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1) Coverage of NEA Representative Assembly Begins
July 2. For the 11th consecutive year, EIA will provide daily
gavel-to-gavel coverage from the floor of the National Education Association
Representative Assembly. Last year's procedures worked very well, so we'll
repeat them this year.
There will be no nightly e-mail communiqués from the
convention. I will blog each day's events on
Intercepts, which you can check at your convenience, or you can
subscribe to the blog's
RSS feed. If you absolutely insist on e-mail, go to the Intercepts
page, and scroll down near the bottom where you can sign up for blog updates
via e-mail. You need only provide your e-mail address. Feedburner will send
you a confirmation e-mail, with a link you must click to verify that it is a
working address. The rest is automatic. You'll get one, and only one, e-mail
per day with the full text of the content I have added to the blog that day.
It's quick, easy, and most importantly, doesn't require me to personally
send tens of thousands of e-mails.
You'll get in-depth reporting and analysis, plus photos
and video of the proceedings. In all honesty, as with other conventions of
all types, there is unlikely to be any earthshaking news. Delegates will
vote on whether to concur with the leadership's recommendation of Barack
Obama for the presidency. The only thing to watch there is the margin.
Almost the very last thing to occur will be Dennis Van Roekel's acceptance
speech as NEA President-elect. Traditionally this is where we get our first
indication of what the new president will emphasize throughout his or her
term. Nationally, Van Roekel is a bit of a cipher, so we may learn something
about NEA's direction for the next six years.
Otherwise, it's the usual amalgam of platform-building,
wordsmithing, self-congratulations and bad food.
Check out the EIA archive for July 2007 for a sample of last year's
coverage. After the convention is over, and as the summer wears on,
additional material from the convention will be part of your regular weekly
communiqués in July and August.
The first blog post will go up from Washington, DC the
evening of Wednesday, July 2, and each evening thereafter until the
convention closes on July 6. I will be available via e-mail for your
questions and comments during the convention, but please make allowances for
delays in my response.
Delegates and guests are welcome to visit with me by
the press section (left of the stage as you face it), but be aware I am
restricted from wandering around the convention floor. As always,
conversations with me at the convention are kept in confidence - not for
publication unless you explicitly authorize it. You are especially welcome
if you'd like to talk about marathons, C-130s, or the Byzantine Empire.
Finally, there will be no communiqué next Monday.
2) Working for the NEA. Long-time readers can
attest to my fascination with the ins-and-outs of the relationship between
unions and their own employees, who are themselves unionized. When teachers'
unions act as management, with negotiators from a union of labor negotiators
across the table, you get some mighty entertaining results.
Someone provided me with a copy of the tentative
agreement reached between NEA national headquarters and the staff union
representing professional employees assigned to its field teams in campaigns
and elections, ESP quality, constituent relations, regional offices and
national membership. Here are a few provisions, reproduced here verbatim,
from that contract:
* "NEA shall provide travel accident insurance of
$1,000,000 for loss of life for an employee traveling on official NEA
business."
* While an employee is traveling on official business,
NEA will reimburse "physical fitness/health club fees, up to $25 per day."
* "NEA shall… pay each employee $800 per contract year
for incidental fees associated with travel."
* "NEA will establish an Employee Wellness fund of
$2000 per contract year and will reimburse employees to a maximum of $100
per contract year for the following services/programs that are provided to
NEA HQ employees and when they are not covered by the employee's group
medical/hospitalization insurance: inoculations, exercise/yoga classes,
smoking cessation programs, CPR/First Aid training wellness classes, and
diabetes management programs."
* "NEA HR/Wellness will make health and wellness
programs available at least one time per contract year during field staff
meetings held at HQ. These programs may include: nutrition classes, health
screenings, stress reduction training, and/or seated massage services."
* "Any employee who informs NEA HR/Wellness of their
intent to engage in a walking for fitness program, whether individually or
in a group, shall be given a pedometer at NEA expense."
* "Each employee shall be entitled to arrange for up to
200 hours of outside secretarial support service each contract year."
* "Upon request by the employee, NEA will provide
webcams to employees. Effective September 1, 2008, NEA will provide
webcam-equipped laptops to new employees and to current employees in
accordance with the NEA laptop replacement schedule."
* "Employees who drive hybrid vehicles with mileage of
at least 45 miles per gallon and who have assigned parking in the NEA garage
shall receive priority parking."
3) Weak Enrollment Problems Only Beginning.
Teacher shortages and class size reductions have dominated the education
debate so it is perhaps understandable that it has taken this long for the
focus to change. But the numbers are getting harder to ignore, and the press
and education bureaucracy are starting to take notice.
Detroit school officials project a $408 million deficit
and 1,400 layoffs as enrollment stands to drop to its
lowest level in 91 years. The situation
isn't much better in Miami, and this morning's Los Angeles Times
highlights how L.A. Unified's enrollment drop affects more than just
personnel. The district
continues to build schools and facilities for students it no longer has.
Perhaps most disturbing is this quote from a consultant
who provides enrollment projections for California school districts: "The
hardest part for anybody who does projections on anything is when you get
what I call a curve change. Is it going to go down? Is it going to stay
flat? Is it going to go up again? That is the part where it feels like
you're reading tea leaves."
That would be amusing, if it weren't for the fact that
taxpayers are laying out billions in salaries, benefits and construction
bonds based on the divinations of school district soothsayers. The larger
districts are feeling the pinch first, and not all of them yet, but days of
reckoning are coming.
My suggestion in the pages of the
New York Daily News that such days are in store for the New York
City public system is getting some attention. It remains one of the paper's
most-read editorials nearly a week after it appeared.
4) Another NEA Affiliate Executive Director
Opening. Add NEA New Hampshire to the long, long list of NEA state
affiliates replacing their executive directors.
Here is the job announcement if you feel up to the task of dealing with
the labor problems associated with sagging enrollment.
5) Last Week's Intercepts. EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from June 16-23:
*
Can You Save Jobs Without More Students? Supporting evidence.
*
UTLA Dues Hike Resoundingly Defeated. But "don't give a crap" is the
real winner once again.
*
Charter School Tsunami. Where all the students are going.
*
Maybe They Were Just on the Wrong Coast. Next big thing or failed
experiment?
6)
Quote of the Week.
"Leaders engage in ideas and conversations with people. Those who are not
leaders want to control everybody, denying thought, denying reason." – New
York Gov. David Paterson, obliquely referring to the New York State United
Teachers' opposition to his proposed property tax cap. (June 18
Newsday) |
