Morning Shots

As Ryan reported earlier this month, Washington state legislators recently introduced two bills (one in the House, one in the Senate) to allow unions to use non-member fees on political activity without getting permission from individual workers.

In Washington, teachers and other union workers are required by law to either join their union and pay dues or become “non-members” and pay agency fees that are supposed to pay for collective bargaining alone. Unions cannot use agency fees on politics without individual workers’ permission.

The bills use an accounting gimmick to skirt around the intent of the law approved by 72 percent of the state voters back in 1992. Essentially, these bills would allow unions to bypass the obligation to get permission by co-mingling non-member fees with member dues in their general funds—and simply claiming that a percentage of their total funds are not used.

If that sounds like legalese gobbledy-goop to you, that’s because it is—brought to you straight from the Washington Education Association (WEA). Yep, according to the Seattle Times, they drafted the bill, claiming the law was “murky.” (Hey, just because they had a hard time following it doesn’t mean it isn’t clear.) The union got their cronies in the legislature (all of whom have received political contributions from the WEA) to introduce it.

Apparently, these legislators saw what an “emergency” it would be to the union’s pocketbook and slapped an emergency clause on the bill, making it go into effect immediately upon passage and denying the people their right of referendum. (People from other states are always surprised when we describe the arrogance of the Washington legislature and courts, but this has actually happened many times before. We will use this as an opportunity to work for emergency clause reform.)

Of course, this is nothing more than

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While making ends meet has been difficult for some, generally speaking things have been good these past fifteen years. New York State and New York City especially, receive a fortune from the financial markets centered here. Whether stocks are bought or sold, whether market indices are up or down, the city and state get a small piece of each of the billions of transactions that take place. So long as there is movement, New York thrives. It’s when there is no activity, when things are still, that we suffer. I suppose that’s an apt analogy for New York – we’re fine so long as we don’t have to sit still.

Those who follow state government and education policy don’t have to worry about no activity in Governor Spitzer’s first budget proposal – we got movement aplenty. Eliot Spitzer’s first budget is the sort one would expect from a Governor who was elected with a mandate to make hard choices. Not that there’s anything horrible – no decimating of critical social services – but there is a lot of accountability and reporting and a lot of responsibility put on both public officials and managers to get things done.

Here’s what Governor Spitzer had to say in an education policy talk just the day before his budget was released: “Many private and parochial schools do an excellent job of educating many of our kids and they deserve our thanks and support.  Our first priority must be funding public schools, but to the extent the law and our fiscal resources allow, we should support parents who choose to send their kids to private and parochial schools.”

And he means it.

A one-paragraph item tucked away in one of his five budget proposal volumes has, no exaggeration, been the focus of no fewer than two major

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With all the trappings of an IMPORTANT WASHINGTON EVENT, including the presence of the top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House education committees, the Commission on No Child Left Behind yesterday unveiled a report that should be called “No Idea Left Behind.” That’s not meant as a compliment.

With George W. Bush’s signature domestic program, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, headed for reauthorization, this bi-partisan, blue-ribbon panel, led by two stellar ex-governors and funded by Gates and other big-deal private foundations under the aegis of the august Aspen Institute, was supposed to provide a blueprint for the law’s rewrite.

Quantitatively, it succeeded. Its sprawling 200 page report, capped with 75 separate recommendations, proffers solutions to almost every problem ailing U.S. education. What it doesn’t do is sketch a coherent vision for NCLB version 2.0. If conservatives thought Bush’s original law was a dubious venture, heavy as it is on big-government mandates and light on school choice, this version would be markedly worse. It’s the antithesis of what you might expect from former Wisconsin Governor and commission co-chair Tommy Thompson, one of America’s foremost proponents of school choice (and of state flexibility in welfare reform), who must have been consumed by his nascent Presidential campaign and left the drafting to staff.

The future the Commission depicts gives Washington yet more power over the nation’s schools; its summary recommendations use the word “require” (often followed by the word “states”) at least 35 times. By contrast, we found just half a dozen “allows” or “permits.” Seems the panel is six times more interested in issuing new federal mandates than providing flexibility to states, districts or schools.

This approach to NCLB reform ignores the big lesson of the past five years: it’s hard enough to force recalcitrant states and

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