The story suggests a number of these reasons, except for the most obvious one: state governments don’t want to be tools of the NEA, even if they agree with the union. What governor or state legislature with any self-respect wants to be “enlisted” for a union lawsuit, then turn over the handling of it to NEA’s lawyers?

While the NCLB suit stalls, NEA’s legal team is keeping busy by filing statements in the union’s suit against the U.S. Department of Labor. Last year, the agency ruled that all NEA state affiliates were subject to the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) and required to file a “labor organization annual report,” known as an LM-2. These financial disclosure reports were previously only required of NEA national headquarters and about a dozen state affiliates who have private sector workers as members.

EIA believes NEA is on firm legal and precedential ground, but not all of its arguments hold water. NEA claims its state affiliates “were not established by NEA to function as, and in fact do not function as, operational units of NEA subject to NEA’s control” and that each state affiliate “is an autonomous entity that is governed by and operates to its own articles of incorporation, constitution and/or bylaws, elects its own officers and governing bodies, establishes its own membership eligibility criteria and maintains it own membership roll, levies its own membership dues and adopts its own budget, establishes and implements its own policies and programs, and employs and directs it own staff.”

Each state affiliate does have a large degree of independence, but NEA neglects to highlight unified membership rules, the UniServ program, and the program by which almost half of its state affiliate executive directors are, in fact, paid by NEA.

We’ll leave all that for the judge to figure out, but there is one other segment of the NEA filing that deserves mention. In non-bargaining states, NEA affiliates commonly claim they are not labor unions, but professional associations. The argument is specious, though it has had some success among teachers in states where labor unions are not particularly admired.

In attempting to present the best legal argument against the Labor Department, NEA unwittingly undermined the PR of its own affiliates in its motion for summary judgment. In it, NEA states clearly that its state affiliates “are public sector labor unions that Congress… purposefully excluded from the LMRDA’s coverage.” NEA asserts that the central question is whether the LMRDA applies to the state education associations, “all of which are public sector labor unions.” Res ipsa loquitur.

2) EIA Convention Coverage Begins July 3. EIA will issue its first communiqué from the National Education Association Representative Assembly the evening of Saturday, July 3, and each evening thereafter until the convention closes on July 7. Subscribers will automatically receive those bulletins via e-mail as usual, but this year they will also be posted on the EIA web site shortly after transmission. The direct link is http://www.eiaonline.com/convention.htm and there will also be a permanent link to the bulletins on the home page at http://www.eiaonline.com.

I will be available via e-mail for your questions and comments during the convention, but please make allowances for delays in my response. Delegates and guests are welcome to visit with me by the press section (left of the stage as you face it), but be aware I am restricted from wandering around the convention floor.

3) The Handwriting on the Wall. For many years public and private sector unions have been divided by their outlooks. Public sector unions generally have seen growing membership numbers and stable market share. Teachers’ unions have had the most consistent growth in this group. Private sector unions, on the contrary, have seen declining membership numbers and steadily worsening market share for the past 50 years.

The key question for union officials is whether public and private sector unions are entirely separate entities, subject to different forces, or simply at different stages along the same continuum.

Last week, the United Auto Workers announced efforts to reduce its work force by 15 percent. “We are rightsizing,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told the Detroit News. The News also published an eye-opening chart that showed UAW membership declining by 18 percent over the past four years. Dues income declined by $5 million over the same period, while spending on union employee salaries and benefits rose by almost $32 million.

Meanwhile, Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), told convention delegates that they must “either transform the AFL-CIO or build something stronger that can really change workers’ lives.” According to the Washington Post, Stern said, “Our employers have changed, our industries have changed and the world has certainly changed, but the labor movement’s structure and culture have sadly stayed the same.”

“Rightsizing” and serious introspection in the labor movement is long overdue, but it may be too late for UAW and many member unions of the AFL-CIO. The teachers’ unions may be heading down the same road. Union reform and school reform are two distinct issues, but the fortunes of one will certainly have a lasting effect on the fortunes of the other.

4) Student Strike Strikes Out. Last fall, the teachers of Marysville, Washington, went on strike for 49 days. Those days are now being made up and Marysville students don’t like it. Last week, about 50 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders walked out of Cedarcrest School to protest.

“Us kids are on strike because the teachers went on strike… and they took away our summer,” 14-year-old Josh Briggs told the Seattle Times. Josh has yet to learn to use the nominative case for his pronouns. “We kids” is the correct usage, although “All of us kids” is also acceptable.

Some of the students waved signs, including one that read: “We shouldn’t suffer for there mistakes.” The students have yet to learn the difference between “there,” meaning “in that place,” and “their,” a plural possessive pronoun.

Some parents supported the student strike by supplying coolers filled with soda and water. Some brought sunscreen. “Kids don’t deserve the treatment they’re given,” said Kristina Bains, mother of two of the striking students. “I’m ashamed of the school district I brought them to.” Ms. Bains has yet to learn to avoid ending sentences with prepositions.

“I think it’s definitely them voicing their opinion, and everybody has a right to their opinion,” said Marysville School Board President Vicki Gates. Ms. Gates has yet to learn that “everybody” takes singular pronouns, so that “everybody has a right to his or her opinion” is correct.

The strike evidently fell apart as many students “lounged around on blankets, blasted music out of stereos, bickered and threw ice at each other,” according to the Times account.

5) Your Choice of Malamalama. After the conclusion of the NEA Representative Assembly, EIA will return to the Washington, DC Convention Center for coverage of the AFT Convention. But NEA President Reg Weaver will head to the Aloha State, to deliver an address to the University of Hawaii College of Business on the topic “Is America Preparing Its Students for a Competitive Global Environment?” The lecture will be held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. Tickets will cost $32. Choose your source of enlightenment wisely.

6) Recommended Reading. With the 9/11 Commission featured prominently in the news, many people are interested in intelligence failures, how they come about, and how they can be prevented in the future. They may be surprised to find answers in The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich, published this year by Schocken Books.

Rabinovich’s history of the war is comprehensive, but most timely are his accounts of how the Israeli intelligence apparatus and government ignored or reasoned away the overwhelming evidence that Egypt and Syria were about to launch a concerted surprise attack on October 6, 1973. Israel had impeccable physical, electronic and human intelligence, along with analysts who had extraordinary Arabic language, cultural and political knowledge, and they were still caught with their pants down.

Apart from its benefits as a history, The Yom Kippur War also teaches a lesson about the consequences of groupthink, and the dangers of failing to periodically reexamine even our most basic assumptions.