Bob Chanin, the man with all the answers at the NEA, now has his own fan club.
This afternoon, Chanin鈥攚ho gets rock-star applause when he takes the mike at the RA 鈥攔eceived an homage from members of Huntingdon County Education Association in New Jersey who presented him with a T-shirt emblazoned with the words 鈥淏ob Chanin Caucus.鈥� Replicas of the T-shirt will be sold at the RA to raise funds for the NEA PAC.
On the midnight-blue T-shirt is an almost Gandhian caricature of the union鈥檚 general counsel, except for two corkscrew curls sticking out of either side of an otherwise bald head. On the back is a request: 鈥淪how us your amicus briefs.鈥�
He didn鈥檛 respond to that request (thankfully!), but a visibly moved Chanin came back with a characteristic quip: 鈥淲hen I showed that to my wife, she said nobody in their right mind would pay anything for that.鈥�