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

After the Barbara Bullock scandal (see Item #2 here), the last thing anyone expected to see from the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) was more allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement. But union vice president Nathan A. Saunders has made those claims against president George Parker and other WTU officials in a lawsuit filed in federal court yesterday.

The Washington City Paper reports:

“Named in the lawsuit are Parker, WTU Chief of Staff Clay White, Al Squires and Edward J. McElroy of the American Federation of Teachers (the WTU’s parent organization), four members of the WTU executive board, and three unnamed DCPS employees. The various defendants are charged with offenses including fraud, racketeering, and breach of fiduciary duties. In the complaint, Saunders says he has been exposed to “direct intimidation and retaliation impacting employment benefits, rights and privileges” for speaking out on labor issues, including [DC school chancellor Michelle] Rhee’s attempts to reclassify central-office employees as ‘at-will.’”

Saunders claims WTU officers “embezzled, stole, or unlawfully and willfully converted WTU money and funds to their own use or the use of others,” including a “diversion of WTU funds, though an out of state company, to a family member over a protracted period of time,” and an “undecipherable $10,000 finder’s fee.”

Saunders has credibility because he is in a position to know what is going on in his union. At the same time, because his first action was to file suit, rather than notify law enforcement of his suspicions, we should be very cautious about accepting his version of events without further evidence.

Click here to read:

1) California and Arkansas School District Statistics Posted
2) Did School District Boundaries Lead to Mortgage Crunch?
3) That’s Why It’s Called the Golden State
4) Last Week’s Intercepts
5) Quote of the Week

An Associated Press story from Douglas, Georgia:

A Coffee County High School substitute teacher has been arrested in
what police say appears to be a scheme to bilk money from students promised a
trip to Disney World.

Police charged 39-year-old Christy Wise with theft by conversion after
they say she collected more than $7,400 from students for their senior trip but
never booked the reservations.

Nearly 50 students toting suitcases and bags lined up outside Coffee
County High on Friday waiting to start their vacation, but the bus never came
and Wise never showed up. Police believe Wise never had any intentions of
scheduling the trip.

An official at the Coffee County Jail said Wise posted bond and was
released Sunday. The amount of the bond was not immediately known.

Barack Obama on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace interviewing:

WALLACE: And we are back now with Senator Barack Obama. Senator, one of the central themes of your campaign is that you are a uniter, who will reach across the aisle and create a new kind of politics. Some of your detractors say that you are a paint by the numbers liberal and I’d like to explore this with you.

Over the years, John McCain has broken with his party and risked his career on a number of issues, campaign finance, immigration reform, banning torture. As a president, can you name a hot button issue where you would be willing to cross Democratic party lines and say you know what, Republicans have a better idea here.

OBAMA: Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

WALLACE: Such as.

OBAMA: Well, on issues of regulation, I think that back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, a lot of the way we regulated industry was top down command and control. We’re going to tell businesses exactly how to do things.

And I think that the Republican party and people who thought about the margins came with the notion that you know what, if you simply set some guidelines, some rules and incentives for businesses, let them figure out how they’re going to for example reduce pollution. And a cap and trade system, for example, is a smarter way of doing it, controlling pollution, than dictating every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and oftentimes is less efficient.

I think that on issues of education, I have been very clear about the fact, and sometimes I have gotten in trouble with the teachers union on this, that we should be experimenting with charter schools. We should be experimenting with different ways of compensating teachers. That –

WALLACE: You mean merit pay?

OBAMA: Well, merit pay, the way it has been designed I think that is based on just single standardized test I think is a big mistake, because the way we measure performance may be skewed by whether or not the kids are coming in the school already three years or four years behind.

But I think that having assessment tools and then saying, you know what, teachers who are on career paths to become better teachers, developing themselves professionally, that we should pay excellence more. I think that’s a good idea. So –