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Since brevity is the soul of wit, and since you haven't
got time to read all the education news out there, EIA brings you Nano-News,
all of this week's top stories in byte-size portions.
1) Washington Education Association to Organize Pre-K Teachers. The
union is joining with AFT Washington in a joint organizing campaign, similar
to the one they established for higher ed.
2) Tucson Union Complains Pay Raise Money Used to
Reduce Class Sizes. The Tucson Education
Association claims $5.4 million in bonus money
was diverted to class size reduction. The district
says it wasn't.
3) California Unions Try to Rerun Last Year's
Campaign. Which isn't such a bad idea when you have a
lousy candidate.
4) NEA Sends $325,000 to Maine to Fight TABOR.
At least no one in Maine compared it to the Civil War, though they would
have had
a better hook than Nebraska did.
5) New Professional Educator Groups Pop Up.
Say
hello to the
California Teachers Empowerment Network and the
Utah Council of Educators.
6) LA Times Editors Out of Straws.
Looks
like UTLA
got the last one.
7) School Choice Black Market Hits Massachusetts.
Methuen, to be exact. You can use
this link if want to see EIA's collection of such stories.
8) "You Don't Say" Headline of the Week.
"Teachers influential in closing learning gap" –
The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware.
9) Dubious Achievement of the Week.
October 4
news release announcing, "AFT Becomes First Union to Use Text Messaging
as Part of Nationwide Member Mobilization."
10) Kansas City Star Runs Ad for Unions
Disguised as News Story. A little harsh?
Read for yourself.
11) Bagels and Knishes for Everybody!
UTLA's
Human Rights Committee wanted to host a meeting at union headquarters for
the wingnuts at
Café Intifada, but word got out, and the union decided discretion was
the better part of valor. "How can the
teachers of Los Angeles be expected to teacher (sic) accurately and
responsibly on the issues of the Middle East if they are not allowed to
explore those issues in their own union hall and are dictated what to say by
the perpetrators of brutality and censorship?" asks Emma Rosenthal, founder
of Café Intifada.
12) $450 Each for NYSUT's 403(B) Members.
Those
New York union members who got
lousy returns on their investments through the union-sponsored program
will receive an average of
$450 each under the terms of the $30 million settlement with ING Group.
State workers in New Hampshire are also covered by the settlement
13) Money for Nothing.
The New York City Public
Schools
spent $20 million on bus services for students who weren't riding the
bus. Think that's bad? How much was spent on education services for students
who didn't learn anything?
14) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from October 2-10:
*
Enforcing the Law. Who's going to enforce NEA's school dropout proposal?
*
Great Day in the Education Press. Lots of good stuff, plus a possible
Quote of the Year from UTLA President A.J. Duffy.
*
Union Democracy in LA a Little Late. "Thanks for voting!" said Mr. Moot.
15) Quote of the Week. "Literally nothing in Democratic
politics could happen without unions. Labor provides the money for
campaigns, the reliable volunteers who show up rain or shine. Labor helps
with field, GOTV, and media. It's not just that labor provides a lot of
help, it's that labor provides help reliably, cycle after cycle. Unions
don't get bored with politics, they don't decide that politics doesn't
matter, and union members show up and vote in primaries up and down the
ticket. They invest long-term in voter registration programs, they build
infrastructure that the party committees have traditionally scoffed at, and
they have been an immense force in progressive politics for a hundred years,
holding politicians accountable for their choices in office. And from what
I've seen, union members are much less likely to make political choices
based on race-baiting tactics that the right uses so well. Unions simply
create progressive voters….
"This of
course makes the crisis in union membership a crisis for all of us. In 1945,
nearly one third of all households were union households. By 1998, that
percentage dropped to 13.8%. The decline of the union movement parallels the
decline of the Democratic Party. The gradual rightward turn of the country,
the decline of the nation's industrial base, and a lack of investment in
organizing new workers and corruption within union leadership undermined the
reach of this largely progressive body of voters. It's the fairly standard
tragedy of industrial America; labor leaders were seduced by their access to
power, and rather than work on modernization and structural problems, they
held on to the past and allowed their unions to ossify." – Matt Stoller,
introducing readers to Andy Stern's book. (October 8
Firedoglake.com) |
