Less than a day after I wrote about teacher unions demanding money for their own political causes, I get an email for our own union's 2007 legislative goals. These include the usual stuff like money for wage increases, and note the list is in priority order, and the bottom of the priority is

to expand technological capacity, upgrade, secure and modernize electronic systems; expand core instructional programs and innovative programs in high demand areas, including applied doctoral programs; and fund campus based initiatives to promote access, opportunity and student success.

In other words, the union's priority is to get money for me first and to find us additional students and make our existing students more comfortable and better educated second. Swell.

But that isn't the real kicker. Here are two:

18. Support the Dream Act�legislation to allow children who have attended a Minnesota high school for three years and graduate to attend Minnesota public colleges and universities at Minnesota resident tuition rates.

So the union wants to set the price the university can charge to the children of illegal aliens.

25. To improve the professionalization of K-12 teachers and to support initiatives such as STEM, oppose alternative teacher licensure programs that are not sponsored or cosponsored by an accredited college or university teacher preparation program.

You really have to wonder what business it is of ours to improve the professionalism of some other group (that, by the way, competes for state dollars with us.) This statement makes any alternative teacher licensure -- something that, for example, put someone who majored in mathematics in a classroom teaching math if they chose, under strict supervision of the -- a hostage to the whims of colleges of education, which are in turn captured by the industry they supply with labor -- government schools and their unions.

The usual opposition to the marriage amendment and the guarantee of health benefits to homosexual couples also are on the list of 25.