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

A very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year to all Intercepts readers and EIA enthusiasts.

The next blog entry and EIA Communiqué will appear on Tuesday, January 3. In the meantime, you still have plenty of ore to mine for new nuggets:

*NEA’s Annual Labor Organization Disclosure Report – Part One, Salaries

* NEA’s Annual Labor Organization Disclosure Report – Part Two, Contributions, Grants and Political Expenditures

* The NEA Pyramid, EIA’s report on NEA’s member surveys.

New Jersey asked its citizens to come up with a new slogan for the state to use in its tourism advertising. You can vote for one of the five lame finalists here, but I prefer two that weren’t selected:

“NJ: How You Doin’?!”

and

“Most of Our Elected Officials Have Not Been Indicted”

* The Tennessee Department of Education is agitated because only three of every 10 students eat breakfast at school, even though more than half qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

Now, to a twisted and warped mind, this might suggest that the percentage of eligible students who are not eating school breakfasts are actually eating breakfast at home, as they ought to be. They might even prefer the food they get at home to the school breakfast. Or (horrors!) they might not want breakfast!

The federal government, however, refuses to believe that even poor people might be feeding their own children, and is running a “Got Breakfast” PR campaign to get more families to sign up, because $382 million appropriated for school breakfasts last year was never used.

* A new Contract Hits is up!

The president of Vermont NEA said the union would give up the right to strike in exchange for binding arbitration and an end to imposed contracts.

“It’s a critical principal (sic) in labor negotiations to keep a balance,” Angelo Dorta said. “What we are looking for is a law that would allow each local community to decide whether to favor binding arbitration in lieu of teacher right to strike and board right to impose contract conditions.”

For those of you who wonder how that would work, here are a few photos of a no-strike law in action.

I must admit I’ve never shared the popular fascination with the NEA Resolutions, but they are one of the most requested items from EIA. This year, NEA finally saves me some work by posting the most recent version — approved at the union’s Representative Assembly in July — on its web site.

Navigating to it is a bit tricky, so here is the direct link:

http://www.nea.org/annualmeeting/raaction/resolutions.html

Some of you wondered how, and for what, NEA had paid $60,646 to Morris Costumes of Charlotte, North Carolina, so I’ve posted this small hint.

Here at EIA, we live the philosophy of Dr. Seuss, who once said, “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

Click here for the full EIA exclusive:

Last week, EIA reported on the salary portion of the 2004-05 labor organization financial disclosure report (LM-2) filed by the National Education Association. This analysis concentrates on contribution, grants, political expenditures, and other outlays made by the union during the year.

Here are just a few expenditures:

* Bredhoff & Kaiser, the law firm of NEA General Counsel Robert Chanin, received funds in a number of different categories, totaling $1,143,316

* The Fund to Protect Social Security: $400,000

* Communities for Quality Education received $2.5 million from NEA, in addition to whatever funds CQE raised from individual NEA state affiliates.

* Economic Policy Institute: $45,000

* Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards: $5,000

* Rainbow PUSH Coalition: $5,000

* The Ripon Society: $10,000

* Food Research and Action Center: $5,000

* Morris Costumes: $60,646

* NCATE: $311,722

* People for the American Way: $51,200

* Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: $200,000. This is the nonprofit formed by the NEA state affiliates in the north central part of the U.S.

* Harvard University: $25,000. Listed as pertaining to “research services and statistics,” it is unclear whether this is a grant to The Civil Rights Project or for something else. NEA is, nevertheless, a contributor to the CRP.

* Council on Foreign Relations: $6,000

* Aramark Corporation: $145,766