Despite all the soothing talk since then, it was patently obvious to anyone who cared to observe that the plan was sinking fast. Even the safeguard Beck had installed -- a 70 percent "no" vote was required to eliminate the program -- didn’t seem so insurmountable anymore. Only the evaluation process was put in place. Last Friday, the program was scuttled before the pay component was ever implemented. The margin -- 3.7 percent in favor, 96.3 percent opposed, with a 63 percent turnout -- should give pause to anyone who thinks that any radical experiment in teacher pay could become a national model.

"This is not a vote against pay for performance, this is a vote against the viability of the current plan," said CFT President Susan Taylor. She is wrong. If a program with such heavy union involvement could not generate more momentum than 3.7 percent of the membership after two years, there is no reason to believe that tinkering around the edges will help.

2) Texas Federation of Teachers Approves Partnership with Independent Union. The executive council of the Texas Federation of Teachers (TFT) approved a partnership with the independent United Educators Association (UEA), creating a moment of truth for the NEA-affiliated Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA). TSTA is heavily engaged in merger talks with TFT, and this new deal may derail them.

UEA represents some 11,000 members in the Arlington and Fort Worth areas. Under the new agreement, UEA will remain independent, but will receive state lobbying information from TFT, and the two unions will not raid each other in certain counties. TSTA has lost a lot of members to UEA, which is especially galling because Larry Shaw, UEA’s executive director, was a former TSTA UniServ rep.

The TFT council defeated a motion to delay the agreement until it could be negotiated in the TSTA merger talks, then approved the agreement on a voice vote. The ball is now in TSTA’s court. The union’s convention delegates recently authorized the board of directors to take whatever action it deems necessary in response to the TFT-UEA agreement. Sources tell EIA that the board will meet this weekend to decide on a course of action.

* The bill is scheduled to be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. It is expected to pass, though some committee members may judiciously abstain.

* CTA President Wayne Johnson made headlines by recounting conversations he had with Gov. Gray Davis in which the governor directly asked for a $1 million campaign donation. Johnson claims he and the other CTA officers present responded with "absolute stone silence." Davis did not deny the conversations took place. Johnson placed the request in a larger context when he told the Sacramento Bee, "I want to know who’s been taking our money for years, say they support our issues and then vote against us. We need to hold these people accountable." EIA applauds Davis and Johnson for ending any pretense about the union’s relationship with the state government. For people who oppose any application of the market to public education, they are certainly know how to buy and sell votes.

* Taking a page from CTA, high school students in St. Louis area school districts are seeking formal input on curriculum and textbooks. The National School Boards Association estimates about 15 percent of school boards nationwide have student members, but only 2 percent have student members who are allowed to vote.

4) Miami Union Communications Director Arrested. For 28 years, Annette Katz labored in relative obscurity for the United Teachers of Dade (UTD). As the union’s communications director, she is responsible for presenting UTD’s position to the media, and she also edits UTD Today, the union’s monthly organ. But in a period of 48 hours last week, Annette Katz became the best known communications director in both NEA and AFT.

On Monday, May 13, Katz was excoriated here in the EIA Communiqué for comparing a dissident union shop steward to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. On Wednesday, May 15, Katz was arrested for trespassing in the press room of the Miami-Dade County school board. Katz has always had access to the room in the past, but the board issued a new policy restricting access to reporters of "general circulation" publications. The Miami Herald, according to its own account, and several other news organizations had complained about Katz’s presence because the union "is often the subject of news stories being prepared in the room."

Katz was told on Wednesday she would not be allowed into the press room. When the door was locked against her, she pounded loudly on it until a reporter let her in. Soon after, district police officers entered and placed her under arrest. She was later released on her own recognizance.

For its part, UTD claims Katz’s ejection was "months in the making" -- a vendetta of two school board members and a reporter for Miami’s Channel 10 who has broken a number of stories critical of the union. A lengthy account of the vendetta appears on the UTD web-site -- an account almost certainly written by Katz herself, though there is no byline and she refers to herself in the third person.

EIA has no opinion on the merits of Katz’s case, but the verdict on her journalism is in. Katz’s reporting of her own arrest is unintentionally hilarious. Amid the idle speculation about other people’s identities and motives, the story contains such gems as:

* "Katz read his lips."

* "Some time passed and then, like thunderclouds crossing a mountaintop, Joe Arriola, a large burly guy, emerged and marched into the pressroom."

* "An absolute calmness came over Katz and instead of kicking him in the teeth, which was her first inclination, she turned and said ‘I don’t believe we’ve met; my name is Annette Katz. How do you do?’"

* "Jilda, who was watching and has yet to put one bit of this entire incident on the news, screeched out, ‘Where did you get your press pass, Annette, Las Vegas?’ Again, Katz was inclined to tell her where to go, but refrained and ignored her."

* "Subsequently, she began removing her jewelry in anticipation of the arrest..."

* "She immediately took a defiant ‘media only’ cookie, took her seat and waited."

As Ms. Katz happily munches away on her defiant cookie, EIA leaves you with one question: Why does a school board need a press room?

5) Will Budget Cuts Spell End to Domestic Defense Department Schools? While we are fighting a war on terrorism, one might think that funding is not a serious problem for the Department of Defense. More money has indeed been appropriated, but the military has also been forced to reassess its priorities in order to free up funds. One of the casualties of the budget wars may be Department of Defense Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools (DDESS). It is generally well known that the military runs schools for dependents overseas (DoDDS) and these will not be affected. But 30,000 students attend over 70 schools on military bases in the United States, Guam and Puerto Rico. Most of these schools educate students who live on base. Those who live off base are educated in the community’s public and private schools.

Congress wants to prepare a study to consider closing DDESS schools and sending the kids elsewhere. The move would save the Defense Department about $1.5 billion over the next 10 years, but much of the cost would simply be shifted to the Department of Education, which would have to provide impact aid to the local school districts that would absorb the new enrollees. The Federal Education Association, the union for DoDDS and DDESS teachers, is organizing a campaign in opposition to the study. It is ironic that it is extremely difficult to shut down failing schools in the United States, but DDESS schools, whose students -- particularly poor and minority students -- consistently overachieve, may disappear in one fell swoop.

6) Connecticut Schools Have Their Own Border Patrol. For some years, EIA has followed "the black market in school choice" -- parents lying or misrepresenting their place of residence in order to get their children into better public schools. The problem seems especially acute in the Northeast, where the urban public schools tend to be the worst, while their suburban counterparts are often the best the nation has to offer. The Hartford Courant periodically addresses the issue, and last Tuesday published "Bouncers at the Schoolyard Gate" by reporters Jim Farrell and Steven Goode.

Farrell and Goode rode with Jon Searles, a former cop who is now a full-time "residency investigator" for Windsor Public Schools in Connecticut. Searles staked out the declared home of a middle school student to see if she emerged from the front door in the morning to head off to school. Two other girls did, but the student in question did not. She became of one of the 71 disenrollments credited to Searles this year.

"School bus drivers, curious about a new passenger, might request an investigation," write Farrell and Goode. "A school nurse may become suspicious when trying to reach the parent of a sick child during the day." Other informants include landlords and neighbors. The reporters also noted that kids who pose discipline problems go to the top of the residency investigation list.

7) Louisiana Unions Oppose Tax Break for Teachers. Louisiana State Rep. Jack Smith (D-Patterson) introduced a bill that would exempt public school teachers and support personnel from state income taxes. A similar measure last year in California was significantly downsized to a tax credit of up to $1,500 for teachers, based on years of service in the state. Even so, the state’s two teachers’ unions swiftly announced opposition to the measure.

"(The bill) is not in the best interests of teachers. Raising the salaries will keep teachers," Tom Tate, a lobbyist for the NEA-affiliated Louisiana Association of Educators, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Ferdinand Troullier, a lobbyist for the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, told the Baton Rouge Advocate that the bill "will open the floodgates," predicting that other state workers would seek the same tax exemption.

"I don’t really care about the teachers’ unions," said Rep. Smith. "This will help teachers keep more money in their pockets." The independent Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana supports the bill.

Note. The EIA Communiqué will next appear on Tuesday, May 28.

8) Quote of the Week #1. "What have we got, an educational Taliban here? Are they gonna require burqas soon?" -- California Teachers Association President Wayne Johnson, reacting to a Southern California middle school’s dress code for teachers: slacks and ties or polo shirts for men, and no bare legs, pierced tongues, jeans or sneakers. (Associated Press, May 12)