCall said that new requirement is actually helping FEA increase its membership.
Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, who pushed for the requirement, said he knows little about the burgeoning leadership fight within the FEA. But it's welcome.
“To the extent that any organization is divided, it works against their mission,” Plakon said. “It’s always a distraction.
“And with the FEA, they’re so intertwined with the Democratic Party, they’re more or less merged.”