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

In 2009, EIA produced:

47 weekly e-mail communiqués;

324 blog posts;

and data for more than 13,800 school districts,

amounting to about 100,000 written words.

In my youth, I should have prepared myself better for a lifetime of typing.

This story about public schools in Erie, Pennsylvania, advertising on television hit the state news wire this week. Here’s one of the ads:

The schools claim they need the ads to compete with charter schools, which is interesting in light of this tidbit from a Wall Street Journal story last August: “KIPP Academies, a national network of charter schools, tried TV ads but yanked them for fear that parents might question ‘the quality of a school when they see it marketed like a used car,’ said Steve Mancini, a KIPP spokesman. KIPP found better success sending staff door to door in neighborhood to hand out fliers and talk to parents.”

And no, I don’t think the kids had SAG cards.

I don’t trust myself to comment coolly on this story from the Las Vegas Sun. So I’ll just provide the relevant excerpts:

A high school physical education teacher’s controversial comments to her students that reportedly disputed historical details of the Holocaust might not trigger her firing because state law requires one reprieve for professional misconduct.

Lori Sublette, who teaches physical education at Northwest Career and Technical Academy, is under investigation by the district for allegedly telling students that the Nazis lacked the technological capability to kill millions of Jews during World War II….

A Nevada statute from 1967 prevents a teacher from being fired for unprofessional conduct unless there is a prior admonition in teacher’s file for a similar offense.

“Everyone gets one bite at the apple,” says Bill Hoffman, senior counsel for the Clark County School District. “The law is very protective of teachers. They must be given a chance to correct their behavior.”…

[Clark County Education Association President Ruben Murillo] agrees with the district’s response to Sublette’s comments and the campuswide fallout, including to bringing in Holocaust educators to talk about the issue with students at the school. Some of those opportunities have been pared down districtwide because of reductions in state funding, which included money for Holocaust education programs.

“Whenever it’s appropriate, and with the approval of the district, we encourage teachers to make use of community resources to support instruction,” Murillo says. “It’s unfortunate this type of situation had to happen for those kinds of opportunities to take place at Northwest CTA.”

Guam Federation of Teachers President (and territorial senator) Matt Rector already has more than his share of scandals to handle, but you can add another to the list. The Pacific Daily News noticed he received $2,000 from AFT’s political action committee to support his 2008 campaign. Hardly surprising, except Guam law forbids it:

“It is unlawful for any bank or labor organization, whether or not authorized to do business on Guam, to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with any election to any political office, or in any primary election; A corporation, whether or not authorized to do business on Guam, may purchase no more than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) worth of tickets for each fundraising dinner or function for any political party or candidate, but not to exceed the aggregate contributions allowed under Subsection (a) of this Section. Such corporate contributions must be reported to the election commission regardless of amount. Every bank, corporation, or labor organization which makes any contribution in violation of this section shall be fined not more than Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), and every officer or director of any bank, corporation, or labor organization as the case may be, and any person who accepts or receives any contribution in violation of this Section, shall be fined not more than One Thousand Dollars ($l,000.00) or imprisoned no more than one (1) year, or both.”

I’m not sure if stating that a union’s PAC is not strictly a “labor organization” would be a legitimate defense, but Rector’s ground is getting more unsteady by the day.

Born in the third century, Nicholas of Myra was the inspiration for many of the Santa Claus legends. Read his story here, and view this trailer of a movie made about him.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

They’ve been at it for years, but Teamsters Local 14 in Nevada will get another opportunity to wrest representation of some 10,000 education support employees from their current NEA-affiliated union.

The Nevada Supreme Court ordered a new election, after the previous one in May 2006 resulted in a substantial Teamsters victory, only to be awarded to the incumbent NEA local because the Teamsters won a majority of those who voted, but not of the full bargaining unit. Only about half of those eligible cast a ballot.

Certainly some of the momentum has gone out of the Teamsters’ drive in the intervening years, but should they succeed, it would be a severe blow to NEA in Nevada.

The Higley Unified School District fired its information technology director, not only because he took school computer equipment home for his personal use, but because he programmed all of the district’s computers into the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life (SETI) network to help find aliens.

Bradley Niesluchowski now faces charges of using public money for personal use, possession of lost and stolen property, and computer tampering in an educational facility.

People voluntarily install the SETI software, which uses your computer while it is idle to “analyze radio telescope data in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.” But Niesluchowski went into the outer limits by downloading it onto 5,000 school district computers. Teachers complained their computers were slow to respond.

The district estimates it will take up to $1.6 million to replace and repair the computers.