A Good Episode of This American Life

For you iTunes people out there, check out episode #370 (posted December 21st). The first segment is on people who are difficult to work with, like me, and that's followed up with a great, great look on parents who choose not to get their kids vaccinated. It's a great listen.

Read more here, if any.

John Merrow on Gay Teachers

This podcast from the always excellent John Merrow is an incredibly interesting look into the past when a teacher could be fired for being homosexual. It's from a radio program that Merrow did in 1976; they've reposted it in light of the recent dust-up over Proposition 8 in California. The recent release of the Harvey Milk bio-pic, and the new light that it's brought to Proposition 6, also make the podcast a timely piece.

This is the sort of education history that I can't get enough of. I'd love to see more of these old reports re-issued as podcasts in the future; it's a great way to preserve the voice.

Read more here, if any.

Where the Economics of Education Really Falls Apart....

....is in the ASCD Catalog.

In their most recent Education Update they trumpet the great sessions that went on at this year's ASCD Annual Conference in New Orleans. Looks like a neat event, would love to go someday if they ever get close to the left coast. I see a little blurb in the flyer about audio recordings of sessions from the conference and I think to myself, "Neat! I'd not mind having those for summer listening pleasure, what since I'm a professional and all!" and merrily make my way over to the website to download them, a la podcasts.

The catch: if you want a package of podcasts, you're going to have to shell out $150 first. Screw that.

I guess that's about what I should have expected, though, since the ASCD video series are almost all priced in the mid three-figure range, putting them out of the reach of most. Even single videos of 15 minutes can cost $89.

I guess when you're the biggest name in town you can get away with that, but golly Ned those prices seem out of line.

Read more here, if any.

Sonya, Sonya, Sonya....(A Review of the May 9th Get Free! EFF Podcast)

I'm listening to the EFF's Get Free podcast from May 9th, and their new director of Labor Policy Sonya Jones says that it's "very hard to get your hands on" teacher's contracts (it's at about the 6:20 mark).

#1- Many school districts post their contracts on-line.
#2- It's public record; you should be able to get a copy in three days or less by mail if you ask for it.
#3- If the Director of Labor Policy thinks getting copies of the contract is the difficult part, then actually effecting changes in those agreements would be nigh-on impossible.

I've disagreed with her before, but this just seems defeatist.

"The school board can not reduce the number of teaching positions they have without negotiating that with the union," says Sonya. That's false on the face of it. The school district doesn't have to hire for positions that aren't needed. which is why many districts will handle decreased enrollment via attrition. I'm not going to defend Kitsap (the same way I wouldn't defend Spokane last year when they were bleeding kids but refusing to cut staff), but I really can't see how this is a union problem.

I do like the Godfather comparison, as long as it doesn't include the woefully terrible Godfather III. As the lead negotiator for my district I'm considering getting a fedora and wearing a white-on-white shirt/tie combination in order to set the tone.

It's also flat-out wrong to say that the schools that won't be receiving the AP grant didn't have AP programs in place; University High School in Central Valley has AP and would have been a grant recipient.

It's also wrong to say that union dues in this state are $900 a year without pointing out how much that can vary from district to district; while the WEA and NEA dues are consistent, local dues are not.

And can you imagine the stress on administrators if the teachers were represented by four different bargaining units, or if one teacher joined more than one association? If you think it's hard to fire a teacher now, sheesh....

And Sonya obviously has some research to do on teacher strikes here in Washington. They happen, and simply saying "They're illegal!" is ignoring the problem.

This idea that contract language looks the same from the smallest districts all the way up to Seattle is ludicrous. There might be some commonality in the nuts and bolts, but compare a Seattle or Spokane to a small district like Cheney or Reardan and the differences are far greater than the similarities.

It's also interesting to me to see a group like the EFF that's put a lot of work into model legislation projects that can be used in any state criticizing the WEA for having boilerplate language available. Different sides of the same coin?

Anyhow, lots of education discussion in this episode. Well worth listening to for anyone here in Washington who cares about education, from either side of the political spectrum.

Read more here, if any.

The EFF Tries a Podcast

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation recently put out their first ever podcast, which is pretty good for a first effort. They also have a new video channel, like the WEA does, and if this was a different decade where a man could get away with saying such things I'd go so far as to call their host strikingly beautiful.

(Factcheck on the podcast: very few locals charge $1000 a year total in dues. There are also many locals that don't charge a percentage of the paycheck. This I know, because I've been studying how locals charge their dues for a project I'm working on)

I'm not a member--when it comes to their "free market will solve anything!" tripe I'm not even a fan--but as an observer of the education system I think it needs to be understood that the EFF is a part of the chorus, and they have a message that resonates with many. I'll be adding the podcast to my RSS feeder.

Read more here, if any.

John Merrow and Jim Webb on the GI Bill

If you use ITunes, subscribing to the John Merrow Education Podcast (see here) is a great way to spend your time. I've praised their work before, and the newest posting where they interview Senator Jim Webb on what the GI Bill means for our veterans is a brilliant program.

Man, I love podcasts. I wish Terry Bergeson and the EFF would pick up the pace.

Read more here, if any.

Some Great Podcasts on Teacher’s Unions

I finally broke down and installed iTunes, despite my general animosity towards all things Macintosh, and I’m glad I took the leap because podcasts are neat things. I did a search for education-related shows, and I’ll try to highlight some of the best in the coming weeks.

A great one to start with is the Education Next show. They did three episodes in the summer of 2006 and then stopped, but those three shows are all well worth taking the time to download. Education Next did a special issue on the impact of teacher’s unionism in an issue around that time, and each one of the podcasts they’ve done touches on a different aspect of the union question. Consider:

*Terry Moe expands on this article to talk about the role that teacher’s unions play in elections. I think he overstates his point a bit—school board elections where the union is a major player are more the exception than the rule—but it’s still an interesting perspective.

*Linda Kaboolian of Harvard University, a co-author of Win-Win Labor Management Collaboration in Education, talks about how partnerships between districts and associations can help everyone involved. She’s dead wrong on the issue of teacher transfer, but it’s a perspective that’s out there that union leaders need to be aware of.

*Rick Hess, who’s the perfect interview, teams with Marty West to talk about why we need MORE teacher strikes. It’ll make you think.

I hope that the folks at Education Next have more planned, because this is a great show. It’s sort of a “Bill Moyer’s Journal” to accompany The Education Gadfly’s “To The Contrary” role.

(PBS metaphors always, always, work)

If you have any podcast recommendations, send them my way!

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More John Merrow Podcast Love

Week in and week out Merrow delivers the goods. This time there's a great pair of podcasts talking about effective teaching in the community college ranks, an accompaniment to his recent 1-hour special Discounted Dreams which has been running on stations locally.

The podcasts are called A Right To Fail?. They're each about 12 minutes long, and both very thoughtful. Highest recommendations!

Read more here, if any.