Intercepts

Greetings from Philadelphia. The day prior to the opening of the NEA Representative Assembly is for document retrieval and attendance at the open hearing on the strategic plan and budget.

The major event at this year's convention is the appearance of many presidential candidates. I learned today they will speak individually at different times throughout the four-day affair, not all at once in some kind of gigantic town hall setting.

It's unclear whether this will have an appreciable effect on NEA's political endorsement process, since the Democratic nomination will be sewn up by the time of the union's next convention. However, it does give all the delegates an opportunity to hear from the candidates before the start of the campaign proper.

A lot of people have asked me about which Democrat is the NEA favorite, official endorsement or no, and there's no question in my mind it is Hillary. In fact, it's not even close.

I expect Mike Huckabee will receive a warm welcome from the crowd simply for being the only Republican candidate to accept the invitation. But it only speaks to the desperation of the Huckabee camp that they're trolling for support in the home base of Democratic Party activism. I say that with no joy as I, too, run marathons and play the bass guitar.

Not that NEA doesn't do some crossing over of its own. Tomorrow night's NEA 150th Birthday Bash is being hosted by Bullseye the Target Dog (sans Charlize Theron, unfortunately). Rumor has it future NEA events will be hosted by Tony the Tiger, the Geico Cavemen, and Mr. Mucus.

I also discovered that NEA spent some of its media campaign fund money placing print ads in NASCAR event programs. It would make more sense to sponsor the pace car - ensuring that everyone moves at the same slow speed.

In addition to its national media campaign, NEA issued grants to 10 state affiliates for PR purposes, ranging from $30,000 each to West Virginia and Wyoming to $200,000 to the Oregon Education Association. Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and South Dakota were the other affiliates to receive money.

For 2007-08, 11 state affiliates will receive media money from NEA: Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas.

Funds distributed from the Ballot Measure/Legislative Crises Fund had mixed results. The $2 million for Oregon, $300,000 for Maine, $60,000 for South Dakota, $250,000 for Nebraska, $25,000 for Nevada, $170,000 for Texas, and $20,000 for West Virginia all contributed to NEA wins at the ballot box and in the legislatures. But the $2.2 million spent in Michigan, $350,000 in Idaho and $450,000 in Arizona ended in NEA defeats. Another $495,000 spent in Illinois to "improve the school funding situation" isn't doing the job either, though there is still time to salvage it, from NEA's perspective.

NEA also sent $148,000 to the Connecticut Education Association "to do public opinion and policy research to refute claims of charter school advocates." This money may have gone to related efforts, but I suspect it helped pay for this report.

I always get requests for NEA's current membership numbers, and indeed one of the delegates at the budget hearing asked for them. She was directed to get them from her representative on the NEA Board of Directors. NEA documents distributed at this year's convention only provide last year's numbers - comparable to these, posted on the EIA web site last year when they were just a few weeks old.

Using the skills of Kremlinology that I've developed after years of these hearings, it means that NEA is currently experiencing growth, but of a modest sort that suggests decreasing market share (that is, membership growth short of growth in the overall education workforce). When the current numbers are something to brag about, NEA brags about them (see the 2005 convention item "Most Current NEA Nationwide Membership Numbers Ever").

NEA has also established what it calls its "Targets of Opportunity" program, which places recruiting resources in those places promising the greatest return. This seems to be a change of strategy from previous years, when the union would try to shore up traditionally weak affiliates with more national help.

Finally, the No Child Left Behind Act continues to be the overarching issue for NEA. The union issued a helpful 20-page report detailing its efforts over the past year. It includes a brief summary of 48 NEA-supported bills pending in Congress that alter some aspect of NCLB. Also useful was the list of five non-starters for any reauthorization legislation. In other words, NEA considers all of these non-negotiable:

1) vouchers

2) "undermining of collective bargaining"

3) any new mandates in the definition of "highly qualified teacher," particularly any evaluation tied to student performance

4) additional testing

5) any mandated performance pay provisions, particularly those tied to student performance.

This year's combative social issue promises to be immigration. I'll cover this as it arises, but I suspect the-powers-that-be in both national political parties aren't losing sleep over NEA's official position on immigration, regardless of what it might turn out to be. But that's usually when the rhetoric on the convention floor gets most heated.