Monday, July 11, 2011

Politics and Public schools - a bad mix

Dave writes about a problem in California: State Board member conflict of interest:

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As a "conservative nut-job" I was extremely disappointed with Governor Schwarzenegger most of the time. One good thing he did was to get rid Joe Nunez, a California Teachers Association (CTA) hack who was on the State Board of Education. I can't imagine a greater conflict of interest than having CTA staff as members of the state board. As soon as Arnold was gone and Governor Brown had control of appointments, we ended up with yet another CTA employee, this time it is Patricia Rucker whose daytime job is as a lobbyist. So during her work day, Patricia is running around the Capitol telling state legislators what their CTA masters want them to do. She's visiting the California Department of Education (CDE) and giving them their marching orders. Then magically, when she sits down at the table as a member of the State Board of Education, she puts aside everything that she works for during a normal day and serves as a representative of the people of the State of California. Somehow, I don't believe that.
Apparently, I'm not the only person who feels that way. Parent Revolution, the organization responsible for the "Parent Trigger" law which allows parents to force schools to convert to a charter school has filed a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
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It is hard to imagine how someone could get away holding both jobs at the same time.

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