I was forced at the last minute to cancel my trip to Columbus, Ohio, to cover NEA and AFT's peer review conference. I missed NEA President Bob Chase
speak at a Sunday luncheon. I wonder if they had an extra large name tag
prepared for me.

Speaking of Chase, he was on the road all last week. He visited with the editors of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, appeared at the Columbus conference, then made his way to Colorado Springs, where he was grilled by the listeners of KKCS radio's P.M. Wynn Show.  In a meeting with the editorial board of the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, Chase was reportedly given an uncomfortable time by editor Dan Njegomir. Njegomir asked what would be the harm in making vouchers available as an option. 

"Because the government would be passing a program that gives people false hope," Chase replied. "We need to do something that's proven — something that works."

Chase is relatively reserved when it comes to recent travel. American
Federation of Teachers vice president Thomas Hobart and a staffer went to
Burma and Thailand "to provide training and support to Burmese democracy and free trade union activists."

As the NEA Representative Assembly approaches, the last few state affiliate
conventions are being held. The New Jersey Education Association made its
opposition to the Principles of Unity official over the weekend with a delegate assembly vote. Learning the state delegate votes on merger has been like pulling teeth, but here are the up-to-the-minute totals:

• Confirmed pro-merger — Wisconsin, Florida, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Georgia, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Wyoming. TOTAL= 17.3%
• Confirmed anti-merger — New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, West Virginia, New Hampshire. TOTAL = 24.6%
• Strong lean pro-merger — Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arizona, Utah. TOTAL =10.5%
• Strong lean anti-merger — Alabama, Delaware, Vermont. TOTAL = 4.0%
• Other states that voted for neutrality, didn't vote, or held their assemblies before the Principles of Unity were drafted: Ohio, Texas, Kentucky, Colorado,Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, Alaska and South Dakota. TOTAL = 15.2%.

I highly recommend an article by Richard Lee Colvin and Elaine Woo in today's Los Angeles Times entitled "Little Training, Poor Oversight." If you
can't get your hands on it, here is the gist: "California spends $36 billion —
more than the entire budgets of many states — on education. But in handing out those dollars, the state has never paid that much attention to whether it was getting its money's worth." This angle is particularly noteworthy after the
usual boilerplate that appeared when NEA released its annual teacher salary
report, "Ranking of the States, 1997." A typical headline appeared in the
Grand Forks Herald: "North Dakota teacher salaries remain near bottom." I'm
afraid North Dakota teacher salaries are always going to be near the bottom in this formulation. The state ranks 36th, however, in average teacher/ average worker pay. North Dakota teachers make 31.6 percent more than North Dakota workers. This ratio places them ahead of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Also on the recommended reading list: "Teachers ousted by reforms still in
system," by Michael Martinez in the May 14 Chicago Tribune. The lead paragraph reads: "Ten months after 174 Chicago public school teachers were kicked out of their jobs because they were deemed the worst instructors in the worst high schools, the majority have found new, full-time jobs as teachers in the system, the Tribune has learned." The teachers originally lost their jobs in the city's reconstitution process. "Reconstitution is an unfixable, anti-union, anti-teacher travesty," said Deborah Lynch Walsh, who ran for  the presidency of the Chicago Teachers Union. "Reconstitution is a ploy to replace experienced, senior teachers with less experienced neophyte novices." An overload of synonym intensifiers.

The section on teacher demographics in EIA's report, One Yard Below:
Education Statistics from a Different Angle, drew some attention from the  U.S. Department of Education. One of its agencies, the National Institute on the Education of At-Risk Students, asked for the source data, which I happily
supplied. What's next, respectability?

Quote of the Week: "Don't listen to what we say. Watch what we do." — NEA
President Bob Chase. Funny, that's what I've been writing about NEA for years.