Blogger Mike Antonucci is reporting that the National Education Association, one of the two main national unions fopr teachers, has lost that many members in the last year. And believe it or not, that is (relatively) good news for them:

The reason it is relatively good news is because the union budgeted for a loss of 130,000 teachers and 10,000 education support employees in the 2012-13 school year.

Of course, the school year isn’t over yet, but the budget projection did seem excessive, considering the worst of the recession’s layoffs were already behind us. The situation for teacher union membership remains fluid, as there is still legislation pending in a number of states regarding collective bargaining, agency fee and payroll deduction, all of which can have a considerable effect on union membership.

I cannot independently confirm this. Antonucci,  who blog Education Intelligence Agency focuses on unions, told me via email that he had an inside source for his information: “I can tell you that these numbers were briefed to the NEA board of directors at their February meeting.”

I was unable to reach anybody at the NEA to respond to his report. I’ll update this post if and when they do.