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1) Holiday Appetizers.
Thanksgiving is almost here, so I won't stuff you ahead of time. Here are a
few tiny tales to nibble on. Enjoy your holiday.
* If I were running the Albany
Times-Union, I would have headlined this story "AAAARRRRGH!" The paper
reports:
"On Monday, state Education Commissioner John King said he
would like to see larger districts in more densely populated, and
wealthiest, parts of the state explore consolidation to save money."
Do a keyword search of "district
consolidation" on Intercepts to peruse the utter lack of evidence
that consolidation saves any money at all.
* There may be a long list of reasons
why certain Wisconsinites would want to recall Gov. Walker. I'm willing to
bet this one isn't too high on anyone's list: "Laid-off
teachers union negotiator could get job back if recall succeeds."
* Why would anyone in any walk of life
express expertise in predicting the future? If people were actually good at
it, Las Vegas would still be a desert wasteland and Wayne Newton would be
broke. The Alabama Education Association predicted more than 1,000 teachers
would retire rather than pay higher health insurance premiums.
The actual number was 466.
You can still argue that it's a
significant number. But AEA undercut its own argument by trying to put a
number on it without any real way of telling for sure.
* The Boston Teachers Union
hired an airplane to fly a banner with its contract negotiations message
on it. Is the union tempting Fate? Another BTU did the same thing this year,
and now, in light of its current situation,
people are asking how wise an expenditure it was.
2) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from November 15-22:
*
Criminal Investigation Leads to AFT Administratorship in Broward. The
livin' is easy, if you run a local union in south Florida.
* Broward
Money Troubles Shouldn't Have Been a Surprise. When you lobby the
government to spend more than it has, it must be hard to say anything when
your organization consistently spends more than it has.
*
AFT Names Tarka to Run Broward Teachers Union. Well, at least they know
what the problem was.
*
Diane Ravitch Sends George Soros into Hiding. Ted Turner also nervous.
*
Unleashed? An NEA bigwig is "free to be me" only after retirement.
3) Scheduling Note.
The next issue of the e-mail communiqué will appear on Monday, December 5.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
4)
Quote of the Week.
"A
professional sports league only has a certain amount of money to give its
players. Why do you want too much of that money going to the wrong players?
Why not come up with a better model, something that addresses the issues of
rookie contract guys outperforming their deals (like Derrick Rose or Russell
Westbrook) or meal tickets like LeBron and Durant making less money than
Vernon Wells or John Lackey? I'm fine with players making as much money as
they can - can we just make sure those players are good and deserve the
money? God forbid we figured out how to work performance-based incentives
(like All-Star or All-NBA appearances, top-5 MVP votes, the Finals MVP or
someone who spends a certain number of years with the same team) into the
labor negotiations these past few months."
- Bill Simmons, sports columnist. (November 18
Grantland) |
