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1) Chickens Come Home to Roost in
Broward County. It would take a lot more space
than I have here to explain the carnival of corruption that is the Broward
County School Board in Florida. The signature event so far has been the
arrest of board member Beverly Gallagher after an FBI sting operation. I
suggest you begin with
this summary by Bob Norman of New Times, who writes, "The School
Board's leaders have, in short, behaved more like mobsters than public
officials."
The board's response was to engage in
selective happy talk, prompting
an angry rebuttal from the Broward Teachers Union, which helpfully
provided contact information for the FBI agent so that employees could
provide him with information about district corruption. Predictably, the
district blamed its problems on
poor PR and misinformation.
The most recent nuttiness involves the
union's assertion that
district officials intercepted and blocked e-mails from school employees
to the board on four different occasions. BTU's attorneys sent a
cease-and-desist letter to the board.
The union may have legitimate complaints
against the board, but it has only itself to blame. Overseeing this colossal
mess in
Board Chairwoman Maureen Dinnen. If the name sounds familiar to you,
it's because Dinnen is the former president of the Florida Education
Association, and held the position while United Teachers of Dade President
Pat Tornillo was using millions of dollars in union dues to buy himself
python-print pajamas, among other things. Tornillo's shenanigans were only a
part of the
financial problems FEA faced during Dinnen's tenure.
Having failed to do anything about union
corruption (a UTD whistleblower called the FBI on Tornillo), Dinnen was
perfectly qualified to turn a blind eye toward school board corruption,
thereby providing some sort of cosmic balance. But not all the board's
action were harmful to the union. New Times columnist Bob Norman
noted, "But this latest
generation of School Board swine is far worse than any from the past. This
gang has overbuilt the district with tens of thousands of empty seats,
literally wasting hundreds of millions of dollars. It's the same group that
ignored plummeting enrollment and failed to execute required state surveys,
instead continuing to feed the lobbyists and contractors who bankroll School
Board candidates' campaigns."
A check of
EIA's district tables for Broward County show that while K-12 enrollment
increased a scant 0.3 percent between 2002 and 2007, the number of full-time
equivalent teachers increased 19.4 percent.
Just as the
unions fail to acknowledge that the school principals they excoriate
regularly came from the ranks of teachers they defend regularly, the
officers of the Broward Teachers Union fail to acknowledge that Dinnen's
"see no evil" attitude as board president is a product of her reign at the
top levels of their own parent union.
2) Can You Hear Me Now?
According to the staff union, employees of NEA New Hampshire have to get
permission from their executive director before they can communicate with
anyone from NEA headquarters in Washington, DC.
Relations between the staff union and
NEANH Executive Director Debra Swoch-Swoboda have been strained for months,
but this policy suggests national staffers may have been lending moral
support to their peers in New Hampshire over recent grievances.
3) Indiana School District to Sue
ISTA Insurance Trust. It has been a while since we
have heard any news - that we can report, anyway - about the Indiana State
Teachers Association, its financial problems, and the status of lawsuits
concerning its bankrupt insurance trust. However, we do know that at least
one school district - the
Delphi Community School Corporation - will "move
forward with litigation" in order to "reclaim surplus funds" from the
ISTA trust.
Meanwhile, you still have time to
apply for the position of ISTA executive director. In the announcement,
the union states it "anticipates that the [NEA] trusteeship will be
terminated in early 2010."
4) Contract Hits.
Wherein we highlight a contract provision from the current agreement between
the National Education Association and its largest staff union. This is
Article 29, Section 6:
"At the beginning of each contract year,
NEA shall supply the Union with a list of the names and permit numbers of
all employees in the bargaining unit holding NEA parking permits. Said list
shall indicate which permits are for parking within the NEA Center. NEA
shall promptly notify the Union of any and all changes to such list as such
changes occur during the contract year."
5) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from October 12-19:
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California's Rainbow Coalition of Bad Math Scores. It's not the color of
their skin, but the content of their curriculum.
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StimuLie. Cash for clunkers.
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You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had. Muddy Waters and Nicholas D.
Kristof.
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American Justice. Overdue process.
* O
Canada. Northern exposure.
6)
Quote of the Week.
"But it's a sign of just how much the political climate in the education
world has shifted that ideas that Bush once sponsored that seemed almost
radical - like testing and data-collection - have become part of the norm."
- Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson. (October
17 Politico) |
