Civitas is a libertarian, anti-union organization in North Carolina. It is funded by Art Pope, who may be the most powerful powerbroker in the state. Civitas recently put up billboards saying “Teachers: Want a $450 Raise?” If teachers go to the Civitas website, they will learn that they can increase their annual salary by $450 if they quit the North Carolina Association of Educators, which is affiliated with the NEA. By no longer paying union dues, they can give themselves a raise!
Art Pope is a multi-millionaire who is passionately interested in politics. He gives generously to like-minded libertarians and has played a decisive role in ousting Democrats and moderate Republicans from the state legislature. North Carolina, once the most progressive southern state, has swung to the other extreme. Unable to win election on his own, Pope is now the state budget director, and his fine hand can be seen in legislation that is hostile to teachers (but not TFA) and that promotes charters and vouchers. The legislature has been so extreme on so many issues that it has brought into being a resistance movement called Moral Mondays, led by Reverend William Barber, head of the state NAACP. If the momentum of Moral Mondays continues to grow, North Carolina could change direction.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Senate race (Hagen versus Tillis) is a referendum in no small part about the actions of the state legislature. Might be a good opportunity to voice opposition to the onslaught against public schools and teachers in a meaningful way by supporting Hagen.
Pope recently announced his resignation as budget director. I like to think that all the negative publicity, especially with the state’s treatment of teachers, made him reconsider life in politics.
No. Carolina is not alone in this. NPRI (Nevada Policy Research Institute) does similar things in the massive Clark County (NV) School District (which includes Las Vegas and outlying communities).
In 2012, it engaged in an “email blast” encouraging teachers to drop the “union,” using the CCSD (school district) email system. (See Sun article at end.)
NPRI encourages teachers not to join CCEA, and also tells teachers when they can quit during the summer (see second article).
In the second post, “Only Two in Five Teachers Unionized,” the headline is not even correct according to the info given in the article. (And if many teachers aren’t part of the “union” (I call it association rather than union – it’s a “right to work” state), then why are they blaming the “union” for education problems?)
The author of the first two, NPRI’s Victor Joecks, is or was reportedly married to the Chief Communications Officer for the district.
from NPRI
New Clark County teachers don’t have to join CCEA
By Victor Joecks
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Due to natural workplace turnover, additional students and increased education funding, the Clark County School District will hire 2,000 new teachers before the start of the next school year. These teachers will attend an orientation on August 13 and 14, where they will learn more about CCSD and their new positions.
At the orientation will be numerous vendors seeking to sell new teachers products for their classrooms or sign them up for different memberships.
Prominent among those vendors will be the Clark County Education Association, which will hunt for new teachers in order to sign them up for union membership and extract over $770 a year from their paychecks.
Over the past two years, numerous teachers have told NPRI that, during the rush of orientation or because of the pressure applied by union bosses, they didn’t realize that CCEA membership was optional and/or would cost them over $770 a year.
That’s why NPRI is letting new teachers know before orientation that they have options when it comes to union membership — including the option to not join the union.
from NPRI
Only Two in Five Teachers Unionized
The Nevada State Education Association claims it is teachers’ “voice in education.” It doesn’t seem misleading for the teachers union to say it speaks for teachers, except for one very significant fact.
The teachers union doesn’t represent two in five teachers in the state.
In the Clark County Education Association and Washoe Education Association, NSEA’s two largest local chapters, just 59.5 percent and 60.5 percent of teachers, respectively, are union members. These districts contain over 85 percent of the state’s teachers. In Nevada’s 15 smaller districts, less than 68 percent are union members. In total, just 60.6 percent of Nevada’s teachers belong to a union.
from Las Vegas Sun
Email blast to teachers infuriates union, sparking threat of lawsuit
By Paul Takahashi
Tuesday, July 3, 2012 | 2 a.m.
A local libertarian think tank’s recent email blast to 12,000 teachers encouraging them to drop their union membership has further inflamed tense relations between the Clark County School District and the local teachers union.
It all started when the Nevada Policy Research Institute launched a campaign last month to inform teachers of their right to opt out of the union between July 1 and 15…
On Friday, NPRI sent an email bulletin to 12,000 teachers through the district’s email system, Interact. The unsolicited email blast drew the ire of several teachers, who accused the district of providing their work email addresses to NPRI…
However, the School District did not disseminate a list of teacher emails, said spokeswoman Amanda Fulkerson. District officials do not know how NPRI was able to gain access to teachers’ work email addresses, she added.
Libertarians are supposed to be for individual freedoms but they are working overtime to kill off unions which are democratic institutions. Libertarians want to deny workers the right to freedom of association. Let’s just be honest, billionaire libertarians are ANTI-UNION. Their attitude is that the workers should shut up, follow orders and just be thankful for having a job. The unionization rate in the 1950s was in the 30% to 34% range, it’s now at 11.3%. Finland’s overall unionization rate is about 74% and their teachers are 100% unionized. There’s no war on unions or teachers in Finland.
As a member of the Clark County Education Association, I can tell you that with the limited canvassing the district allowed us we have had nearly 80 percent of this year’s new hires sign membership forms. It seems that the younger generation may well be recognizing the need to stand together.
Rex Sinquefield thy name is Art Pope who’s name is David Koch whose name is . . . . . .
NEA is not a union.
Exactly!
Teachers should have done this years ago. I quit the Union in my district in Florida twelve years ago. My raises have never been greater than or equal to my union dues therefore that makes the purpose of me being in the Union obsolete. Eight hundred dollar union dues for two hundred dollar raises which included seven straight years of no increases at all and newly required pension contributions. Thanks but no thanks the Unions are in bed with the districts and therefore they have been compromised. Teachers must unite and form their own unions that’s the only way to get the middle man out of education plain and simple. Just think of all the BS that has been forced down our throats in the last decade or so while the Unions sat quietly and simply let it occur all while taking our money.
Well, here’s the thing: North Carolina is a right-to-work state, so there’s no teacher union here. Teachers are not required to join the NCAE, and the association has no legal clout. So in that regard, Art Pope has a point–i.e., teachers could save some bucks by not joining the state association, which can’t do much anyway. (And believe me, it pains me to give Pope any ground at all.) However, by not joining the association, teachers lose valuable opportunities for collaboration and connection, including the opportunity to make their voices heard statewide on important issues, of which we have a bunch in NC. That’s the bigger issue, and of course that’s really what Art Pope wants. He wants teachers to sit down, shut up and take what’s handed to them, which if he has his way will be precious little. As a poster pointed out, he has resigned as state budget director. It remains to be seen where he turns up next and how much power he continues to wield…