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

The National Education Association is advising its activists to urge Congress to take action on “a timely, targeted stimulus package that will provide relief to low- and middle-income families.”

With economic disaster looming, NEA believes “the government needs to step in with an immediate solution.” What solution? “Congress and the president must come to an agreement as soon as possible to stimulate new spending right away, so businesses don’t have to lay-off workers or cut back on production.”

The boys at NEA’s Gosplan even have some suggestions for what should be included in this stimulus package:

“* Assistance to help communities repair and modernize schools. In addition to improving learning environments, such assistance will help create jobs.

“* Funding for the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act. This critical program, which provides guaranteed funding to rural, timber-dependent schools, has expired and, without immediate relief, many communities will have to layoff school staff and cut programs.

” * Provisions to address the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision. Repealing these unfair offsets will provide long overdue relief to millions of retirees currently facing significant financial insecurity.

” * Repeal of the Helium Privatization Act of 1996 to restore jobs lost in the dirigible industry.“

OK, I made up that last one.

Number of Democratic presidential candidates who abandoned the race before being deemed “acceptable” by the National Education Association: Zero.

Number of Democratic presidential candidates who abandoned the race after being deemed “acceptable” by the National Education Association: Four.

Events at the Bruce Randolph School in Denver have been all over the Colorado papers and blogs for weeks, but for some reason the story hasn’t broken out in the rest of the country. It should, because it’s more important than the district’s much-ballyhooed performance pay program.

The short version: Bruce Randolph was once one of the worst schools in the state, but recent reforms have turned it around. Now the school’s principal, teachers and union reps want exemptions from several provisions of the teachers’ contract, which they say are hindering their efforts.

Guess what the union said.

In an unusual moment of insight from an editorial board, the Denver Post correctly analyzed the problem as having little to do with the school or its performance. The editors wrote:

“But the union, frankly, had been backed into a corner on this issue. Decline a request from a successful inner-city school that has gotten national attention and you look like obstructionists. Agree, and run the risk that other Denver schools will want the same thing and your organization ebbs into irrelevancy. So the union tried to come out somewhere in the middle, granting waivers but not buying off entirely — a move that ends up smelling of desperation.”

Too often, education stories completely miss the labor angle – mainly because education unions don’t want to admit they have self-interest.

In any event, it’s going to get very interesting in Denver, because the Bruce Randolph administration and faculty refuse to back down. Greg Ahrnsbrak, a union rep at the school, said, “They [the union] are doing everything they can to block a real reform effort. Reform is happening. You’re either going to be on the bus or beneath it. I want to be driving it.”

“Get a life! Do (sic) bad the jury wasn’t deliberating whether to shut you up or not!” – the full text of a message sent last night through EIA’s Dead Drop page.

Dude, I’m not the one sending misspelled anonymous e-mails at 11:40 p.m.

Click here to read:

1) EIA Exclusive: NEA Gave $12 Million to Advocacy Groups
2) Last Week’s Intercepts
3) Scheduling Note