+  The Cleveland, Ohio, voucher program is under fire for overspending on student transportation and for a study that claims its student achievement is no better than at area public schools. A state audit questioned $1.9 million in spending on taxi fare for students and evaluation fees for consultants. 
        Ohio teacher union affiliates were quick to respond to the news. The CEA Voice, the organ of the Columbus Education Association, opined that the voucher program "is just a giant rip off of taxpayer money to support private and parochial education... The Cleveland voucher program borders on the criminal." 
        The Voice did not reveal that the same state auditor found the Columbus public school accounts were $1 million out of balance. State Auditor Jim Petro found that payroll transactions were often incorrect, with the district paying employees for hours not worked and at incorrect rates. "There is a need for district management and the board of education to exercise further oversight of school finances," he said. 

+  The Montana Education Association's Delegate Assembly voted 245-54 to merge with the Montana Federation of Teachers. Then, after an hour-long debate, the assembly voted down a proposal (166-153) to allow rank-and-file members to have the final say. "To me, it's extremely disappointing that the association doesn't recognize the right of our members to give their views on such a historic occasion," said Scott T. McCulloch, president of the Billings Education Association. 

+  During the assembly vote, union staffers were picketing outside to protest slow progress in their contract negotiations with the Montana Education Association. MEA has only 11,000 members, but union staff earned an average of $62,374 in 1995 — more than double the average teacher's salary. Montana staff rank 23rd in pay among NEA state affiliates. On the other hand, MEA is calling for longer hours, pay freezes and reductions in health benefits. When asked about the pickets, MEA President Eric Feaver said, "We would prefer that the public not notice it." 

+  EIA has heard the first tentative squawks from the AFT side about the merger. The issue is money. NEA has strong state affiliates, AFT strong locals. Will merged affiliates have one or the other, or both? If the NEA model prevails, it means job losses and smaller budgets for AFT locals. If the AFT model prevails, NEA state staff and budgets will fall. And if they try to maintain current local and state strength, it means a monstrous increase in dues for members — perhaps as much as an additional $100 per year. 

+  The Bay Area, source of ebonics and textbook ethnic quotas, has found the solution to low student achievement. Elaine Koury, principal at Balboa High School in San Francisco, sent a memo to teachers giving them until June "to increase the number of A's, B's and C's by 5 percent." Koury denies that she was attempting to inflate grades. "The reason we talked about A's, B's and C's is that those are the letter grades acceptable to college. Even though D is a passing grade, a college is not going to accept that," she told the San Francisco Chronicle. 

+  Perhaps Principal Koury could use the technique described by Antonio Villaraigosa. The new Speaker of the California Assembly told the California Teachers Association State Council how he got into college. "I graduated [high school] with a 1.4 grade point average. I was kicked out of one school and dropped out of another school. Then I had a teacher who took a chance on me and invested in me. His name was Herman Katz. He was a member of CTA and of UTLA. He paid for my SAT. He filled out my applications for college." 

+  Matt Pommer has written a column on "One Yard Below" for the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin, and other state newspapers. Response has followed the model set by New Mexico and Pennsylvania — enthusiastic interest from school boards, legislators and government agencies, disbelief and denials from unions and union members. Reminds me of last year, when the Michigan Education Association called EIA's union salary report "fraught with errors." The report's figures — of course — had come from MEA itself. 

+  Quote of the Week #1: "If Boller seems socially unusual after a lifetime of home-schooling, it's mainly because he's a teenage boy who speaks to adults in complete, articulate sentences." — Denver Post columnist Mark Obmascik, describing 18-year-old Nathan Boller, who has spent his entire school life in ome-schooling. Boller is a National Merit Scholar who scored 1,420 on his SATs. He plans to major in aerospace engineering in college. 

+  Quote of the Week #2: "The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience." — NEA Resolution B-67.