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

Thank you for your patience. I’m having some technical issues with Blogger.com and, in traditional EIA manner, I am using an indirect approach to bring this blog entry to you.

* The United Teachers of Dade have had an awful time trying to get former president Pat Tornillo to repay the money he stole. Now the Miami Herald reports the two parties have come to a court settlement. Tornillo will make UTD the beneficiary of his life insurance policy (and that of his wife) to cover his remaining debt. Tornillo is scheduled to be released from prison in February 2006.

* It took a New Zealand study to tell us what should have been obvious from the start: a major cause of childhood obesity is too much television. Congratulations to the Kiwis for getting in front of the fat pack!

* EIA once told you about the Philadelphia school district’s search for “truant ghost children.” Well, evidently they were riding the bus in Cleveland. Some schools reported that as many as 86 percent of their enrolled students were using the school bus, while the actual percentage was 5 percent. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the state and the school system actually cannot agree on how to count bus riders! No wonder math scores are so low.

* How do you feel about rent subsidies? Check out the latest Contract Hits.

* Outpost of the Odd: Russian official to Lenin – “We will bury you.”

Yesterday the Boston Globe published a piece by Vivian Troen and Katherine C. Boles that pretty much stomped on merit pay with a high-heeled shoe. They called it a “misguided plan to waste money and further strain an already exhausted system.”

Fair enough. But the authors’ names seemed familiar to me, and I went through the EIA archives and found this item from February 7, 2000:

Recommended reading: “America’s New Teachers: How Good, and for How Long?” by Katherine C. Boles and Vivian Troen in the February 2 issue of Education Week. An excerpt: “In the rigid school culture, star performance is discouraged by the egalitarian notion that each teacher is the ‘equal’ of every other teacher. This is a system which rewards only seniority and not merit, or knowledge, or expertise, or contributions to the profession. If all teachers are equal, then none is outstanding, and there are no failures.”

Well, we’re all entitled to change our minds, or maybe Troen and Boles have a plan to reward teachers on merit without calling it merit pay. In any event, the Arizona Republic published a serendipitous article today on performance pay that sums up the various experiments across the country.

From the Hartford Courant: “The Hartford school system has stopped providing snacks to hundreds of children in after-school programs because of a union grievance by food service workers who are demanding they be paid to distribute them.”

* The Los Angeles Times gives the California Teachers Association the comprehensive treatment. Especially note the quotes from prominent state Democrats and you’ll get a good sense of who really runs education policy in California.

* The Sacramento Bee notices something that skeptics of paycheck protection measures (including EIA) have long recognized — they don’t really deter union political action.

* People often ask EIA how unions influence the day-to-day operations in school districts. An investigator in Maine found out, and his findings are being censored.

* Intercepts is an Editor’s Choice in this week’s Carnival of Education, hosted by The Education Wonks.

I know we live in the age of the short attention span, but this is ridiculous.

California Teachers Association President Barbara Kerr wrote an op-ed for the Riverside Press-Enterprise in which she waxes poetic about dreams and respect, but also tries to revive the long-since-staked-in-the-heart vampire of a state teacher shortage.

“While not affecting every school district yet, the teacher shortage is real. California will need at least 100,000 new teachers during the next 10 years, warns the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning in Santa Cruz,” she writes.

What can be done? “Three issues top the list of things we must address: poor pay compared with other professions, unacceptable conditions for teaching and learning, and the lack of respect,” comes the response.

By way of reply, EIA will merely reprint here an item from the June 9, 2oo3 EIA Communiqué headlined “The Incredible Shrinking California Teacher Shortage”:

Section III D of the California Teachers Association’s (CTA) Statement of Mission, Goals, and Objectives states that “California faces the need to recruit well over 200,000 new teachers in the next five years.”
* February 22, 2000: “California faces a severe teacher shortage and will need an estimated 330,000 new teachers over the next 10 years.” – California Teachers Association (CTA) press release.
* November 16, 2000: “Our state alone will need at least 300,000 [new teachers] during this same 10-year period.” – CTA Vice President Barbara Kerr, in testimony to the Little Hoover Commission.
* January 2002: “In fact, we need to hire 20,000 new teachers every year for the next decade just to hold our own.” – CTA President Wayne Johnson in a radio ad.
* June 8, 2002: “No wonder there is a huge teacher shortage and growing worse every year.” – CTA President Wayne Johnson to the union’s State Council.
* December 2002: “[W]e must do something about the problems that are creating the frightening teacher shortage.” – CTA President Wayne Johnson in his column in the California Educator.
* June 5, 2003: “If you don’t care where you’ll go, you can find a job.” – CTA President Wayne Johnson to the Sacramento Bee.

* Michigan determines state funding to public school districts by how many students attend on two days of the year, one of which is tomorrow. The extent to which some districts will go to get kids into school tomorrow is breathtaking (a town crier?). But if they don’t show up on Thursday, how much effort will the district expend? A clear illustration of misplaced motivations.

Meanwhile, the burgeoning Clark County School District in Nevada overestimated its fall enrollment by some 4,000 students. That will reduce the district’s state aid by $17 million. But the district’s financial officer says no academic programs will be cut, and that the district will have to forego filling some administrative vacancies and computer purchases, and monitor its travel expenses.

Sounds like the marginal costs of additional students are pretty low in Clark County. We could use some good economic research on this issue (item #4).

* Breaking News: The North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) is informing its activists that it expects Gov. Mike Easley to increase teacher salaries using his discretionary powers. A provision of the state budget allows the governor to draw from the Reserve for Contingent Appropriations for such a purpose, after consulting with the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

“Since the legislature’s adjournment, NCAE has been in daily contact with the Governor’s office about the salary provision,” reads a union e-mail alert. “NCAE anticipates that Governor Easley will soon use this discretionary power to direct a substantial pay raise to teachers.”

* Fat Pack Update: The Sacramento Bee (again) and the Stamford Advocate join the herd.

* Outpost of the Odd: Woman attacks police officer with plate of chicken wings.