Troubling Allegations at MN Dept of Ed
July 28th, 2010 at 1:57 pm By John Van Hecke
News organizations are reporting that former Minnesota Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Chas Anderson may have cooked herself a sweetheart deal as she transitioned from public service to private industry. If true, that’s bad for Minnesota’s school kids and their families.
Anderson is accused of arranging a state Department of Education contract with the Texas-based National Math and Science Initiative organization prior to leaving MDE and joining the group. Ms. Anderson is alleged to have negotiated a services contract between NMSI and MDE, knowing that, after resigning from MDE, she would be the contract’s service provider. If so, Anderson violated her fiduciary responsibility to Minnesota in return for personal financial gain.
Ms. Anderson is a conservative educational policy advocate and experienced governmental administrator. She was the vigorous day-to-day operational leader of Governor Pawlenty’s conservative educational initiatives. In this capacity, little escaped her attention. The National Math and Science Initiative group has deep conservative ties. It is led by former Bush Administration education officials.
Conservative public policy’s chief goal is minimizing wealthy Minnesotan’s tax burden. With public education occupying a substantial chunk of Minnesota’s state budget, undermining public confidence in public schools mitigates public outrage over state funding cuts. National conservative educational policy, expressed in the federal No Child Left Behind Act, facilitates the anti-public agenda by creating a impossible performance standard. By 2014, every Minnesota school will, under NCLB standards, “fail.” As Deputy Commissioner, Ms Anderson had been an enthusiastic supporter of NCLB and other conservative educational policy initiatives.
It’s bad enough that conservative policy advocates work to unravel Minnesota’s prosperity, anchored in our strong public education institutions. Cashing in at Minnesota school children’s expense is uniquely distasteful. These allegations merit prompt attention from the Minnesota Management and Budget Office and the Office of the Legislative Auditor.
Tags: Chas Anderson, Education, Governor Pawlenty
This is so…NOT NEWS!
A corporatist enemy of public education was a leader of the T-paw effort to gut the MN Miracle and make a profit!!!!!
I think it is time to wake up and smell the roses. The right wing corporate christians have a desire to “starve the beast” and by definition they will profit from destroying an educational system that leads to “critical thinking”. What the right wing needs is faith based obedience to their leadership(political and religous) and it seems to be tending that way.