I’m listed on the NEA RA blogroll.
New Business Item 27 called for NEA to support “efforts to implement an exit strategy to bring US troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan…”
It has been the only mention of the wars at the NEA RA. A motion “objecting to consider” was approved. Obecting to consider is a parliamentary maneuver that avoids debate. New Business Item 27 never saw the light of day.
Another NBI (this one passed) called for the release of Iranian trade union leaders including Ali-Reza Hashami, head of the Teachers Organization of Iran.
I’m a guest blogger on Small Talk. About what you ask? The NEA RA.
The war of words continues. The nerdy Mike Antonucci calls me “a lovable old coot.” I am not lovable. And I reported nothing inaccurately. I reported our conversation exactly.
It was a solemn state caucus meeting this morning at the NEA RA.
Yesterday afternoon, Sharon Miller, a long time IEA activist and wife of NEA Director Gary Miller, died as a result of head injuries suffered after being thrown from a pedicab near the convention center.
Our thoughts and many prayers go out to the Miller family, friends and colleagues.
He called me lame.
In other news, Fred Klonsky came over to visit, even though he thinks I’m rabid and I don’t know jack. Fred isn’t rabid. But he is lame.
That wasn’t nice. I went over to the press area to meet the union-hating blogger, Mike Antonucci. We had a nice friendly talk. He even told me he likes my blog because, although we don’t agree about stuff, at least I don’t write any BS and I don’t just reprint press releases from Ken Swanson. I admitted that I had actually printed press releases from Ken Swanson. When we parted we shook hands and he told me to say hi to my brother, Mike.
And then I read his blog and he called me lame.
This from a guy who wears some ugly flag tie and a maroon shirt with a 1970’s wide collar. Now that’s lame.
Mainly what I suggested was that he not spend all his time at the press table in the front of the hall by the speakers’ platform and go out and talk to teachers. First he made the excuse that the NEA wouldn’t let him walk around the convention floor. But when I pointed out he could walk around the outer lobby where hundreds of teachers are coming and going and talk to them, he dismissed that as not really his “niche.”
See. You try and be nice to the poor guy and this is what you get. I admit I’m not always the hippest guy in the room, but Antonucci calling me lame is like Dennis Van Roekel calling me boring.
John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen.
This guy is not me. Just want to make that clear.
Today’s coffee is at caucus. Bad coffee. Town and Country Hotel and Spa coffee. In a plastic cup with three non-dairy creamers to lighten it up.
It’s the sacrifices a union delegate makes for the people.
On the other hand, it’s another beautiful day in paradise. The June fog clears up by 10AM and the sky turns cloudless. While downtown San Diego around the convention center is without charm, it is not unpleasant. And, if you can find a table on the backside of the place, you’re sitting on the bay. Nice.
As a teacher I hate this story. As a blogger, it’s shooting fish in a barrel.
What is a Regional Office of Education? What does the regional superintendent do?
The answer to question #1 is: A patronage job machine. The answer to question #2 is: Steal from the people.
A typical Illinois story. Last Wednesday, the state’s attorney raided the south suburban office of the regional superintendent.
Kadner has the story:
“Upon and after the first Monday of August 1995, references in this Code and elsewhere to educational service regions of 2,000,000 or fewer inhabitants shall exclude any educational service region containing a city of 500,000 or more inhabitants and references in this Code and elsewhere to educational service regions of 2,000,000 or more inhabitants shall mean an educational service region containing a city of 500,000 or more inhabitants regardless of the actual population of the region.”
I confess, I really wanted to write this column just to get that into print, realizing few people would take the time to read it, and fewer still would understand it. Heck, I’ve read the thing about five times, and I’m still not sure I understand it, but it makes me laugh each time.
Which union hating blogger should we believe?
Mike Antonucci, the rabid union hating blogger at Intercepts, is at the NEA RA and claims:
When (Lily) Eskelsen becomes NEA president, Randi Weingarten won’t find one Education Week reporter in her office.
Andy Rotherham, miffed that NEA delegates didn’t listen to his sage advice, says that as a result:
Implicit big winner here: AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten.
Truth is, neither one of them knows jack.
Another one who doesn’t know jack.
Andy Smarick, who writes at Fordham’s Flypaper and who isn’t within a thousand miles of the NEA RA writes that Arne Duncan made
…a number of points that surely caused consternation among those gathered.
What total bull. Check out New Business Item A which addresses Duncan’s $5 billion, 5,000 school turn around plans. Aside from what I think about the plan, the 15,000 members who are gathered here approved language ,with barely any debate, that begins,
NEA will develop and implement an action plan in collaboration…to inform and influence President Obama’s proposal to turn around 5,000 schools with $5 billion in five years…
This is coming from an organization that five years argued for hours over whether we should even mention the word charter.
And as I pointed out in an earlier post, Duncan was generally well received by the majority of delegates, even while there are differences.
I have lots of problems with what is coming out of the USDE these days, but I’m just telling you what I’m hearing. And I’m here.
View from my seat at Petco Park.
Last night the NEA bought 10,000 tickets for the Padres and Dodgers at Petco Park across from the convention center. NEA prez Dennis van Roekel threw out the first pitch and it was Manny Ramirez return to the Dodgers after a 50 game suspension for violating league drug rules. Petco was packed. Half with Dodger fans. The other half by people who just wanted to boo Manny. He’s a seat filler. A friend came Thursday afternoon to see the Padres against Houston and he said half the joint was empty, even though it was “kid day” and dozens of local community groups were given tickets for free.
But after being seated in the back of the caucus hall, and the back of the RA hall, don’t be shocked that my ticket for the game was in the last row of the upper deck. And Petco’s upper deck is steeper and higher than than The Cell was before they redesigned it.
I’m beginning to feel like the teacher union’s Rodney Dangerfield.
Oh, Dodgers won. Manny had one walk, no hits and came out of the game in the 6th. When Manny left the game, so did about a third of the crowd. Me too. I have caucus at 7AM.
Not only am I in the last seat in the Illinois caucus room at the lovely time-warped Town and Country Hotel and Spa located in hotel circle, a $20 cab ride from the San Diego convention center. I’m also sitting on the risers in the back of the RA convention hall. I watch everything on the jumbo screen with closed captions for the hearing impaired. Which I am more and more.
Back of the room at both places. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
The first real session of the “largest deliberative body in the world,” as the NEA RA bills itself, began this morning at 11:00. To the music that every NBA team uses to introduce the players, the boring but likable graying president of the NEA, Dennis Van Roekel gaveled the meeting to order.
Soon credential reports, votes on the rules, and a speech by Van Roekel that would put a speed freak to sleep sent me to the lobby of the San Diego convention center to find a cup of coffee. It was definitely lobby time, time to meet other teachers and talk about Arne’s speech yesterday.
Remarkably, most of the people I talked to liked the speech and liked Arne. For all the talk on some blogs about the booing (including my own), there was a lot of good will expressed by the delegates, 15,000 teachers and education support workers (and I talked to every single one!), for the Obama administration and for the EdSec.
I asked lots of questions, and it appears that there is a sense that this administration is committed to cutting the teacher unions in on the action. If there are going to be expanded charters, merit pay plans and student performance expectations, then unions and collective bargaining are going to be a part of the deal.
Is that true? Right now, that is the perception of many of the folks sitting in the lobby while Van Roekel provided dozing time inside the hall.
When I was growing up in LA, San Diego was that little right-wing Repubican Navy town two hours to the south. You drove through it on the way to Tijuana or Ensenada.
I don’t claim to be an expert on the place after being here just a few days. But aside from the beautiful weather and the silly trolly system that is more about tourism than urban transit (and there’s only one trolly ticket machine at the stop across from the convention center which is so complicated that they have to assign a person to stand there to help operate it), this has become a very cosmopolitan city.
I’ve had one cab driver who was Eritrean. Another that was Ethiopian. Both explained why Eritreans and Ethiopians hated each other and how America was a place where everyone got along. The 19 year old pre-med student who served me wine at the bar on 5th avenue last night was Afghani. Born in San Diego, she speaks Pashto and Farsi, and has much of her family still living in Kabul. There is a relatively large and growing Gay community centered in Hillcrest, although in conversation San Francisco appears to be the intended destination for many.
You can see the latest indie movie or foreign film at the art deco Ken in Kensington where I had Mexican food at Ponce’s.
My point is that this is not your father’s San Diego. Like the rest of California and much of the rest of the US, the population is now hugely diverse.
So much for the better. For the traveler like me, it’s a god-send as far as eating is concerned. For politics, the results are self-evident.
