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

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, the Utah Education Association “wouldn’t confirm or deny” its upcoming $3 million grant from NEA’s national ballot initiative and legislative crises fund, as reported exclusively by EIA on August 20.

What is this, the Pentagon Papers? It will be public record as soon as UEA receives it and starts spending it on ads, billboards, consultants and paper clips. The evasiveness is just too cute for words.

Some other edu-bloggers have skipped town, so I thought I’d follow suit. I’ll update if events warrant.

Click here to read:

1) Additional Reading on Teacher Turnover for the New York Times
2) September EIA Video Intercept Highlights Convention Process
3) North Carolina NEA Affiliate Recommends Non-Candidate
4) Scheduling Note
5) Last Week’s Intercepts
6) Quote of the Week

In this space is where you’ll see the September EIA Video Intercept – at least you will once YouTube is back and operational.

Fortunately EIA is a big fan of redundancy, and you can watch the video in its entirety on the home page.

Why do we want students to pass high school exit exams?

So we don’t have to teach high school in college.

The New York Sun has published what may be the first newspaper story ever about guest bloggers. It’s a coup for Eduwonk.com, where for the past two weeks New York City Public Schools Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten have taken turns sitting in.

I’ll leave commentary on the substance to others, but I’d like to direct both Cerf and Weingarten to the section of the Sun story where Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform gives some crucial advice about blogging:

“He said the art is to be lively and avoid dragging on. ‘It’s harder to do than many people may think,’ he said.”

Be Lively and Avoid Dragging On.

And, if I may, avoid comical disclaimers like “Opinions here are my own and not necessarily those of the United Federation of Teachers, where I serve as President.”

I’d hate to think my blog entry on the teachers’ unions and Wikipedia somehow inspired a juvenile-minded attempt at vandalism.

Someone with an IP address in Reston, Virginia, made an edit to NEA’s Wikipedia page last Sunday (since undone) that altered the paragraph on NEA’s logo to read:

“Adopted in 1966, this symbol, which appears inside the ‘e’ in the NEA logo, combines the mathematical symbol for Pi (the ancient Greek word for education) with a monkey, both of which are set upon a background shaped as a spherical triangle, which represents the mutually supportive programs of local, state, and national education associations.”

Hilarious.

So, Reston boy, if you’re reading this, cut out that crap. And while I’m riding this horse, I think the folks in Utah need to cut out this crap. It’s stupid and counterproductive. If you want people to understand why NEA opposes vouchers, just tell them how many private school teachers belong to a union. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.