Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

High school students in Grand Rapids, Michigan, will see an “H” instead of an “F” on their report cards if they fail a course. The “H” is supposed to stand for “held.” The Grand Rapids Press reports, ”About 2,400 failing grades were converted to ‘held’ grades for the trimester. Students will have the option of repeating the course, taking it as an online class on Saturdays or evenings and working with tutors.”

I’m with the teachers’ union on this one. Grand Rapids Education Association President said the move reeks of desperation as administrators look for quick ways to improve the percentage of passing students.

It’s also going to cause some confusion for the local 4-H Club.

Michele McNeil at Campaign K-12 gives us a rundown of President-elect Obama’s education policy working group. If history is any guide, many of these folks will end up as federal bureaucrats, so you should get to know who they are before they… well… maybe who they are doesn’t really matter all that much.

Click here to read:

1) You Have the Right to Remain Silent
2) Students Violate First Rule of Cheating
3) Contrary-to-Fact Conditional Sentence
4) Last Week’s Intercepts
5) Quote of the Week

I would have bet the ranch that I would hear from Lester L. Washington after publishing “If the Suit Fits” last Tuesday and I wasn’t disappointed. Follow the link and check out the comments section.

The last time I lost control of my blog like this was because of a story about the Joseph K. Lumsden Bahweting Anishnabe charter school in Michigan.

Calm down, everyone.

I’m taking a big chance writing about Lester L. Washington, but here goes.

Washington used to be the president of the East Baton Rouge Parish Association of Educators in Louisiana. He was removed from office in 2002 on the charge of misusing union funds. In June 2006, Washington pleaded no contest to felony theft and was ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution to the union and received a sentence of five years probation.

Since his union career ended, Washington has sued the Mississippi attorney general, Jackson State University, and all the members of the Mississippi state board of trustees for higher education for assault, libel and slander. He then sued former NEA President Reg Weaver, former Louisiana Association of Educators President Carol Davis, and all the members of the East Baton Rouge Parish Association of Educators board of directors for breach of contract.

The latter suit was dismissed by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting a news story in the Baton Rouge Advocate last Saturday. The Advocate reported:

Acting as his own attorney, Washington later filed his lawsuit. He alleged that one or more of his former fellow educators — not him — were responsible for the money stolen from the Baton Rouge education group. However, the 5th Circuit found “no factual support” for Washington’s claim.

Washington also alleged that his former colleagues retaliated for his reporting of “child abuse” against a 17-year-old office worker at the association office, the 5th Circuit ruling states. But he offered no facts to support claims he was entitled to relief under federal whistle-blower protection laws, employment discrimination laws or state civil service rules, the appellate ruling states.

Washington also challenged a number of rulings by U.S. District Court Judge James J. Brady, alleging that trial judge of his lawsuit “engaged in intentional or unintentional obstruction of justice” by dismissing evidence in his lawsuit.

However, the 5th Circuit agreed with Judge Brady’s warning — the American practice of allowing lay people to act as courtroom lawyers “is not a sword with which to insult a trial judge.”

Washington proceeded to sue the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, each of the judges individually, and Lexis/Nexis on a charge of discrimination. Washington also communicated with the Advocate, which this morning printed a second story - this time with Washington’s version of events:

In a point-by-point response to a story published Saturday about the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeal’s dismissal of a federal lawsuit against top officials from his old union, Washington said he never admitted to stealing union funds.

In 2001, two white union members “illegally seized” six to eight boxes containing cash, checks and receipts from the office where he served as the parish educators’ union president, CEO and CFO, Washington said.

The case against him was motivated by greed and race, said Washington, who is black.

“To save money, they framed by stealing all the checks and money out of the office,” he said.

Click here to read:

1) How to Improve Sidwell Friends School
2) Who’s the Boss?
3) Signs of the Apocalypse
4) Last Week’s Intercepts
5) Quotes of the Week

The Associated Press keeps telling us that former AFT President Ed McElroy is on the short list to become U.S. Secretary of Labor. If he gets the job, he may want to find a place for his daughter, Kathy McElroy, who lost her bid for election as second vice president of SEIU Local 580 in Rhode Island.

The Pawtucket Times reports, “For a McElroy to lose a union vote is like a Kennedy losing an election in Massachusetts.”

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters notices that one of the major reasons California is facing a massive budget deficit today is because of a deal  Gov. Gray Davis cut with the California Teachers Association eight years ago.

Read Walters’ column, then return with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear, courtesy of the EIA archives. First, from the EIA Communiqué of May 15, 2000:

Thousands of members of the California Teachers Association gathered on the steps of the Capitol last Monday to deliver their message. Some of them traveled a full day to get to Sacramento, then waited on the steps for hours, then listened to more than an hour of speeches. They could have taken a much-needed lesson in brevity from the Teachers Association of Long Beach, who lined up in front of a TV camera and chanted “We want money!” an hour before the start of the rally. The event received widespread media coverage, though very few reporters availed themselves of the slick CTA color brochures set out in the media tent….

The rally itself consisted of supportive speeches from the head of the school administrators association, the head of the school boards association, the head of the PTA, the Senate leader (Democrat), the Assembly speaker (Democrat), the Senate minority leader (Republican), and the lieutenant governor. Since this constituted representatives of virtually the state’s entire education and appropriations establishment, one wondered who the rally was meant to persuade. CTA President Wayne Johnson then spoke of the glory days of California public education, when the state was well above the national average in per-pupil spending, in the top five in teacher salaries, and had high test scores. The unspoken irony is those days all fell before a collective bargaining law for public school teachers went into effect in July 1976. If we are to take Johnson at his word, 24 years of union dues, lobbying and the unprecedented exercise of political power has led to nothing but backsliding for teachers and students. Hmmm….

The day after the rally, Gov. Gray Davis announced the addition of $1.84 billion for education to the state budget. CTA immediately announced the suspension of its plan to place a spending initiative on the November ballot.

The Republican “opposition” did its best to illustrate for you why I’m a registered Libertarian (n.b. not anymore), by echoing the CTA rally line of “more money, fewer strings.”

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte. “I really commend him for making the money discretionary, which has been the Republican proposal because it allows greater local control.” The press finally caught on, though the GOP still hasn’t, that the new money has a very big string attached in most of the state’s districts. “I don’t think it’s accurate to say it’s discretionary when you know that many, many school districts already have it in their collective bargaining agreements that it’s going to salaries,” said Jim Sweeney, superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District. “If all the money is passed off to teachers’ salaries, then our problem hasn’t changed,” said Irvine School District board member Mike Regele.

Adding insult to injury, CTA President Wayne Johnson later recounted for his members how the payoff came about. From the EIA Communiqué of July 17, 2000:

“While you were on your way to Sacramento, I was driving there the evening of May 7, and the governor and I talked three times on my cell phone. The first call was just general conversation. The second call, he had an offer of $1.2 billion above the Prop. 98 limit, but we would have to rethink our initiative and call off the rally. I told him we could not do that. On the third call, he upped the ante to $1.5 billion if we would again rethink our initiative and convert the rally into an anti-voucher event. Again I told him we couldn’t do that.”

Johnson went on to describe the rally events, then continued: “At the rally, Speaker Hertzberg asked if I would meet with him and the governor afterward. At 7 that evening, CTA Associate Executive Director for Governmental Relations John Hein and I joined Governor Davis, Sue Burr (education advisor), Speaker Hertzberg, Lynn Schenk (the governor’s chief of staff), Rick Simpson (Hertzberg’s policy director), and Tim Gage from the Department of Finance in the governor’s office. The governor offered $1.7 billion and again asked that we review our initiative proposal. We asked what guarantees we would get on this proposal; they gave us their word.

“The Board of Directors met that night, with only one day before the deadline to submit the initiative signatures. The officers and board members agreed we had to have a stronger guarantee; we were going to submit the signatures. Lynn Schenk called that evening and asked us to delay submission for 24 hours, and then she asked us: What did we want?

“We told her we would hold the signatures, but what we wanted was a written guarantee, not just a verbal promise. Later that evening, President Pro Tem of the Senate John Burton called and asked for a meeting with Speaker Hertzberg, John Hein and me in the morning.

“At that meeting, Hertzberg and Burton offered $1.84 billion above the Prop. 98 limit, along with a letter from the Department of Finance guaranteeing it would be added to the budget. Lynn Schenk came to the meeting to tell us that Governor Davis approved. He, Senator Burton and Speaker Hertzberg would hold a press conference that afternoon and announce the settlement.

“And that’s how we got that $1.84 billion…”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the voters of Minnesota!