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

Authored by Danny Weil:

“The president of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association (NEA), Dennis Van Roekel, weakly insisted that Obama’s call for teacher performance pay did not necessarily signify raises or bonuses would be tied to student test scores under No Child Left behind, as merit pay proponents have consistently called for. According to the NEA president, it could mean more pay for board-certified teachers or for those who work in high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools.  However, much to the chagrin of the NEA president, administration officials later clarified the issue, saying that among other things, they most certainly do mean to tie higher teacher pay to student achievement on standardized tests.”

* Education Next is an indispensable print journal, but if I have to read another education policy blog, my head will explode.

* Actor Tony Danza will co-teach at a Philadelphia high school for a reality TV series. If the principal thinks things aren’t working out and tries to fire Danza, will we learn Who’s the Union Boss?

* New York State United Teachers estimates 5,000 to 7,000 school jobs lost statewide this year.

* Obama and Duncan opened with a pocket pair, Schwarzenegger called and raised, Miller came over the top, but one wonders if they are prepared for Sanchez to go all in.

…but only for charter schools.

Many school districts across the country are seeing headlines about student enrollment like this one, but in Florida, the response from the teachers’ union is this:

“While we are in this area where we are not growing economically it gives us an opportunity to look at the way we structure our budgets; are we collecting the right taxes from the right people? Are we currently properly funding education?”

So the calculus goes this way: If enrollment increases, funding should increase, and if enrollment decreases, funding should increase.

And you wonder why math scores are low.

I knew my laptop was deteriorating after the NEA convention, but I thought it would hold up for a couple of weeks at least. But no! It defies belief, but I’ve now fried two computers in four days.

I’m blogging this on a borrowed computer. And I plan to sign off immediately afterward lest I go three for three.

Have no fear. I will endeavor to persevere. More tomorrow.

Click here to read:

1) NEA Gets Into the Real Estate Business
2) I Just Happened to Be in the Neighborhood
3) Contract Hits
4) Last Week’s Intercepts
5) Quote of the Week

I hope your weekend was a little more relaxing than mine, as the hard drive on my seven-year-old Gateway decided to fry itself last Friday morning without any warning. I have back-ups of my most important material, but it’s going to take some time to reconstruct. All of last week’s work on the updated district spending tables was lost – though I did manage to post Alabama’s before everything went to hell.

The blog and the communiqué shouldn’t be adversely affected, but operations will be significantly slower here for the time being. Thanks in advance for your patience.