This week, a high school in Wisconsin established an anonymous crime tip voice mail system. School officials in North Carolina warned three middle school students to stop casting "death spells" or face suspension. At the same time, a prominent educational consultant wrote in Education Week:  "Soft-handed treatment of school employees charged with unconscionable behavior has createda national crisis."

School safety is a politician's dream issue. Who can object to protecting children? Yet the evidence suggests that school systems are overreacting to incidents of student crime, and woefully underreacting to incidents of employee crime. EIA's latest report, Rotten Apples: School Crime from a Different Angle, explores this dichotomy by filling the information gap on school employee crime. During 1998, EIA used newspaper stories, public documents and other sources to uncover 359 offenses in 44 states and the District of Columbia. The findings of a handful of newspaper investigations suggest the problem is much worse than the public knows, due to a lack of any national database on the subject.

Rotten Apples is available for free. Contact EIA at the numbers listed at the bottom.

Press Briefs - Good news all around this week on the quality of education reporting:

• Kudos to the Los Angeles Times which, today, published three excellent education pieces. The first was an editorial about upcoming school board elections. The Times editors alerted readers to the stakes, writing: "If fewer captives of the unions are elected to the board, future pay raises are more likely to be dependent on accountability." A Column One story by Richard Lee Colvin addressed the decline of self-esteem programs in California. After ten years, the data show what critics have said all along: that achievement leads to self-esteem, not vice versa. And most importantly, another story by Colvin discussed the reaction of the California Teachers Association to Gov. Gray Davis' education proposals. The content of the story was not as remarkable as the fact that Colvin attended a CTA State Council meeting and reported on the debate there.

• The San Diego Union-Tribune also covered the State Council meeting, and a second article by staff writer Maureen Magee reported on a controversy caused by an article in the newsletter of the San Diego Teachers Association chargingthe district with trying to privatize education.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the uncontested election of Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Ted Kirsch and his entire slate (reported by EIA last week). A total of 166 positions went uncontested. Rather than accepting the spin that the result showed overwhelming love for Kirsch, reporter Susan Snyder went to former PFT President John Murray, who said that some teachers have become disillusioned and apathetic about the union's leadership. "They've become another level of the school district'sbureaucracy," said Murray.

• The Chicago Tribune reported on the growing problem of Ritalin abuse.  Several area districts have had break-ins and thefts of the drug. "There's so much of it available through legal means, and although some people like to dress it up by calling it a stimulant, it's an amphetamine," said psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Roberts. "As my young patients who abuse drugs tell me, Ritalin provides the same high as snorting cocaine (does)."

Legislative Briefs: 

• In his State of the State speech, Gov. Mel Carnahan renewed his call for collective bargaining of public employees. Observers believe the bill could possibly pass the Missouri Legislature, provided it contained no-strike provisions.

• A Colorado House Committee passed a bill that would allow local school boards to waive virtually any state education regulation. "It's a SCUD missile," said House Assistant Majority Leader Bryan Sullivant. "You send it up, but you never really know where it will come down." The Colorado Education Association and the Colorado PTA oppose the bill.

• The South Dakota Education Association is going all-out to kill HJR 1001, a bill to place a measure on the state ballot similar to California's Proposition 13. The initiative would limit the growth of property tax valuations. SDEA fears the bill would "further erode our funding system."

• Washington State Rep. Mike Wensman is drafting a bill to give teachers a housing subsidy based on local prices, similar to military housing allowances. The Washington Education Association has yet to take a position on the idea,but the union has historically opposed altering pay scales.

• Teachers in Mississippi will receive a substantial raise next year, but how much and who gets it are still open questions. The state House unanimously passed a bill that would raise salaries an average of 7.5 percent across theboard. The state Senate is expected to approve a bill for a 10.06 percent increase across the board, though senators admit that the state cannot pay for it, according to current revenue estimates. The wild card is Gov. Kirk Fordice. "I think we ought to be paying the best of our teachers that have the rare ability to impart learning to children a fabulous sum of money," said Fordice. "But paying teachers across the board just because they're alive is just wrong."

• The Montana House Judiciary Committee is hearing a bill that would repeal the state's mandatory school attendance law. "In a free society, there is very little that ought to be compelled by anyone," said Roger Koopman of the Montana Trustees of Freedom, speaking in support of the bill.

Union Briefs: 

• In California's Folsom-Cordova Unified School District, teachers overwhelmingly rejected a one-year contract with an 8 percent pay increase. Citing the district's rank as next-to-last in average salary in Sacramento County, the teachers want at least a 12 percent increase.

• The Milwaukee Teachers Association agreed to a tentative contract that allows certain schools to accept incoming teachers without regard to seniority, if they so choose. "This takes away some of the power of the union and gives it to our members, and that's the way it should be," said MTEA President Paulette Copeland. The contract also eliminates the cap on the number of African-American teachers that could be hired at any one school (described in the 6/1/98 EIA Communiqué).

• NEA President Bob Chase is expected to attend a workshop on dealing with gay and lesbian students to be held by the Wyoming Education Association at the end of next month.

• About 100 members of Rhode Island's fledgling United Nurses & Allied Professionals union marched outside the offices of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals last week. They were protesting RIFTHP's efforts to block their secession and subsequent formation of UNAP. UNAP now represents over 3,600 health-care workers, leaving RIFTHP with less than 400. Protesters carried signs that read: "Teachers flunk Unionism 101."

Last word on Oakland's death penalty teach-in: 

The New York Times reported that New York's four-year-old capital punishment law has led to surprising results. "Though whites make up only 21 percent of the state's murder defendants," wrote reporter Alan Finder, "they are 55 percent of the defendants in capital cases." Will the local union support a teach-in for little white boys in order to "prepare them for things they will encounter in the world," according to the reasoning of the Oakland organizers?

Quote of the Week: 

Last week's quote, from former NEA President and current Executive Director of the Florida Teaching Profession-NEA John Ryor, and my comments, led to some interesting responses from readers. Ryor explained his opposition to vouchers by saying: "They [Americans] should not be forced to pay taxes for schools which teach religious views they disagree with."

I responded by "advocating" a system in which taxpayers who objected to vouchers could get that portion of their taxes refunded by filling out a form once a year. Government officials would determine what was "chargeable" to these "fee-payers," who in turn would forfeit their right to vote in elections pertaining to education.

I was soon surprised to discover that a few of you didn't get the joke and thought I was making a serious proposal. EIA guarantees anonymity, so I can only reveal that these responses were from people who should know better. They told me that such a system couldn't possibly work, that the disenfranchising of fee-payers was unconstitutional, that it was a waste of money, and that it would create an unaccountable bureaucracy.

Well, friends, my idea was not an original one. You see, it is an exact description of how unions refund a percentage of dues to objecting fee-payers under agency fee agreements in states that allow them. I used Ryor's quote because it sounded uncannily like the arguments fee-payers have been using for years against the unions they pay.