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

Teachers at the Dolores Elementary School in Carson, California, don’t like Principal Anna Barraza and want to get rid of her. If you care about the reasons why, there’s an entire website listing them.

With the help of United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers organized a sleep-in at the school, setting up a tent city so that when Barraza returns to work this morning after a vacation she’ll be greeted by a bunch of teachers in their pajamas. That’ll teach her.

What’s remarkable about the situation is not the stunt itself – it’s the fact that Barraza, like most principals in the Los Angeles Unified School District, is represented by a union, the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles. A spokesman for the AALA calls the protest “grandstanding.”

I’m wondering why UTLA is trying to oust an incompetent public education employee, instead of insisting upon her due process rights, as clearly outlined in Article VII – Evaluation and Due Process in the AALA collective bargaining agreement. Apparently Barraza is entitled to “assessment and assistance,” “peer participation and support,” and “peer assistance and review,” not to mention a lengthy administrative and appeals process if she is dismissed.

AALA should not countenance UTLA’s union-busting tactics and should protest by holding a work-in. As for the teachers, they should worry about the city council.

More good news from New Orleans:

“After years of scrambling to find good teachers, many public schools in New Orleans have more aspiring teachers than they know what to do with as the new school year approaches.

“‘We have far more applicants than we have positions for,’ said Paul Vallas, superintendent of the Recovery School District. With more than 1,000 resumes on file, Vallas said the district could easily double its teaching pool, if necessary.

“At Miller-McCoy Academy, a new charter school serving only boys, administrators said they received about 20 applications for every opening at the new school.

“Competition for teachNOLA was just as fierce: About 2,450 people applied for just over 100 spots in a teacher training and recruiting program that does not even guarantee them jobs in New Orleans schools.

“As the surge in applications to local universities like Tulane showed, New Orleans has become a destination for young people who want to live in a place where they feel a unique potential both to make a difference and have fun.

“The explosion of interest in teaching here can also be attributed to the marketing techniques of programs like teachNOLA and Teach For America, which have used the Internet to spread the message among 20-somethings, in particular, that New Orleans is the place to be for young educators bent on change. The city’s growing reputation in education reform circles has fueled that message.”

Illinois State Sen. James Meeks will try to draw attention to “ever growing school funding inequalities” by taking a bunch of Chicago Public Schools students and trying to enroll them in the “wealthy, white New Trier suburban school district.”

It’s an excellent publicity stunt. I hope it draws attention, instead, to why students don’t have the freedom to attend schools on the other side of an arbitrary border.

Click here to read:

1) NEA Media and Political Fund Allocations
2) To Bio or Not to Bio
3) Invisible Ink in Collective Bargaining
4) Last Week’s Intercepts
5) Quotes of the Week

The Wall Street Journal reports about the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) this morning:

“The union adopted a new amendment to its constitution at last month’s SEIU convention, requiring that every local contribute an amount equal to $6 per member per year to the union’s national political action committee. This is in addition to regular union dues. Unions that fail to meet the requirement must contribute an amount in “local union funds” equal to the “deficiency,” plus a 50% penalty. According to an SEIU union representative, this has always been policy, but has now simply been formalized.”

So let’s all get out of town and boogie down.

Today’s Arizona Republic has a profile of new NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. This is only natural, since Van Roekel was once president of the Arizona Education Association. The story, however, is missing a fundamental bit of information. What kind of group is the National Education Association?

The story describes NEA as a “nonprofit.” OK.

The “organization has members in every state in the country and at American schools on military bases overseas.” Uh-huh.

And “Van Roekel along with the 3.2 million NEA members are working to help other young people live their dream.” Oh boy… but all right, it’s a profile, not an investigative report.

That’s it. So, to aid the Arizona Republic and its readers, here is a short explanation of exactly what kind of “nonprofit” NEA is, from the relevant Internal Revenue Service publication:

“IRC [Internal Revenue Code] 501(c)(5) provides for the exemption from federal income tax of labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations….”

I’m pretty sure NEA isn’t an agricultural or horticultural organization, although I do recall Reg Weaver waxing rhapsodic about agricultural extension services last year. So it must be a labor organization, which the IRS describes as:

• An association of workers
• Who have combined to protect or promote the interests of the members
• By bargaining collectively with their employers
• To secure better working conditions, wages, and similar benefits.

 It isn’t often you can go to the IRS for terseness and clarity, but hurrah for small miracles.