Intercepts

The Flint Journal ran a story about a guy with teacher certification, a triple minor and teaching experience, who can't find a job teaching public school. Why? Because there are too many applicants.

"It's a struggle to find employment when you have the same certification that so many others possess. But at the same time, there's a teacher shortage when it comes to (areas such as physics)," said Margaret Trimer-Hartley of the Michigan Education Association. (Hurrah! She must have read "The Education Omelet" in Monday's communique' - Item #7.)

This holds true even in places with genuine teacher shortages, like the burgeoning Clark County School District in Nevada. The district reported 344 teaching vacancies prior to the start of the new school year. But of these vacancies, 180 are in special education. Only 80 are in elementary education.

These types of problems will continue until union contracts exhibit enough flexibility to allow districts to pay more to applicants in shortage areas.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:15 | Permalink | Comments

Michael Billirakis of Ohio, member of the NEA Executive Committee since 2001, was charged with two counts of conflict of interest and two counts of filing a false disclosure statement by the Ohio Ethics Commission.

In his capacity as a member of the board of the Ohio State Teachers Retirement System, Billirakis is accused of "accepting and failing to disclose tickets to the Broadway show Hairspray from the Frank Russell Corporation/Russell Real Estate Advisors. Billirakis also is accused of accepting and failing to disclose tickets to a Cleveland Indians game that he got from Salomon Smith Barney. The retirement system was doing business with both firms at the time," according to a story in The Repository (Canton - free registration required).

The charges are all first-degree misdemeanors and have a maximum penalty of up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

Billirakis is the second NEA official to be charged in the investigation. Jack H. Chapman, former president of the Central Ohio Education Association, pleaded guilty in June to three counts of conflict of interest. His sentence was suspended, and he received probation, a $4,000 fine, and 60 hours of community service.

UPDATE: The Columbus Dispatch also has the story.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:09 | Permalink | Comments

The story is available here. If you register at the Education Week site, you will be able to read it and download it.

My favorite quote is from CleverSpin's attorney:

"If I left my door open, does that give someone the right to steal my TV?"

Since I viewed the report and listened to the audio files through a Google link, I can only respond: If you broadcast something to 380 million people, can you complain if one of them watches it?

The publication of the Education Week story also allows me to pass along the news that CleverSpin's Kris Kemmerer, who conducted the interviews, was hired by AFT as the Assistant to the President for Communications.

Strangely enough, one of the recommendations in CleverSpin's communications audit was:

"The AFT needs an Assistant to the President for Communications to coordinate the strategic message plan between Government Relations, Organizing and the constituency divisions. The position would oversee the public affairs department, digital communications department (i.e., public website, LeaderNet, Get Active, etc.), AFTCN, and all communications production (i.e., copy editing, branding, graphic design). The position would coordinate all publication editors/constituency communicators and field writers, as well as drive the appropriate vetting process."

AFT hired Kemmerer effective August 6, the day before I broke the CleverSpin story.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:05 | Permalink | Comments

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has one of his usual excellent columns today. This one asks why education schools don't teach methods proven to work in inner-city schools. The answer seems to be the old joke: If it works in practice, it won't work in theory.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:22 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) Buffalo Affiliation with NYSUT in Serious Doubt
2) The Detroit Teacher Str--, Uh, Thing
3) "Who Are Those Guys?"
4) School Choice Black Market Resurfaces
5) How to Make an Easy $225,000 in Nevada
6) Teamsters vs. NEA in Nevada Probably Headed to Court
7) The Education Omelet
8) Last Week's Intercepts
9) Scheduling Note
10) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 14:24 | Permalink | Comments

The Detroit Federation of Teachers voted to go on strike. Well, not really (more on that later today in the EIA Communique'). In any event, teacher strikes are illegal in Michigan. DFT President Janna Garrison addressed the issue yesterday.

"Just because it’s a law, doesn’t make it right," she said.

Isn't collective bargaining a law, too?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:42 | Permalink | Comments

Leaders of the California State Senate called off a floor vote on the Los Angeles "mayoral takeover" bill. Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata said the bill will be taken up Monday, but opponents are claiming the delay is because the measure lacks the votes to pass.

The bill's co-author, Sen. Gloria Romero, explained it this way:

"Some members wanted to have some extra time to read it, but those would be votes that would be gravy to the roll call. But as far as the votes that we need to move this out, they are there, they're solid."

It's good to know that the passage of this bill is not dependent on the votes of people who have actually read it.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:48 | Permalink | Comments

Joe Williams at The Chalkboard amplifies a vital point made over at the AFT NCLBlog about the 38th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Lots of people happily express strong opinions about charter schools, but don't know what they're talking about. A majority of respondents to the poll believe charter schools are not public schools, are free to teach religion, can charge tuition, and can screen students by academic abilities.

It's true in other areas of the poll as well. Fifty-five percent of respondents admitted knowing "little or nothing at all" about the No Child Left Behind Act. Fifty percent of public school parents knew little or nothing at all about NCLB.

In at least one case, the poll itself is contributing to their ignorance. The questions about solving teacher turnover problems (Table 27) began with the pollster stating, "During their first five years of employment, almost half of new public school teachers leave the profession."

This statistic, through the unending efforts of the teachers' unions, is so ingrained in the public folklore that it is impossible to get anyone to even examine it. It comes from a single source: Richard M. Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania, who examined the federal government's school and staffing surveys, the latest of which covers the year 2000-01. In a March 2006 report titled Teacher Recruitment, Retention, and Shortages, Ingersoll created a table (Figure 7 on page 22) purporting to show that 46 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years.

No one has bothered to mention that Ingersoll himself calls the statistic "only a rough approximation," arrived at "by multiplying together the probabilities of staying in teaching" and not accounting for those who later reenter teaching, which "have been found to be as much as 25 percent of those who had earlier departed."

Though Ingersoll's estimate must be respected, there is no empirical evidence stating half of new teachers leave the profession within five years.

The poll results should be sobering for all of us who spend our professional lives writing and talking about education, regardless of the side we're on. Our "students," it seems, aren't paying attention in class.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:04 | Permalink | Comments

"It would help morale."

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

Lech Walesa announced that he is leaving Poland's Solidarity trade union movement because of a dispute over the organization's political policies.

"He has not been paying membership fees since the end of last year," a leading Solidarity member, Jerzy Borowczak, told the AFP news agency.

No word on whether Walesa lost his liability insurance, whether he took his action during a 30-day window allowed for resignations, or whether he will be forced to pay agency fees.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:31 | Permalink | Comments

According to the Washington Times, "Former Washington Teachers' Union Treasurer James O. Baxter says he isn't healthy enough to start serving Thursday a 10-year prison sentence for embezzling dues from public school teachers."

Mr. Baxter says he has a neck injury that may require surgery.

You may recall that Baxter's cohort Gwendolyn Hemphill also developed a strange ailment prior to imprisonment - she started seeing a character from a 1975 TV horror movie.

Fortunately, Intercepts can vouch for Mr. Baxter. Here is a photo of the incident in which he received his neck injury.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:31 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) NEA Sends $2.2 Million to Michigan for K-16 Funding Initiative
2) It's August, So Ohio Staff Union Must Be Preparing to Strike
3) Buffalo Union Staffers Firing in Both Directions
4) Save the Planet, But Don't Unionize
5) CTA Charter School Web Site Uses Low-Key Approach
6) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:56 | Permalink | Comments

The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) signed on three new members to its board of directors, one of whom will raise some eyebrows in teacher union circles.

Joan Baratz-Snowden was, until recently, the American Federation of Teachers' Director of Educational Issues.

"ABCTE has moved from an organization supporting a specific ideology to a group that is interested in furthering the teaching profession with rigorous professional standards for teachers," said Baratz-Snowden in an ABCTE press statement. "ABCTE recognizes that it takes more than just a test to certify an excellent educator and is implementing systems to support teachers entering the classroom from alternate routes."

Of course, AFT hasn't ever said much about ABCTE and its alternative path to teacher certification, but its colleagues over at NEA have excoriated the organization's mission as "demeaning to the teaching profession." But even NEA hasn't publicly bashed ABCTE since 2004, so either ABCTE is making headway with its opponents, or hell is slowly freezing over.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:42 | Permalink | Comments

Chad Radock, president of the Fitchburg Teachers Association in Massachusetts, left his history teaching position because he decided not to take a required course to renew his teaching credential.

"I was tired of jumping through hoops," Radock said. "I could've come back, the option was there, but I chose not to."

Radock told the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise that taking the course would have been too expensive. But he also told the paper that he "plans to attend law school instead of seeking a teaching job elsewhere."

If the certification course was too expensive, how is he going to pay for law school?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:27 | Permalink | Comments

Charter school teachers in Pembroke Pines, Florida, will vote on whether they will be represented by the Broward Teachers Union. Good news for the union, right?

''It's a slight setback,'' said BTU President Pat Santeramo.

The union visited charter school teachers and asked them to sign cards "indicating a desire for an election," according to a report in the Miami Herald. But, as is typical in card check campaigns, once the union gathered signatures from more than half of the 260 charter school teachers in the area, it petitioned the board of city commissioners to recognize the union immediately.

The commissioners rejected this approach and called for an election, after hearing from some teachers.

''The card was very ambiguous,'' said teacher Darryl Mahoney. "I was under the assumption we were going to have an election.''

If BTU wins the election, the seven Pembroke Pines schools will be the first unionized charter schools in the state of Florida.

The Herald reports that the pay at the charters are comparable, and often superior, to that of regular public school teachers. The schools' biggest complaint has been that the district is shortchanging the charters.

"But Santeramo said he hasn't taken sides in that spat, and he said he wasn't sure if he would lobby the state for more charter school money for Pines," the Herald reports.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:23 | Permalink | Comments

Joe Williams over at The Chalkboard thinks we shouldn't hold our breath waiting for AFT's response to last week's story on the union's communications audit. His reasoning is sound:

1) The union is a private organization, not accountable to the public; and

2) The union is accountable to the members, who don't know or care.

I think we can safely live without a barrage of AFT talking points on the audit. I just wonder how quickly we'll slip back into the world of "let's pretend" when it comes to AFT's communications.

For example, how many of you remember this guy and this message?

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

Click here to read:

1) The Story Thus Far
2) EIA Exclusive: AFT State-by-State Membership Figures
3) Disbursements from AFT Solidarity Fund
4) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:13 | Permalink | Comments

Day Seven: I wait patiently with a pot of percolating coffee for any sign of Mulder and Scully starting their investigation of The Audio X-Files. Nothing. In the meantime, press inquiries are coming in, and bloggers continue to comment on EIA's exclusive on the AFT communications audit.

Milwaukee-ID10T calls it an "implosion," while Sherman Dorn wants to know more about the context of various quotes in the story. This is a legitimate question, so let me explain the two reasons why some statements that cry out for more detail, don't have more detail.

First, some speakers didn't provide more. They weren't being interviewed by a reporter, but by a person charged with evaluating the union's communications process. Some of the most candid comments had nothing to do with the question asked. The speakers were just venting general frustration and said nothing further on the subject quoted.

Second, in other cases providing more context would have tended to reveal the identity of the speaker, the identities of people he or she was talking about, or at least the department or division in which they work. So additional details were sanitized for their protection.

Thanks for writing. The communiqué goes out later today.

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

Now that EIA's new attorneys are attending to the CleverSpin distraction, I can return to the business at hand.

Eduwonk returned from vacation to even more family fun -- the AFT communications audit! Read his take here.

I'll have more useful stuff from the audit in Monday's communique'. Stay tuned.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:56 | Permalink | Comments

Surprise, surprise...

"The audio files are owned by CleverSpin. CleverSpin's clients have a reasonable expectation that sensitive information is, and will be maintained, confidential and private. Dissemination of any portion of the audio files will be a violation of CleverSpin's privacy and will constitute tortuous interference with its business practice and expectancy. Accordingly, CleverSpin will file civil claims against you for violation of its right to privacy and tortuous interference with business expectancy should you disseminate any portion of the audio files. CleverSpin demands that before COB Thursday, August 10, 2006 that you immediately: 1) return the audio files you obtained and destroy any copies made, and certify you have destroyed any copies; or 2) destroy the audio files you obtained and any copies and certify you have destroyed these.

"CleverSpin has not, and will not, challenge the genuineness of the information you have released.... Accordingly, CleverSpin asks you to cooperate with its demand, made in the interest of protecting interviewees, so that legal action is not necessary.

"In addition, based on our review of the facts, individual interviewees will have individual claims against you if he/she is damaged by any dissemination of the audio files.

"CleverSpin will also prosecute any criminal violations of its privacy and confidentiality and has contacted state and federal law enforcement officials including the FBI who (sic) is at this time reviewing the matter to determine if any federal laws were violated and if the FBI has causes of action."

If the FBI is reading this: Come on over. I'll put on a pot of Kona coffee for you. EIA can't afford to keep a lawyer on retainer, so I'll accept referrals to one who is practiced in crafting diplomatic responses to toothless threats.

I have already stated that I have no intention of identifying the speakers on the audio tapes, but I would expose myself to AFT legal action should I destroy the only material in my possession that can conclusively prove my story and the quotes therein are true and accurate.

The last thing in the world I want is legal entanglements with anyone. I feel I've acted responsibly, and I know I've acted legally and ethically. If the folks at CleverSpin think they can sue me over something they think I might do, good luck to them.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 19:16 | Permalink | Comments

Dr. Homeslice has the first published reaction from an unabashedly pro-union source on EIA's report of the AFT communications audit. Both Edspresso and The Chalkboard have weighed in, as well.

Over at AFT's NCLBlog, irony is dead.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:13 | Permalink | Comments

There was a lot of frantic activity yesterday at AFT headquarters, but the sounds have yet to extend beyond the walls. No need to - the media aren't exactly knocking down the door, and it takes time to gin up a good set of talking points.

EIA has heard from a number of people in the AFT affiliates, and the details of the Cleverspin report are no real surprise to them.

So I guess we all just sit quietly and wait.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:45 | Permalink | Comments

AFT Employees Reveal Their Innermost Thoughts in Secret Report on Union Communications

Staffers Speak Candidly and Critically About AFT's Structure, Culture and Politics


"No one seems to know what anyone else is doing."

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars are thrown in the trash."

"I have heard bold, outright lies told to large audiences."

These are just a few of the sentiments expressed by employees of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Their remarks were part of a comprehensive communications audit commissioned by the union to analyze and evaluate its practices for conveying its message to members and the public.

Read EIA’s exclusive report here.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:15 | Permalink | Comments