Intercepts

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:15 | Permalink | Comments

The good folks at Education Sector have provided a service by conducting interviews with the presidents of 30 local union affiliates in six states: California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Ohio.

There isn't anything earth-shattering in there, but it's all the more useful for that. You get in narrative form what seems clear from NEA opinion surveys of local presidents - the further you are from NEA/AFT headquarters, the more diversity of opinion you find.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:59 | Permalink | Comments

Sure, we all complain about China not being communist enough, but former Vermont NEA organizer Ellen David-Freeman decided to do something about it.

Read her heartwarming tale of trying to "help mitigate the negative effects of the global market economy model espoused by Gov. James Douglas and the Vermont business leaders who recently concluded a joint prospecting trip to China."

Commisserate with her as she "notes ruefully that most of the students say they have little use for the Marxist worldview that she regards as essential to understanding history and politics."

Learn as she explains that "China does not conform to many Americans' depiction of it as a monolithically repressive and exploitative state. 'Sure, there are sweatshops' and strict limitations on individual freedom, David-Friedman concedes. But there's much more to China than that, she adds."

And finally, be inspired: "But maybe, in some small measure, these Vermont Progressives can help put the world’s largest country back on the track toward socialism."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:44 | Permalink | Comments

After extensive negotiations with organizations representing retired NEA staffers, the union agreed in writing to fund to 100 percent its liabilities under its new multiemployer pension plan (see Item #4 in yesterday’s communiqué). In exchange, the retirees agreed to give NEA 14 years to achieve full funding, and to refrain from any demonstrations, picketing or organizing activities at the NEA convention in Philadelphia next week.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:05 | Permalink | Comments

If you are going to challenge a well-established union for representation rights, you have to be a bit of a maverick - or a screwball - by nature. I'm not sure which of these describes Ron Taylor, but he's making a splash in Sin City.

Taylor's entrance into the world of union raiding came courtesy of a controversy surrounding the Clark County Education Association's (CCEA) administration of a teacher training program (see Quote of the Week here, with accompanying link to newspaper story). Taylor claims CCEA colluded with the school district to silence his criticisms.

CCEA defended its program, but its return salvos against Taylor really crossed the line, including a veiled insinuation that he might be some sort of pervert.

Taylor is certainly a larger-than-life character, and it has helped gain attention for his cause, which is to decertify CCEA and replace it with a teachers' union affiliated with the Teamsters.

Teamsters Local 14 has made deep inroads among the district's support employees, and may yet snatch representation rights from the NEA-affiliated Education Support Employees Association (see Item #2 here).

Now the chances of the Teamsters unseating CCEA are so slim as to be hardly worth mentioning (especially with NEA HQ trying to work out a national no-raid agreement with Change to Win), but Taylor's first mission is to get CCEA members to drop their membership during the two-week window in July. This is the same first step that was taken in the Teamsters' campaign against ESEA.

Taylor has a web site, support from the Teamsters, TV coverage and the likelihood of more media attention as he stages a rally in front of CCEA's offices to promote his campaign.

Teachers' unions are notoriously bad at handling militant protest tactics so this bears watching.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:18 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) Coverage of NEA Representative Assembly Begins July 1
2) EIA District Tables Now Include Teacher Stats
3) Bullseye the Target Dog Buys Off Union
4) NEA Staff Pension Issue Won't Go Away
5) School Choice Black Market Goes International
6) Denver, Performance Pay and Recruitment
7) Stop the Presses! I Agree with the Union!
8) Looking for a Few Thin Men Who Can Read
9) Your Shop Steward Is Not Your Lawyer
10) The Wages of Sin
11) Last Week's Intercepts
12) Quotes of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:26 | Permalink | Comments

Former United Teachers of Dade President Pat Tornillo died in Tallahassee today.

Tornillo will forever be the poster boy for union corruption, particularly so because he committed his crimes as head of a teachers' union, where such acts are relatively rare occurrences.

Tornillo made many appearances in the pages of the EIA Communiqué and Intercepts. Take your pick from this page or simply dig into this EIA exclusive from May 5, 2003.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:59 | Permalink | Comments

The Detroit News editorial board knows how to get more teachers... by putting those release-time union officers back in the classroom.

Release time should be examined closely in every district, but it's hard to believe the News editors are serious. Especially when they also state:

"Teacher union presidents also tend to be more experienced and better instructors. Keeping them out of the classroom may hurt student achievement."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:02 | Permalink | Comments

Noticing my questions about the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future report on teacher retention, Alexander Russo asked his Chicago readers to comment on the effect of the city's residency requirement - an effect that went unexamined by NCTAF. If the first anecdotes are any indication, it's a big factor.

One commenter mentions an annual high school job fair:

"Nobody out of the thousands of prospective teachers at the thing thinks about teaching in Chicago. The reasons are several, but one of the biggest is the residency requirement. I've attended three of these things over the past four years."

Another mentions the real estate market:

"The fact is, Chicago real estate has gone up over 100% in the past 4 years. It is just bad timing for a new teacher and first time homebuyer. I read an article in the Tribune about a shortage of nurses in Chicago. The number 1 reason was housing."

The point is that the NCTAF report chose two districts out of five (and by far the two largest ones) with an unusual characteristic affecting teacher retention and failed to account for it. But they did have time to dream up a Teacher Turnover Cost Calculator.

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

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Education Intelligence Agency. I want to thank all of my readers, clients, lurkers, sources, critics and fans. It's a bit of a cliché to say that none of this is possible without you, but in my case it's literally true.

There is no such thing as great unread writing. The reader completes the equation. And until the written word is read, the writer can never be sure if his work will be affirmed, rejected, amplified, diminished, cheered, denounced, misunderstood or ignored. I have had ample doses of all of these reactions, and they have reshaped my work over the last 10 years.

Your participation is important because while the truly great authors can pen great thoughts for posterity, I like to refer to this as "disposable media." Future generations will not dig through my blog posts. (Come to think of it, they might not dig through anything.) This is storytelling, and while I'm sure Homer would be happy to know we are still studying the Iliad and the Odyssey, it probably wouldn't match the thrill he got from his own audiences' reactions as he recited his epic poems.

So, again, thank you. Without you, I am some guy muttering to himself.

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

The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future released The Cost of Teacher Turnover in Five School Districts: A Pilot Study. I encourage you to read the full report for yourself, especially as the newspaper accounts tend to focus on the researchers' recommendations rather than their research (the Washington Post story even repeats the fifty percent in five years figure, erroneously crediting it to NEA).

The authors examined five school districts: Chicago, Milwaukee, Granville County (NC), and two small districts in New Mexico - Jemez Valley and Santa Rosa. These districts have a number of unusual characteristics, but let's stick to one BIG one.

The NCTAF researchers analyzed 59 variables that may affect teacher turnover, including age, race/ethnicity, experience, grade level, salary, enrollment, student poverty, and student academic performance.

How strange, then, that the report doesn't mention one critical factor in teacher turnover that is very rare, but exists in both Chicago and Milwaukee - a residency requirement for teachers. In order to teach in Chicago's and Milwaukee's public schools, you must live within city limits.

I have no idea whether a teacher residency requirement affects turnover positively or negatively, but it must affect it somehow. Decisions about staying or leaving a job in Chicago's public schools may in fact be decisions about whether to live in the city of Chicago. Just hypothetically, teacher turnover in Chicago and Milwaukee could be reduced significantly by allowing teachers to commute from the suburbs.

I suppose it's hopeless to fight the tide on this one. I've got one organization accusing me of conspiracy-mongering on teacher turnover. But if it's such a problem, it must be measurable. And if it's measurable, it should be measured accurately and in context.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:48 | Permalink | Comments

The Educational Testing Service released a new poll about the No Child Left Behind Act. Both Education Week and Eduwonk examine it thoroughly, but they both bury the lede, in my book.

I know I've beaten this dead horse before, but the key finding of the poll is that most people know very little about NCLB, so the poll results are based on opinions given after the law has been described to them in a short paragraph - after more than five years of news coverage, research and debate!

We can blame ignorance and apathy on the schools, but at some point you have to ask where individual intellectual curiosity has gone. Maybe the best argument for NCLB is that we don't want kids to grow up to become just like the people polled by ETS.

Here's the depressing summary from ETS:

The Public Is Largely Uninformed About NCLB

A majority of the public (54%) remains unaware that Congress passed and
the President signed into law a major education bill. Of the 46% who do know it,
only 14% believe that major changes are under way as a result. This is critical
to understanding how the public approaches education reform.

• Only 12% of the public claim to know a great deal about NCLB. An
additional 33% say they know a fair amount. That means about half of the
American public admits to knowing little (38%) or nothing at all (16%) about
this major legislative initiative.

• Even when presented with four possible NCLB descriptions, less than
half (47%) of the public correctly associated NCLB with standards and testing.
It was almost exactly the same for parents of children in K-12 schools (49%).
Significant segments of the public associate NCLB with national testing for high
school graduation (12%) or school vouchers (8%).

• A large segment (26%) associates NCLB with not leaving students
behind as they move from grade to grade at the end of the school year. They
think of "social promotion" when they hear the phrase "no child left
behind."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:04 | Permalink | Comments

The Associated Press reports unions are important to Democratic candidates!

The Seattle Times calls the Washington Education Association's use of agency fees "money laundering"!

The Long Beach Press-Telegram learns the pitfalls of covering the inner workings of the teachers' union!

The members of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future don't read Education Week!

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 06:54 | Permalink | Comments

From AFT's NCLBlog:

Summer Break

June 15, 2007 01:46 PM

The blog is on summer break, though it reserves the right to do a little work if it gets bored with the tanning, swimming, barbecues, baseball games, etc.

See you in the fall.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:12 | Permalink | Comments

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation devoted itself for years to carrying Davenport, et al, v. Washington Education Association to the U.S. Supreme Court and should be justifiably proud of the 9-0 decision in its favor. If you have any doubts it was a real victory, you just have to read the sour grapes statement from the WEA.

"The WEA wants nothing more than to bring an end to this prolonged litigation," said WEA President Charles Hasse. Of course, WEA had the power to do so at any point, simply by switching to an opt-in procedure. It's much too late to complain about the waste of "valuable time and resources."

But the unions, as usual, have the last laugh. WEA already muscled an amendment to the state law in question through the legislature as an "emergency measure," so it won't have to do anything differently. As for the national implications, you need only take a look at the headline from the AFL-CIO blog:

"High Court Ruling on Union Dues Will Not Affect Union Practices"

The sad fact is, union power is achieved politically, and so it can only be defeated politically. Despite dwindling membership market share for at least four decades and a private sector workforce where an employee can go for years without seeing a union member, never mind become one, unions have lost little clout.

Unions are now, and will increasingly be, public sector organizations, which means their growth is directly tied to the growth of government. And since no American President or Congress has stemmed the growth of government, we're stuck with the status quo for the foreseeable future.

You can win battles, but you can't occupy enemy territory.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:00 | Permalink | Comments

"We hold that it does not violate the First Amendment for a State to require that its public-sector unions receive affirmative authorization from a nonmember before spending that nonmember's agency fees for election-related purposes. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Washington and remand the cases for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."

Read the entire decision here.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:12 | Permalink | Comments

Barry M. Young, former treasurer of the Delaware State Education Association, pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of making a false statement in exchange for having two other counts dropped.

Young's financial problems were personal ones, and apparently were unrelated to his work at the union. DSEA didn't help the matter when Young was indicted, calling for his immediate resignation while at the same time claiming that he had no control over union finances.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:54 | Permalink | Comments

The four-day strike is apparently over, pending a ratification vote.

UPDATE: The cause of the strike was the district's demand that teachers' contributions to their health care premiums increase from 10% to 20%. The increase is reportedly in the tentative agreement, phased in over two years.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:30 | Permalink | Comments

While a lot of attention is being focused on Education Week's devastating report on graduation rates, I don't want you to miss something just as important in this week's issue.

Reporter Bess Keller examines teacher retention in a story deliciously headlined, "Oft-Cited Statistic Likely Inaccurate." Keller analyzes the undying qualities of the claim that "half of all new teachers leave the profession after just five years on the job." She notes "the figure is rarely presented in context, often because it is being used to incite alarm. Teacher turnover is roughly in line with that in other professions with similar educational requirements for entry, such as nursing and accounting. And that is so even with the pressure on school districts to get rid of teachers in their first two or three years before tenure protections make it more difficult."

I've ranted about this phony stat for years (most recently here, with links to all the other times) and it's going to take a lot more than one story to put a stake through it, but it's a small victory, all the same.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:57 | Permalink | Comments

The melodrama at the headquarters of the Teachers Association of Long Beach continues unabated. I thought you would enjoy this account of the shenanigans from a reporter at the Long Beach Press-Telegram:

"Although the teachers rallied at Long Beach headquarters, the board's meeting was moved from that location to a Santa Fe Springs office of the California Teachers Association.

"After demonstrating for about an hour at TALB offices, a group of about 50 teachers drove to the Santa Fe Springs building.

"A CTA staff member told the protesters gathered in the lobby that the meeting was moved from TALB offices to Santa Fe Springs because of safety concerns. He declined to speak with a Press-Telegram reporter....

"As a Press-Telegram reporter and the teachers were waiting for the closed-door meeting to wrap up, some teachers shouted at the reporter to leave, prompting a CTA staff member to order him to exit the building."

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

Teacher strikes are illegal in Massachusetts. The teachers in Quincy went on strike. Return-to-work orders were issued. Court orders were issued. The union was ordered to post the orders on its web site, and make specific mention of the strike's illegality. As you can see, none of this has happened.

So while the bureaucracy spins merrily, the strike continues.

Don't enact laws you cannot, or will not, enforce. Just say no to no-strike laws.

UPDATE: The union has posted the back-to-work order on its web site.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:00 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) EIA District Statistics Show Enrollment, Hiring and Spending Largely Unrelated
2) Ohio Coalition Has Odd Idea of Funding Reform
3) Albuquerque Spends on Priorities
4) Free Membership Until Your First Paycheck
5) First Salvos Fired in Missouri Collective Bargaining Wars
6) NEA Defies Retired Staffers
7) Last Week's Intercepts
8) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 13:36 | Permalink | Comments

"I hope we're at a tipping point. I do hear more and more people starting
to say things they've never said before about change, about education. Public,
private, charter -- it doesn't matter. It's about what works. There are good
schools with unions and there are good schools without unions. We just need more
good schools no matter who's running them."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:16 | Permalink | Comments

NEA addressed the results of the Center on Education Policy's report on NCLB by urging caution.

"If anything, this report should sound an alarm that we are drawing conclusions without all the facts," reads the NEA release, adding, "Our students are looking to us to untangle the lines and clear the confusion."

The union's newfound respect for research discipline is comical, coming from an organization that once extrapolated Hawaii's school construction needs from South Carolina's data (second item here), and put a price tag on America's school technology needs with statistics from three states.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:21 | Permalink | Comments

United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten thinks we need a Manhattan Project and a Marshall Plan to improve public education.

Uh, didn't the Manhattan Project obliterate before the Marshall Plan rebuilt?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:22 | Permalink | Comments

Due process denied. A contentious board vote. Teachers picket and take their noisy protest inside the building. Office doors are locked against them. The police are called.

Just another labor action? Though the tactics are familiar, the target was unusual. This protest was at the headquarters of the Teachers Association of Long Beach in California.

Watch the highly entertaining QuickTime video on the web site of the Long Beach Press Telegram.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:53 | Permalink | Comments

Who says schools districts and teachers' unions never collaborate?

If you read nothing else today, read this editorial by Locke High School teacher Bruce William Smith about what really happened after the petition was submitted to convert Locke to a Green Dot charter school.

Short version:

"We had a mandatory after-school meeting, at which representatives from the LAUSD and the teachers union attacked the plan for three hours. Green Dot was barred from participating."

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

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

Dr. Homeslice has a theory about Locke High, Green Dot and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:14 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) NEA Donates $250,000 to Anti-War Group
2) Anti-Charter Campaign Highlights Dishonesty in Card Check Argument
3) Last Week's Stories Come to a Head
4) NEA Behind the Scenes of Good Morning America's NCLB Segment
5) Last Week's Intercepts
6) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 14:06 | Permalink | Comments

Back in 1999, I wrote a report for the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution called "Mission Creep," about how large school districts did not display economies of scale, but rather expanded their mission into areas less and less related to education.

From that report:

"Since children learn better when they are well-fed, the schools feed them. In the same way, schools provide transportation, counseling, childcare, health services, security, etc., every one of which may be very worthwhile and important activities. The problem? Soon these 'support' functions require support of their own and before long the school district is no longer a school district, but a social services center. Education -- the original mission -- loses primacy."

From today's Charleston Daily Mail:

"In an effort to make sure more kids get proper nutrition when school's not in session this summer, Kanawha County schools will for the first time be busing some students to facilities to eat breakfast and lunch and transporting shipments of hot meals to areas where they're needed."

No one argues against feeding kids. But is it the proper role of the school system to not only feed them when school's out, but give them rides to their meals? Why not just adopt them?

Meanwhile, the same school system will decide whether teachers will receive a bonus for showing up to work:

"Under the proposed policy, the county would pay teachers and other school employees up to $1,050 each for not using their sick leave."

Ha! Chump change! Los Angeles teachers can get up to an additional $1,500 for showing up to work, plus other protections (scroll down to the last item).

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:02 | Permalink | Comments

Wow! All I had to do was ask if we were running out of stories and I got three weekend blog entries from Sherman Dorn, Dr. Homeslice and the king of them all, Eduwonk, who questions my steeliness.

No problem, Andrew. As any Marine will tell you, the Air Force isn't the real military.

Seriously, though, my intention wasn't to put you guys to work on the weekend, but to wonder why we (I include myself) seem to have hit a content pothole. I know it's June, but that was never a problem before.

I'm working on updating my school district enrollment and spending tables with the new Census Bureau data. Hopefully that will generate a lot of material. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:20 | Permalink | Comments

School will be out soon, and it's a slow time of year for education stories, but I hope it's not getting this bad.

This morning, two of my favorite blogs - Alexander Russo's This Week in Education and Joanne Jacobs - both blogged a week-old story from the Los Angeles Times about district teachers interested in converting their schools to Green Dot charter schools (Intercepts blogged it here last Friday).

We've already lost The Chalkboard and School Me!, we're getting reduced content from Eduwonk and The Education Wonks, and Edspresso hasn't regained its feet after being handed over to the Center for Education Reform by the Alliance for School Choice.

I'm not a fan of blogrolls, but I'm going to start working my way through some of them. If you have a recommendation for a newsy or unique edublog I ought to be reading, post it in the comments.

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