Big news in the edublogosphere is that Joel Packer of the NEA is now blogging.  Joel is simply one of the best people in the DC public education community. When I first started at AFT I was on a summer fellowship.  As part of that I covered some committee meetings on the hill for the AFT legislation department. Joel went out of his way to be kind and supportive during my very brief sojourn in that world.  Hopefully we’ll be able to return the favor here on the Internets.

Eduwonk wants to know if this means my blogging brother John is losing some sort of status as a result.  John’s a cult figure, a populist icon and a true friend to educators everywhere. There’s no way that the creation of a mere blog can change that.  My big concern is that Joel is podcasting. Having listened to the Gadfly’s podcasts a couple of times, I am uncertain as to whether this is a wise course of action.