Intercepts

"The 1964 Civil Rights Act was an unfunded mandate."

-- John C. Brittain, chief counsel for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, supporting the decision of the Connecticut NAACP to oppose the state's lawsuit against the No Child Left Behind Act. The State of Connecticut, like the NEA, filed suit against the law on the grounds it was an unfunded mandate.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:43 | Permalink | Comments

The State Council of the California Teachers Association voted to support Rob Reiner's Preschool for All Initiative last weekend. Unlike Reiner's previous initiative attempt, this measure has no concrete guarantees of mandatory unionism for preschool teachers. However, should the initiative pass, it's all but certain such a provision would be on CTA's future legislative agenda.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:58 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) NEA Steadily Becoming the Labor Movement
2) NEA Shoots for Two Percent Annual Growth
3) How's That Portal Company Doing?
4) Take the Lead, and the Money
5) Last Week's Intercepts
6) Quotes of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:51 | Permalink | Comments

Over the weekend, the California Teachers Association's State Council voted overwhelmingly to recommend state Treasurer Phil Angelides in the Democratic primary for governor.

This minor news item follows what was an illuminating exchange at the end of last week. LA Weekly columnist and political insider Bill Bradley (not that one, this one) reported on his blog last Wednesday morning "Powerful Teachers Union Backs Angelides," in which he noted the union would endorse Angelides on Saturday.

This prompted Julia Rosen, who blogs for the Alliance for a Better California, the labor coalition that defeated the governor's initiatives in November, to call Bradley's item a "False Rumor."

"The CTA," Rosen wrote, "like most unions, has a very democratic process for their endorsements. A committee has been interviewing the candidates. They have decided to recommend that Aneglides (sic) be endorsed by CTA. However, it is not a foregone conclusion that the larger CTA State Council will actually do that. That group, made up of about 800 teacher representatives (voted on by the rank and file) will be meeting this weekend. They will vote there on an endorsement."

Bradley responded with an item headlined "Spin Patrol," in which he wrote of his prediction "Bets are always accepted."

Rosen returned with a post that noted, "His [Bradley's] post had lead to some conflagration within the CTA and had prompted at least one media call, wondering what was up."

She then changed the subject by writing, "Let me take the time to point out how wonderful it is to have our journalistic class engaging in two-way communication with the public. After having grown up listening to my uncle rail on about civic journalism, it is heartening to be participating in a form of it."

Translation: "Bradley's not buying it, and I'm in a corner because, dammit, they WILL endorse Angelides on Saturday and everyone knows it."

Bradley got the last word on Saturday evening with "Teachers Union Backs Angelides, He Wows Dems."

Bradley had this nailed from the beginning and is to be commended for not equivocating in the face of union spin about "democracy" and "process." As one blog commenter put it, "This is labor hack politics at its Orwellesque worst."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:20 | Permalink | Comments

Kenn Johnson, president of the Montgomery County Education Association in Kentucky, was given the opportunity to respond to an editorial that showed, when adjusted for the cost of living in the state, teacher salaries ranked rather high.

See the results here. Someone should install a pressure valve on this guy.

Here's another NEA affiliate making the same cost of living argument, but, of course, from the opposite side. As long as it results in more money, who cares about consistency?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:11 | Permalink | Comments

Here are a couple of published items with contrarian views concerning African-Americans and school choice.

Eddie Huff of Project 21 writes in the Chicago Defender about the Florida Supreme Court decision that the Florida Opportunity Scholarships violated the state constitution: "Right now, the Florida Supreme Court's decision only affects the 700 children from poor homes who had been attending mostly Black schools that had been determined to be providing substandard teaching. These are the students who had received the FOS vouchers. These students now will be forced back onto the teachers' union's public education plantation."

He continues: "The New Uncle Toms, the unrepentant Black liberal apologists, owe the rest of us an explanation. Why are our children seemingly condemned to substandard schools to mollify a special interest? The discussion at hand should be when - and not if - our community will rise up in anger, saying enough is enough and demanding change and a choice."

The New York Times reports on the efforts of parents in Ladera Heights, California, an upscale African-American neighborhood, to secede from the predominantly minority Inglewood school district and join the more diverse Culver City school district.

"I don't have an obligation to sacrifice my children to make the schools better," said one parent.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:46 | Permalink | Comments

Apparently unaffected by the negative publicity from The. Best. Union. Story. Ever., several industrial unions have taken to hiring the homeless to walk their picket lines.

"The fact that the people demonstrating were not members of the union doesn't make much difference," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. "What matters is that the carpenters working on the building had no health care and no pension."

Neither do the homeless. The union pays $8 an hour, but limits hours to 20 per week to avoid paying benefits. According to one homeless picketer, the union allows the homeless to take two-minute breaks, but docks their pay for the time off.

Is there any reason to take these guys seriously anymore? They're intellectually bankrupt. Let's hope actual bankruptcy soon follows.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:07 | Permalink | Comments

I can't say I subscribed to Santayana's often-misquoted statement, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," but recent events are leading me to rethink that position.

* This morning's Wall Street Journal contained an editorial entitled "Teachers' Pets (Cont'd)," which was a response to NEA's response to WSJ's January 3 editorial. Today's piece fleshed out more precisely the LM-2 categories -- what money went where and for what reasons -- but failed to acknowledge that the $65 million in "contributions, gifts and grants" is not equal to the amount that NEA gave "in its members' dues to left-liberal groups last year," as the original piece stated. That amount requires more information than is present in the LM-2, and one's precise definition of "left-liberal group."

But this back-and-forth between WSJ and NEA has a long and storied history. The earliest manifestation I can find begins on January 14, 1985, when the WSJ editorial page reported on the nomination of William Bennett as U.S. Secretary of Education. "The National Education Association, the once-powerful teachers' union, has already come out against him," the Journal reported.

On January 23, NEA President Mary Hatwood Futrell corrected the paper, stating that "NEA has taken no position on the nomination of Dr. Bennett." (Even now this should be news to NEA members.) The Journal printed its response the same day: "Oh."

Ultimately, it didn't matter because NEA and Bennett were fated to be mortal enemies, and they were.

* John Stossel's "Stupid in America" caused a major uproar when it aired on January 13, but as I write this I have in front of me a transcript of Stossel's "Public Schools in Bad Shape" from November 12, 1999. It is essentially the same report -- but with a teacher test instead of a student test. Stossel has been heavily criticized for bias, but it's not good news for public schools that he can basically rerun a six-year-old report and no one accuses him of being out-of-date. Agree with his conclusions or hate his guts, the situation is still pretty much the same as it was in November 1999.

* AFT and its largest local, the United Federation of Teachers, dove headfirst into the blogosphere, and is receiving kudos for doing so. Our good friends The Education Wonks, one of the nation's leading education blogs, are unofficially soliciting NEA to create a comments-enabled blog of its own.

But old-timers (?!) like me remember that NEA experimented with such an idea once before, and the outcome wasn't exactly to its liking.

Back in early 1998, NEA was gathering support for the Principles of Unity, the document that would usher in a merger between NEA and AFT. As part of its education process (or sales pitch, for the cynics out there), the union established a Unity message board, where members and non-members alike could share their opinions of the merger.

Nothing remains of that board, though you can still see references to it on Google’s cache. But my memory and the archives of documents I have from that time indicate that most of those who posted were vehemently opposed to the merger and said so in no uncertain terms.

"There has been no discussion of what I fear is a very realistic scenario," wrote one NEA member. "There seems a lot of visceral hatred of the AFL-CIO out there (I'm not one). If merger passes, how many members, or whole affiliates, will disaffiliate and form one or more national organizations? Will we not end up more divided and disunified?"

It would be easy to overstate the effects of the Unity message board, but the sheer volume of anti-merger postings could not have helped NEA in its goal to merge with AFT. Delegates to the 1998 convention ultimately voted it down by a large margin. Perhaps NEA doesn't want a repeat of that experience.

* An Associated Press story has probably reached your local newspaper by now: "NY Union-Run Charter School Draws Scrutiny." It states that the UFT charter school "is believed to be the nation's only charter school operated by a teachers union."

Well, it depends on your definition. The CIVA Charter High School in Colorado, the Integrated Day Charter School in Connecticut, and the Lanikai Elementary Public Charter School in Hawaii still exist, though NEA terminated its connection with them years ago.

The three schools were part of what was to be a six-campus Charter Schools Initiative launched by NEA in 1995. NEA hired a UCLA research team to "document and assess key learnings" from the schools. The union provided money, technical assistance and PR.

"NEA members at the six sites will have empowering opportunities for professional growth, parents will have access to real educational options for their children, Associations will be able to help members expand their participatory and leadership roles, and the school-community tie will be strengthened," reads an NEA brief on the initiative.

But a proposed school in Georgia never got off the ground, its Arizona school never opened due to lack of enrollment, and its California school was an unmitigated disaster. The San Diego school board refused to renew its charter when it expired in 2003.

The UFT charter school -- if UFT heeds Santayana's warning -- is not doomed to repeat NEA's history, and may indeed run a successful charter school. But it is astonishing how quickly NEA's Charter School Initiative, ballyhooed in 1995, was flushed down the memory hole.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 13:50 | Permalink | Comments

* The Boston Teachers Union delivered its 32-page contract proposal to the school district, and it has an unusual provision. The union wants the Boston Public Schools to send letters to charter school parents twice a year, trying to get them to switch to a regular public school.

"Teachers, the union said, would then agree to help the School Department organize a week of open houses targeting students already in charter schools and volunteer their evenings to staff the events," according to the Boston Globe.

The cost would be $100,000.

"Charter school principals and advocates say they do not have a problem with the school system attempting to recruit charter students, as long as charter schools are allowed to do the same in regular public schools," reports the Globe.

I'd love to read those letters.

Dear Charter School Parent:

We miss you. Won't you return to the city schools? For one thing, our teachers' union is striving mightily -- at the local, state and national level -- to shut down your charter school. Why not beat the crowds when it finally succeeds?

Join us for an evening of cookies, coffee and wouldn't-you-like-to-invest-in-a-timeshare-style propaganda while we explain why choosing the best school for your child is our job, not yours.

Cordially,

Your Superintendent and Union President Standing Behind Him Holding a Big Stick with a Nail in It.

* Update: High school Spanish teacher Fernando Del Pino resigned yesterday after it was revealed he had shown the movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin in class. School officials learned that Del Pino had shown other movies in class, though they didn't release a list of titles.

He can add this one to his collection.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:47 | Permalink | Comments

* The number of public school students identified as having "specific learning disabilities" has nearly quadrupled in the last 30 years and constitutes nearly 43 percent of all students with disabilities. This category includes those with dyslexia and other disorders that interfere with the ability to perform school work.

How students obtain or don't obtain a disability designation in order to receive special education services is sometimes a matter of controversy. That controversy now seems to have spilled over into the other categories of disabilities, as two stories that appeared today illustrate.

Fourth-grader Brentson Duke has a severe peanut allergy. He had an attack last September from accidental exposure to peanuts at school. While officials of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools considered what to do, they paid for seven weeks of home instruction for Brentson. Now, after staff training on Brentson's condition and a notice to other parents, the district cut off those funds and expected Brentson to return to school -- an option Brentson's mother was not prepared to risk. She removed Brentson from public school and is now home-schooling him.

"It's not cheap," she said. "But if it's keeping him from dying, I wouldn't care if it were $20,000."

School officials, backed by an opinion of the state attorney general, say Brentson's allergy does not qualify as a disability.

"I have no doubt, no anything, that we've not gone far beyond what we had to do," the school principal said.

Indiana high-schooler Nicky Ontiveros ran into a similar problem -- except his affliction is leukemia. Despite the fact that Nicky undergoes chemotherapy and radiation treatment and is under constant threat of infection, the attorney representing the Porter Township Schools stated that Nicky's leukemia does not meet the definition of a disability under state law. The school system denied Nicky home tutoring services on that basis. Nicky's parents have gone to court.

Complicated diagnoses and suitable responses are guaranteed to cause battles among reasonable people -- think of the bitter three-way fights between hospitals, patients, and HMOs. The delivery of special education services suffers from the same problem: the desire of those involved to make a complicated problem simple by asking, "Will we make money or lose money?"

* Here are the results of EIA's Really Official Super-Accurate Poll. Presented with the opportunity to answer the question "Who is the Ohio Education Association trying to kid?":

8 said "anyone who has never heard of self-selection"
3 said "the public"
2 said "the members"
1 said "the press"

and 489 people who visited Intercepts since the poll was posted decided not to vote at all, illustrating the problem of self-selection.

* A new report by the Nevada Policy Research Institute takes on the much-neglected issue of school district size. Read it here.

* Wal-Mart has 325 job openings for its new store just outside Chicago's city limits. About 25,000 people applied. Still waiting for the news to appear here. Wake up!

* The January 26 Contract Hits is up, featuring Sumner County, Tennessee.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:27 | Permalink | Comments

This wouldn’t have happened if someone would just market a Ritalin dart gun.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:23 | Permalink | Comments

Missoula, Montana, high school business teacher Dan Kucera is accused of giving a student the business.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:43 | Permalink | Comments

District officials in Fayette County, Kentucky, suspended high school Spanish teacher Fernando Del Pino for showing the R-rated movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin to students Monday.

The school policy on videos requires parental consent before an R-rated movie can be shown. But administrators were also upset about another small but salient point.

"The movie certainly wasn't in Spanish," said Lisa Deffendall, spokeswoman for Fayette County Public Schools.

For now, students will have to content themselves with watching this.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:28 | Permalink | Comments

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that five teachers at San Leandro High School in the Bay Area refused to hang a classroom poster designed by the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, defying a district mandate.

The poster includes gay pride symbols and designates the classroom as a "safe space." The teachers, who were not named in the story, said displaying the poster would violate their religious beliefs.

This story has a lovely confluence of controversial issues: homosexuality, religion, school district mandates, tolerance, diversity, political correctness, classroom displays and academic freedom.

EIA wonders if the San Leandro Teachers Association will defend, as it is wont to do, the right of these teachers to run their classrooms in the way they see fit, in light of a one-size-fits-all mandate from school administrators. If not, would the union stand silently by if the district required teachers to hang posters touting the "Students in Free Enterprise" program?

Probably not.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:40 | Permalink | Comments

The Ohio Education Association released a member survey yesterday that purports to show, among other things, that 74 percent of its members agree with the statement "The state legislature is trying to dismantle public education."

The survey was sent to members last October attached to their monthly union newsletter. About 131,000 went out, and about 4,000 came back.

Since OEA seems unconcerned about self-selection, EIA is running its own Really Official, Super-Accurate Poll. The results will be sent to the Ohio media.

The EIA Really Official, Super-Accurate Poll Who is the Ohio Education Association trying to kid? The press The members The public Anyone who has never heard of self-selection view results

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:14 | Permalink | Comments

The Associated Press story on the annual Bureau of Labor Statistics union membership report went out with this headline and lede:

"Long-declining union membership levels off at 12.5 percent of work force

"WASHINGTON - Long-declining union membership leveled off last year at 12.5 percent of the work force, the Labor Department said Friday in a report labor leaders called encouraging."

Later wire stories cut off the end of the headline, leaving "Long-declining union membership levels off."

But, as EIA reported last Friday, the "leveling off" was only an effect of BLS rounding to the nearest tenth of a percentage point. The union membership rate declined in 2005 from 12.52 to 12.46 percent.

Here's a better way to understand the continuing decline. The U.S. economy employed 2,335,000 more workers in 2005 than in 2004. Only 213,000 of these new workers -- 9.1 percent -- became union members.

Examining just the private sector makes the picture starker: Of the 1,924,000 new private sector workers in 2005, only 50,000 -- 2.6 percent -- joined a union.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:22 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) NEA Looking to Play Larger Role in U.S. Presidential Primaries
2) Union Membership Rate Drops Again in 2005
3) No Chance of NEA Joining Change to Win
4) NEA: Champion of Collective Thinking
5) Walnut Valley Union Denies Almost Everything
6) Union Merger in Massachusetts Not Feasible
7) Check Intercepts First!
8) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:58 | Permalink | Comments

This just in from the Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang:

"A spokesman for the Central Committee of the Korean Educational and Cultural Workers' Union issued a statement on Jan. 21 in denunciation of the moves of the south Korean neo-conservative forces to frame up 'Liberal Teachers Union' in a bid to implant feelings of separation in the hearts of the nation with mistrust and confrontation, dull the rising generations' consciousness of national independence and immolate them to outside forces."

The North Korean angst is over a center-right teachers' union -- called the Liberal Teachers Union -- being formed in South Korea as a counter to the left-wing Korea Teachers and Educators Union.

Pyongyang continues: "In south Korea the Grand National Party and other conservative forces are now bringing together those riffraffs who are crazy for worship towards the U.S. to frame up the 'Liberal Teachers Union' against the National Teachers Union (Jongyojo) which is conducting progressive and patriotic educational activities for independent reunification among students."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:34 | Permalink | Comments

Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for 2005 showed a slight drop in the percentage of American workers who belong to labor unions. BLS shows the percentage as 12.5, which is the same as it was in 2004, but extending the number of decimal places shows a drop from 12.52 percent in 2004 to 12.46 percent in 2005.

EIA must again point out that the union membership figure is inflated by as much as 1 percentage point, due to the fact that the BLS figures omit all self-employed workers. The Census Bureau estimates there are currently 10.3 million self-employed workers in the United States, virtually all of whom, it must be assumed, do not belong to a union.

America's unions had 213,000 more members in 2005, but the U.S. economy employed 2,335,000 more workers. The private sector unionization rate fell from 7.9 to 7.8 percent. The public sector unionization rate rose from 36.4 to 36.5 percent.

About 41.9 percent of local government employees -- a category which includes teachers, school support workers, police officers and firefighters -- belong to a union, up from 41.3 percent in 2004.

Only five states -- Alaska, Hawaii, Michigan, New Jersey and New York -- have a workforce that is more than 20 percent unionized. Twenty-two states have unionization rates in single digits.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 13:44 | Permalink | Comments

Representatives of the United Federation of Teachers, New York City's teachers' union, voted to circulate a petition and hold a rally outside of the headquarters of ABC-TV to protest reporter John Stossel's 20/20 special "Stupid in America."

"ABC needs to hear how unfair and biased those of you in the trenches believe their broadcast to have been," UFT President Randi Weingarten told the union's delegate assembly Wednesday night.

The date of the protest has not yet been determined. But all the textbook union activism should keep the natives occupied while other business slides through.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 13:28 | Permalink | Comments

Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott hosts a blog called Get on the Bus, and he covered a conference on urban education where NEA President Reg Weaver was a guest speaker. Afterward, Elliott asked Weaver why NEA didn't have a blog. Elliott used the United Federation of Teachers' Edwize as an example.

"It was clear from Weaver’s reaction and my struggle to explain that he had no idea what a blog was and had never heard of Edwize," Elliott wrote.

The Education Wonks were also taken aback by Weaver's lack of blog-knowledge.

I'm inclined to cut Weaver a break. I'm a fairly intelligent, techno-savvy individual. But I needed a full week of research before I could buy my first new television set in 20 years. Even now, I wouldn't want to be quizzed on the Y, Pb and Pr jacks.

Be careful what you wish for. AFT just introduced a No Child Left Behind blog called Let’s Get It Right.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:31 | Permalink | Comments

* On Wednesday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney predicted that in three years Congress would pass the union-backed "Employee Free Choice Act," which would largely eliminate secret ballot elections for union representation.

This is, however, the same John Sweeney who was elected in 1995 on a promise to increase membership. At the time, union membership stood just under 16.4 million, with a 14.9 percent share of the total workforce. In 2004, union membership stood just under 15.5 million, with a 12.5 percent share of the total workforce. The non-union workforce grew by almost 15.4 percent over that same period of time.

In December 2001, Sweeney announced a new project, called Target 5000, to help elect 5,000 union members to public office. At the time, the AFL-CIO estimated there were more than 2,500 union members holding public office. In January 2005, the union estimate was, well, more than 2,500 union members holding public office.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release its annual survey of union membership tomorrow.

* I wrote about school district border enforcement on Tuesday, but my emphasis has always been on individual families seeking a way out. Today's Los Angeles Times has the results of an effort by an entire neighborhood to change districts.

* The January 19 Contract Hits is up, featuring Portland, Maine.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:58 | Permalink | Comments

I'm reasonably sure this fledgling reporter just used the wrong word, but he describes a meeting of YP4 -- "a project of the People for the American Way Foundation" -- as having taken place in "the ballroom of the National Education Association's DC headquarters."

I don't know if NEA HQ has a ballroom, but nothing would surprise me. I know they have ba---, oh, never mind, it's a bad joke.

The account of the meeting is worth reading for its view of American politics, the media and the blogosphere. It was part of "a three-day national summit designed to instruct and inspire the next generation of progressive leaders, and give them the organizational tools they need to succeed."

I don't know if it overlapped with the monthly meeting of the Communist Party USA.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:52 | Permalink | Comments

The New York Times has a disturbing story about a new children’s television show in the Gaza Strip starring Uncle Hazim and a cast of men in threadbare animal suits. The station and the show are run by Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group.

The Times reports the show "will teach children the basics of militant Palestinian politics - the disputed status of Jerusalem, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the Palestinian refugees' demand for a right to return to the lands they lost to Israel in the 1948 war - without showing the violence that Hamas's pursuit of those goals entails."

The Hamas TV station "will eventually feature a sort of Islamic MTV, with Hamas-produced music videos using footage from the group's fights with Israeli troops."

Seeking to end the "cycle of violence," I've sent a script (on spec) to Uncle Hazim. It goes like this:

Bob the Fox reads the Hamas charter, which calls for the obliteration of Israel (preamble, paragraph 2), and raises the banner of jihad. But before he can don his Acme explosive vest for a trip to the shopping mall, the Zionists spot him and, in quick succession, drop a piano, a safe, and an anvil on his head.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bob the Fox attends an educational program sponsored by the Rotary Club, unaware that the Rotarians, Lions and Freemasons are Zionist lackeys who must be obliterated (Articles 17, 22 and 28).

Fred the Bear is worn out after a long day of trying to obliterate the Tatars (Article 35) and wonders if there isn't a peaceful solution to the conflict in the Middle East, until he remembers that "initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement" (Article 13).

The entire cast ululates, and assembles for a rousing chorus of "We buy Paradise with the blood of the Jews."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:53 | Permalink | Comments

Daniel Pryzbyla watched John Stossel's "Stupid in America" and was apparently unconvinced by NEA's attempt to turn Stossel into a tool of the Bradley Foundation. So he went the union one better.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:55 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) Thoughts on "Stupid in America"
2) How Will Collective Bargaining Affect Unions' Own Finances?
3) AFT Tries to Devise Charter School Strategy
4) Georgia Juxtaposition
5) Recommended Reading
6) Big City Blogs
7) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 16:01 | Permalink | Comments

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) President A.J. Duffy told the Los Angeles Daily News that the nation's second largest teacher union local will be bankrupt in five years without a permanent dues increase.

Duffy said UTLA was $1 million in the red in both 2004 and 2005, and that he has had to cut staff positions to reduce the union's deficit.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:01 | Permalink | Comments

This illustration of denial is brought to you by the Walnut Valley Educators Association in California.

The morning after presiding over a packed school board meeting with more than 100 union members wearing red t-shirts, four board members found their homes vandalized -- their driveways covered in red paint and with threatening notes identifying them by name.

The union is at odds with the board because contract negotiations are stalemated. The district is offering a 4 percent pay raise. The union wants 5 percent. District officials say currently 42 percent of Walnut Valley teachers make more than $69,000 annually.

"You can only assume the union is involved. It could be just an individual that's taking it to a level that has gone above and beyond what the expectation is," said board president Cindy Ruiz. "It's scary now. How do they expect us to react to this?"

Union President Jim Faren doesn't believe a teacher or union member was involved. "We didn't condone this type of activity. That's not the type of activity that we believe in," he said. Another union representative is disappointed that "the knee-jerk reaction has been that the union did it."

Really? Who else even knows all the school board members by name, never mind where they live?

Faren posted a statement on the union web site:

"The WVEA Leadership and the Negotiations Team received news on Friday, Jan 13th that the homes of four members of the Board of Education were vandalized. We are disturbed and upset that this act was directed toward members of our own district. No one in our educational community deserves to be the recipient of such behavior."

Disturbed and upset. But was he surprised? Take a look at this video the union shot of Faren's speech at the school board meeting. He is cordial and contained throughout, but at about the six-minute mark, he says this: "WVEA will continue to impress upon our members rational and positive behavior during this campaign. But what individual groups or individuals may do could be out of our control."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:22 | Permalink | Comments

The United Farm Workers notified the AFL-CIO this week that it was leaving the federation, and will join the Change to Win coalition.

"We regret to see them leave the federation because there's a lot of history there," AFL-CIO spokeswoman Denise Mitchell told the Associated Press. "It's a union with a proud legacy that got a lot of support from the entire movement, especially the AFL-CIO."

UFW represents only 27,000 members, but its departure from AFL-CIO is damaging symbolically to the labor federation.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:35 | Permalink | Comments

* I don't know how calculated a decision this was, but U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon and U.S. Rep. Mike Castle showed up in a Delaware elementary school yesterday and read "Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!" to the kids. Dr. Seuss was working on the book prior to his death in 1991, and it was completed by writer Jack Prelutsky and illustrator Lane Smith.

For years, NEA has used Dr. Seuss' birthday to promote reading (and itself), and this little photo-op appeared to be a not-so-subtle response. "Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!" is a story about Diffendoofer School where, in the words of one student:

"I think we're learning lots of things not taught at other schools, our teachers are remarkable, they make up their own rules."

Teacher Miss Bonkers teaches frogs to dance, and pigs to put on underpants, in her very unconventional class. But one day, the Diffendoofer students must take a high-stakes standardized test. If they fail, they will be sent to Flobbertown, where everyone "does everything the same."

Miss Bonkers immediately seeks out her union rep, who sues the Diffendoofer School District for failing to provide adequate funding or reduced class size.

No, not really. In fact, the indomitable Miss Bonkers isn't worried, for as she tells her students: "We've taught you that the earth is round, that red and white make pink, and something else that matters more - we've taught you how to think."

The story, of course, ends happily. But will real-life Diffendoofer students find themselves exiled to Flobbertown? Stay tuned.

* The January 12 Contract Hits is up.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:36 | Permalink | Comments

* The Oklahoma Education Association and three school districts filed one of those funding adequacy lawsuits yesterday. This had the desired effect of getting the union mentioned in the newspaper, although OEA's attorney claimed it was all about the students.

"Students need an environment that's conducive to learn in," said Joe White Jr.

* Beginning in March, all schools in South Korea will allow students to take a day off during the first day of their menstrual periods. The decision came in response to a recommendation from the country's National Human Rights Commission. The rule does not apply to teachers or other school employees.

Evidently this is a big issue in Korea. But how is abuse of menstrual leave prevented? I hope there isn't a Ministry of Cycle Monitoring.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:35 | Permalink | Comments

* The Austin American-Statesman is beside itself upon hearing that the Texas State Teachers Association endorsed Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn for governor. "In a turn-the-world-upside-down moment, the state's oldest teacher group endorsed a Republican gubernatorial challenger," the paper reported, adding, "The association is a National Education Association affiliate. It has never endorsed a Republican for statewide office."

That might be big news, except:

1) Strayhorn is not running in the Republican primary.
2) She plans to run in the November general election as an independent, not a Republican.
3) Her opponent, the incumbent governor, is a Republican.
4) Texas is a predominantly Republican state.
5) The Democratic Party's gubernatorial candidates are weak.
6) Strayhorn got the TSTA endorsement by renouncing her previous positions on public education, including her past support for school vouchers and merit pay.
7) The reason for Strayhorn's endorsement, according to the TSTA president, was "electability."

Call me back when the union endorses a registered Republican in a tight race against a Democrat. For more on this issue, read How Republicans Get Teacher Union Endorsements.

* The Montana AFL-CIO executive secretary is in trouble with the union's board for answering a reporter’s question. A resolution calls on Jim McGarvey to apologize "for publicly airing things that should not be." And people wonder why I call my business the Education Intelligence Agency.

* Outpost of the Odd: Headline -- "Boy survives having head run over by truck." Grandfather says: "Maybe he has an exceptionally hard head."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:18 | Permalink | Comments

Dr. Lewis Thomas was hoping to add to his already impressive résumé by serving as the principal of the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy charter school. He had listed jobs as a senior political adviser to Sen. Barack Obama and senior political consultant to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also claimed to be a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Tim Goler, the head of the school's advisory board, was also a member of that fraternity. So upon meeting Thomas, he offered him the fraternity's secret handshake.

Goler told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Thomas looked at him "like there was something wrong with my hand." The school did a thorough background check and discovered Thomas had not worked for Obama or Clinton and, in fact, did not possess a Ph.D or even a master's degree. Almost all of his résumé appears to have been fabricated or exaggerated.

Thomas was persuaded to resign last month.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:44 | Permalink | Comments

The Daily Republic reports that "although South Dakota's teachers often get the most press for being the worst-paid teachers in the nation, many jobs in the state also rank at or near the bottom." Including (gasp!) journalists.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:18 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) New Disclosure Reports for NEA Affiliates in New York, Florida, Michigan and Ohio
2) Merged New York Union Will Be Called NYSUT
3) Madison Local Wins Court Fight Against Wisconsin NEA Affiliate
4) Illinois "Pre-Retirement" Dues Proposal Hard to Understand
5) Morty Keeps Speaking the Unspeakable
6) Scheduling Note
7) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:19 | Permalink | Comments

It was a busy week, but there's more to come. Today's EIA Communique' will feature more NEA affiliate financial disclosure reports. It should be posted by late afternoon. Check back here later.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:23 | Permalink | Comments

NEA has a visitor poll on its web site on the best movies about teachers. There are five nominees in each of nine categories and no, there is no ideological bias. Arnold in Kindergarten Cop, Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me and Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver are all there.

But where is EIA's favorite movie teacher? There has to be a special award for Tom Berenger in The Substitute!

"I'm in charge of this classroom. I'm the warrior chief, the merciless god who stirs anything in its path. You f*** with me, and you will suffer my wrath."

Now that's classroom management.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:03 | Permalink | Comments

Surely it's coincidental, but school districts in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, appear to be competing for a permanent gig on the Jerry Springer show. The area seems to possess a disturbing convergence of strange sexual relationships, employee misconduct, and the politics of public education disciplinary hearings.

Today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that McKeesport fourth-grade teachers Patrick Collins (described as a former teachers' union president) and Angela DiBattista were placed on paid leave while the district decides whether to fire them for having sex in a classroom and a school bathroom several times between 1999 and 2001. Two other teachers, Michael Cherepko and Nicole Lundberg, acted as lookouts for Collins and DiBattista during these encounters, standing outside the door, ready to yell "Cheese it!" They, too, are facing disciplinary action.

But, as it turns out, this is only the most recent episode of the McKeesport telenovela. You may be asking: Why did district officials take so long to act? You see, the district actually fired Collins in September 2004. Why? Because DiBattista claimed that Collins was harassing and stalking her. But if he was fired, how could Collins now be on paid leave? Because he contested his dismissal, and an arbitrator reinstated him with back pay in August 2005. Then how did the district find out about the classroom sex? Because Collins, in his arbitration defense, disclosed the consensual sexual liaisons with DiBattista as evidence that he wasn't stalking or harassing her. Brilliant!

"Normally, you don't have someone admitting to a possible violation of the Public School Code during an arbitration hearing," said school solicitor Jack Cambest.

The union response to all this will not surprise you. "It was a personal matter between two teachers that had no effect on students, that had no effect on their ability to teach," said union attorney Robert Abraham.

The McKeesport story comes on the heels of the Baldwin-Whitehall School District “Mad Baker” story, and a quick scan of the EIA archives brings us the Avonworth incident (see item #4 of this communique’).

But, to be fair to western Pennsylvania, we also have the Wayne Nadeau scandal in Vermont (item #2).

UPDATE: Cherepko denies any involvement or knowledge in McKeesport scandal.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:58 | Permalink | Comments

The first response from the National Education Association to the January 3 Wall Street Journal editorial, "Teachers’ Pets," is filtering down through its activist network and the gist of it goes like this:

* "The $65 million figure was the total amount the NEA spent on grants and contributions. Of that, $64.2 million -- about 98 percent -- went straight to our state and local affiliates for education programs and member services."

The Wall Street Journal was wrong to portray the $65 million in the contributions category as a total amount distributed to liberal political groups. UniServ grants are included in that category, which is money used to subsidize the salaries of UniServ directors in each of NEA's state affiliates. UniServ directors have a broad range of responsibilities, including coming to California from all over the country last November to fight Gov. Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives.

However, NEA's contributions to political advocacy groups do not reside solely in the "contributions, gifts, and grants" category. As EIA’s December 19 report plainly shows, sums like $25,000 for the National Coalition of Health Care and $40,000 for the Consortium for Educational Change were listed by NEA in the "representational activities" category, the $51,200 donation to People for the American Way, among many others, was listed in the "union administration" category -- all of these outside the "political activities and lobbying" category, which by NEA's admission constitutes $25 million.

While WSJ's total figures were incorrectly applied, NEA's claim of $800,000 in advocacy contributions is laughably low-balled. NEA gave $2.5 million to Communities for Quality Education alone.

* "The editorial also grossly exaggerated President Weaver's salary. Worse yet, it counts funds used for President Weaver's travel as he meets with members all across the country as part of his salary."

Again, the WSJ was wrong to include Weaver's travel expenses as part of his salary. However, you judge for yourself what constitutes a gross exaggeration. EIA’s December 12 report explains the compensation of Weaver and the other executive officers clearly and fairly: "Topping that list is NEA President Reg Weaver, who received a base salary of $272,170, plus allowances for benefits and living expenses of $98,258, for a total pay of $370,428. These cash allowances for NEA's three executive officers are meant to compensate them for the cost of maintaining two homes, plus the fact that they do not receive retirement benefits from NEA during their union tenure."

* "The Journal and Bill O'Reilly would like the public to believe that the NEA is hiding information from the public or advancing a hidden agenda: it makes it easier for them to push their own political agenda."

Sure. That's why you're reading all this information in NEA Today, viewing it on the NEA web site, hearing about it on all those NEA-sponsored television and radio ads, and receiving it in your NEA direct mail.

Even the NEA Representative Assembly -- according to the union "the largest democratic deliberative body in the world," and made up of its most devoted activists -- voice votes up or down on the total union budget, which contains only line-item descriptions such as: "Collaborative relationships supportive of quality public education developed, maintained, expanded, and tracked among labor, civic, civil rights, minority, religious, family and parent, community, and public policy advocacy organizations."

I don't see anything about the Council on Foreign Relations in that paragraph.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 13:59 | Permalink | Comments

* The decision of the Florida Supreme Court today to strike down the state's voucher system cannot be considered a major surprise, but the rationale certainly was. The court avoided the problematic history of the state's Blaine Amendment and ruled instead that the program violated the Florida Constitution's uniformity clause, which calls for a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools."

Holy cow. If the regular public schools weren't violating the "efficiency" and "high quality" clauses of that same sentence, parents wouldn't need or want vehicles to leave them.

It seems to me the ruling effectively handcuffs the school choice movement in Florida. Who wants to go into court and argue that the alternatives offered by the school choice program are in uniformity with the regular public schools?

* EIA's latest Contract Hits notes that, in accordance with the teacher contract in Providence, Rhode Island, a teacher can be on a paid leave of absence and still work as a paid substitute teacher in the district. So, technically, you can substitute for yourself and get paid twice -- which is an arrangement strangely analogous to this one.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:49 | Permalink | Comments

Nevada Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons voiced his support for the breakup of the Clark County School District, one of the fastest growing districts in the country. Gibbons is "the GOP's front-runner for governor," according to the Las Vegas Sun.

Breaking up large school districts is an issue that comes along in cycles (see these EIA stories: third item in both January 2000 and March 2003), but placing it in the midst of a 2006 gubernatorial race will give it new national exposure.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:25 | Permalink | Comments

Without a doubt, this was the easiest election aftermath to predict in California history.

His initiatives defeated in November, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will now attempt (futilely) to buy the affections of the education lobby with tax dollars. Secretary of Education Alan Bersin announced that $4.3 billion would be added to the education budget, raising the state's general fund spending to $54.3 billion for the coming year.

We'll soon know how this 8.6 percent increase is to be earmarked (or not earmarked), but it is safe to assume that when the cash filters down to your local school district, it will be negotiated into at least an 8.6 percent increase in teacher salaries. Which will be factored into the dues formula of the California Teachers Association to increase its income. Which will help wipe out CTA's debt from the 2005 election and refill the union's coffers.

The paycheck protection initiative may have failed, but it succeeded in one disturbing respect: now all Californians are teacher union fee-payers.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:37 | Permalink | Comments

Barring the usual TV last-minute change, I'll be appearing on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor tonight, scheduled for the final segment. I'll be working without talking points, but I hope I won't make too big a fool of myself.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:12 | Permalink | Comments