Response From The Commissioner Of Education

My recent posting "Why Hasn't the Commissioner Done Anything in Roslyn?" (September 24, 2004), which was forwarded to the Governor, has elicited a response from the Department of Education in an email received 9/30/04 (reprinted by cut & paste with no changes, and in its entirety):

Dear Mr. Lovino:

Governor Pataki has asked the Educatin Department to respond to your recent message, in which you request that the Commissioner remove member(s) of the Roslyn Union Free School District Board of Education.

Section 310 of the Education Law provides for the Commissioner of Education to entertain allegations of wrongful actions by school district board members or administrators when an aggrieved party seeks redress through a formal appeal process. In addition, Sections 306 and 1706 of the Education Law provide for the removal of board members or administrators if they willfully violate law or neglect their duty under the law. An application for review under Section 306, 310 or 1706 of Education Law must be initiated within 30 days of the decision or action complained of, and must contain evidence of willful, intentional wrongdoing

Whether seeking redress or removal, the appeal process protects the constitutional rights of both parties and enables both sides to present evidence supporting their allegations or defenses. The individual (resident of the school district) bringing an appeal before the Commissioner has the burden of proving the facts that he or she is alleging. Instructions for filing an appeal are available through the Internet at: http://www.counsel.nysed.gov/.

I hope this information proves helpful to you.

Mary Lallier
EMSC Communications Unit

I thank the Governor and Ms. Lallier for their prompt response. Of course, it would have been nice if:

a. The response wasn't replete with spelling and grammatical errors. It would seem to me that the Communications Unit of the Department of Education would be at least as careful with its correspondence as, say, is required of an eighth grader; and

b. The response made any sense.

Is the Department of Education saying the Commissioner has taken no action because no resident of Roslyn filed a complaint within 30 days of the thefts? the public announcement of the thefts? the public revelation of possible misuse of district funds/equipment? Is the Commissioner saying that the actions of the Roslyn Board are time-barred because 30 days have passed?

Is the Commissioner actually telling us that he needs a formal complaint by a resident to remove these people? If so, then he didn't read the statute.

Ms. Lallier cites Section 310 as stating that the Commissioner is authorized to "entertain" complaints, implying that unless a complaint is received the Commissioner is powerless to act. That is not accurate.

Section 310 of the New York State Education law explicitly gives the Commissioner the power to bring this action himself:

"Any party conceiving himself aggrieved may appeal by petition to the commissioner of education who is hereby authorized and required to examine and decide the same; and the commissioner of education may also institute such proceedings as are authorized under this article..." Sec. 310 (emphasis added).

Even if the Commissioner believes he doesn't have standing to initiate the proceeding to remove these board members, is he saying that nobody from Roslyn complained? Is that possible?

And even if no one from Roslyn complained, did the Commissioner receive formal complaints from residents in Roosevelt before he disbanded the entire Board? Did he receive formal complaints from residents before he removed other Board members in other districts for misconduct?

I care about this issue because I am a former Board member (of another district), and because people in my District are pointing to Roslyn as "proof" that "all" school districts are full of fraud and waste. I care because they are attacking members of my School Board, and my Superintendent, whom I know and trust to be hard working, honest people.

How can the Commissioner stand by and do nothing? It's a disgrace.

Remember the American Red Cross

I remember being so angry at this organization post 9/11, when they thoroughly screwed up and tried to divert money donated for the victims to other projects, including feeding the bureaucracy.

But the truth is, they are there when people need them. If you haven't seen them lately, go to their web site. They allow you to donate for particular relief efforts, including those supporting our men & women overseas.

Everybody makes mistakes; the Red Cross seems to have learned from them. They are worthy of our support. For Americans in need, at home and abroad, you could do worse with your charity dollars.

Quick Questions

Some quick questions from the news:

1. The news out of Florida and the South is horrendous, and everyone's thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of nature's fury. But, at some point, as our insurance premiums rise and our taxes (or national debt) increase, do we non-Floridians get a say into that State's building codes? Do our insurance premiums and tax dollars give us any right to say "Hey, stop building disposable structures in a hurricane zone?" Do we ever get to say to areas in the Midwest that flood every few years like clockwork, "Hey, I'm sorry high dikes ruin your riverview, but we're tired of paying to rebuild your store every 5 years?"
   
2. The latest polls show that Muslim Americans and Hispanics have turned against the President. Does that mean that at some point we can stop tip-toeing around the issue of truly tight security and close the borders to illegal immigrants? We need immigration. We want immigration. But why can't it be on our terms? If the Administration held back because of fear of losing Muslim and Hispanic votes, don't these poll numbers indicate that the horse is already out of the barn?
3. Kerry is right about one thing: Where is Osama Bin Laden? Why hasn't he been caught? (And what would President Kerry do to catch him--invade western Pakistan? Would he ask Kofi Anan's or France's permission first?)
   
4. A recent study says that public school teachers are twice as likely to send their kids to a private school as "regular" parents. When will we understand that public education should mean publicly funded education, so that we can give all parents the same opportunities that teachers and politicians freely take advantage of? When are we going to stop listening to people who believe that school choice is evil for everyone except their kids?
5. And when did we decide as a society that the quality of a child's education is directly proportionate to the quality of housing his or her parent can afford? Is there any other service that we so openly pin to how much house you can afford as we do education? Would we allow the water company to openly provide cleaner water to the "better" neighborhoods? Police protection? Can you imagine a mayor publicly stating that she was providing more fire protection to the "better" neighborhood because they were able and willing to pay more for it? There would be a revolution. Why do we accept that condition in education?

More to come.

Why Hasn't the Commissioner Done Anything in Roslyn?

Months have passed since it was revealed that over $7 million dollars had been embezzled from Roslyn, one of Long Island's premier school districts. The Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent for Business are under indictment. The High School Principal has been reassigned and the supervisor of buildings and grounds has resigned after being suspended .

Of the 7 school board members who served during the time thefts occurred, two have resigned, one chose not to stand for re-election, and one was defeated at the polls. That still leaves three school board members remaining from the "old" board, the one upon whose watch this money was taken.

Why hasn't the Commissioner of Education of the State of New York removed these people from office?

School boards are charged with the responsibility of both overseeing the education of the students in their charge, and governing the financial management of the district.

The Roslyn Board failed. Miserably.

The story as it has unfolded is one of an administration run amok, with no balances, but lots of checks. It is clear that, quite simply, no one was at home. The Board tried to cover up, and cover up again. No one asked any questions of the Superintendent, let alone hard ones. Thus millions of dollars have been lost, and the fate of the budgets of dozens of school districts on Long Island are now in jeopardy, as a large contingent of the public now believes that all school budgets are bloated with waste and fraud.

Indeed, it has been reported that one of the remaining Board members, Pat Schlissel, used a school district computer in her home (without the full Board's knowledge or approval), and ran up hundreds of dollars of charges each month on a school district cell phone. She ordered books through Amazon.com on the district's tab. She "...charged expenses to the district that are significantly higher than any other board member, records show", according to Newsday.

I served on a school board. There is no need for a school board member to have a cell phone. None. It is also inconceivable that a Board member could run up hundreds of dollars of calls on school district business. Given the lack of oversight by the Roslyn Board, one questions what the calls were for. As for the books, Roslyn has a public library. Why the need to purchase? Certainly the books weren't on fiscal management.

The audacity of the employees was staggering. Trips to imaginary conferences, limousines, dry cleaning, catered food, construction far from the district-- the list goes on and on. Roslyn is not New York City. It's not even a large village. How could these Board members not have known what was going on? The only way this happened was that the Board members, happy and pompous over the students' excellent test scores and college placement (attributable more to a District filled with wealthy and successful parents and highly motivated students than to the school's input), spectacularly neglected to do the job for which they were elected.

Education Law Section 1706 states that "For cause shown...the commissioner of education may remove any member of a board of education. Willful disobedience of any lawful requirement of the commissioner of education, or a want of due diligence in obeying such requirement or willful violation or neglect of duty is cause for removal."

How is the mismanagement displayed by the Roslyn Board not "neglect of duty"?

How is the improper use of school equipment and funds not grounds for removal?

Why hasn't the Commissioner done anything in Roslyn?

In districts like Roosevelt and Wyandanch, the Commissioner has boldly stepped up to the plate to remove Board members who have been ineffectual or behaved inappropriately. These are predominately minority districts.

Why hasn't the Commissioner done anything in Roslyn?

The actions, or rather the inactions, of the Roslyn School Board actually and proximately endangers the education of thousands of children, most of whom don't live in Roslyn. Long Island saw more than 40 budgets rejected by the voters this year. Overtaxed voters, unable to affect the budgets of any other governmental unit, made more cynical and distrustful by the disgusting revelations in Roslyn, flocked to the polls to defeat school budgets which contained no scent of scandal or excess.

Defeated budgets hurt kids, as programs get cut.

Defeated budgets hurt homeowners, who see their property values affected.

The members of the pre-May, 2004 Roslyn School Board let this happen. They have hurt kids, and they have hurt homeowners. There are members of that Board still serving.

Why hasn't the Commissioner done anything in Roslyn?

Can We Talk About Water?

Why don't we have a national water pipeline?

This Fall's hurricanes drenched the South and the East with billions of gallons of water, water which not only can't we use, but which we don't want. Yet the West, especially the Southwest, thirsts for water, pardon the bad pun. Why don't we have a system of pipelines, similar to our natural gas lines, or our interstate highways, to move this precious and most necessary commodity?

Some quick facts:

Rainfall in the U.S. varies from 59" per year in Louisiana, to about 40" or so in the Northeast, to around 30" per year in the Midwest, to 15" in Colorado and 7" in Nevada and Arizona.

An inch of rain over an acre yields 27,145 gallons of water.

Americans use between 110 to 200 gallons of water per person, per day-- although it can be higher or lower depending on particular circumstances and conservation efforts in a region. (Of course, this includes industrial use, cleaning, sewage, lawns, etc. We don't each drink that much, even on really hot days!)

In areas like Tucson, residents are paying upwards of $7.13 for a "unit" of water, which is approximately 750 gallons, in addition to a basic monthly charge. Residents in a city like Brockport, NY pay less than half of that rate ($3.36 per thousand gallons).

Enough math. Quite simply, there seems to be an abundant supply in the East, a desperate need in the West, and room to "arbitrage" the difference in price between the areas. Not to mention the billions and billions of dollars we spend on water projects throughout the West to harness what little water there is there for human consumption.

The cities in the West, particularly Las Vegas and Phoenix, are booming. Riparian rights, a non-existent issue east of the Mississippi, is a huge issue west of it.

Are there environmental issues? Of course. But the potential benefits make it a worthwhile topic to at least explore. After all, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of water projects underway each year-- they all have environmental consequences. Surely we could collect and divert a substantial amount of water without having an adverse affect on our environment-- most areas in the East don't even recycle their waste water, but merely "clean" it and dump it, often in the ocean. Such a waste.

For a wonderful overview of our current drinking water crisis, see the report appearing on Environmental Health Perspective's site.

Will one of the candidates address this issue?

What would a nationwide pipeline mean?

It would mean the end of drought (in all areas-- for instance, the South has had its droughts; so has the Northeast. But usually not at the same time; water could be directed throughout the pipeline system).

It would mean jobs.

It would mean income for Eastern states.

It would mean secure sources of water for farmers.

It could mean votes.

My Vote Doesn't Count-- Thank Goodness

I live in New York. I have voted for every Republican Presidential candidate since my first regrettable and long-lamented vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976. Reagan carried NY twice. Since then, it's been all Democrats. Michael Dukakis carried New York. I'll repeat that, as Lewis Black would say. Michael Dukakis carried New York.

Gore won by 1,767,533 votes. Even if I voted twice for every dead person in my election district, I don't think I could make a dent in that total.

So my vote doesn't count. Don't tell me about Florida. We don't have a large population of misguided senile citizens who can't figure out the difference between Buchanan and Gore on a ballot. Our misguided citizens meant to vote for Gore. They don't have senility to blame. Our misguided citizens were purposeful, and their numbers are overwhelming.

Why am I, a Republican-red-minded person in this Democratic-Blue, blue state content with my vote not counting? Because I have seen Florida. And Chicago. And Texas. And Long Beach, Long Island. And Brooklyn. Areas where ballot-stuffing and dead voters-voting and forged absentee ballots are accepted. Areas where one-party rule means a lack of poll-watchers and rampant fraud.

Business Week On-Line ran an article this month on the Electoral College, and the proposal in Colorado to apportion its Electoral College votes in proportion to the votes each candidate receives within that state (currently Nebraska and Maine have similar systems in place). There is a discussion about taking this system nationwide. So, for instance, instead of Gore getting all of New York's 33 Electoral College votes, he would have received 21, and Bush would have received 12. The article doesn't say whether any past elections would have changed-- my gut says probably not.

Whether in its present form, or slightly modified, we still need the Electoral College (notwithstanding Sen. Clinton's sore-loser-whining.) If we didn't have it, our Presidential elections would be a free-for all. When we finished the tallies, the number of votes would approach a billion. At least now, if Illinois can't, or won't, control the Chicago machine, it only affects their electoral votes. If we were voting directly for the President, I would have to care if, a-la- Nixon-Kennedy, Cook County voted 28,000,000 to 3 for Kerry. The federal government would be forced to take over the implementation of elections, with all that means.

(By the way, as a quick aside-- Gore did win the national popular vote by 500,000 votes, but so what? If the rules were to win the popular vote, I suspect Bush would have put some effort into New York and other blue-states--who knows what would have happened? Looking at the popular vote in a Presidential campaign is like looking at total yards gained in a football game, instead of the score. Interesting, but meaningless.)

Issues of fraud and management aside, the truly tragic thing that would happen if we got rid of the Electoral College is that I would have to watch a lot more political ads.

Now, I like political ads, especially if they are clever and/or nasty, and I look for them on the basic cable news channels. But since the New York market is so expensive, and there is so little to contest here, I can usually watch entertainment without political bombardment. I mean, catching an ad or two during Paula Zahn's show, or Hannity & Colmes, is fine. I just don't want to see John Kerry's happy, effervescent, life-affirming mug during Two & a half Men.

Nobody deserves that.

Not All Roads Lead to the White House

There are many reasons why John Kerry will likely not be elected this November: his lack of charisma; his multiple positions on key issues; his dove-like record in a campaign against a war-time President; and the emergence of enemies from his youth, seeking the ultimate revenge. Compelling, but perhaps his biggest obstacle is his day job.

If a U.S. Senator were to ask you how he could best get to the Oval Office your answer should not be "Practice, practice, practice." It should be "You can't get there from here."

My good friend at B After the Fact has analyzed the last 22 elections, going back to 1922. Only twice has a United States Senator been elected: Harding & Kennedy.

Why?

There are a number of explanations.

First is the fact that the Senate gig , surpassed only by elementary school gym teacher, is the best job in the country. You only have to run every six years. You have enormous power, attributable to the fact that there are only 100 of you, only 2 per state, and you have the filibuster. You have no responsibilities, unlike a Governor or a Mayor who has to run day-to-day operations. It's simply a great job, and I imagine more than a few Senators have taken a pass at a run for the White House because the livin' is easy where they are.

Of those who have run and lost, the answer may be that Senators are in a high profile position where they have to take highly partisan and extremely parochial positions to defend the special interests who reside in their state. For example, a Senator from Nebraska has to support farm subsidies. It's really a non-issue for the Governor of Nebraska, or the mayor of Omaha. But the U.S. Senator must step up to the plate, visibly. And some of those votes may come back to haunt a candidate, especially in the primaries when the voters are partisan and skewed to the extremes of both parties.

Likewise, there is only so much money in a budget. Senators develop long records of votes, and, as John Kerry is seeing, while some of those votes may have seemed logical at the time, in a 15 second sound bite seemingly contradictory votes can appear ridiculous. Thus the " I Voted for the 86 billion before I voted against it...". Sometimes you have to vote against a weapons appropriation bill because it's too low, not because you are against the military. Sometimes you vote against a clean water bill, because there is no pork for your state. It gets complicated, and it's hard to defend.

Third, while a governor can take hard stances on issues, especially those which don't affect his state, a Senator sometimes has to go along to get along, which can leave a cloudy record of where he or she stands.

Finally, the ultimate truth is that the Presidency is an executive position, and the public seems to instinctively equate governorships and the Vice-Presidency as the minor-league equivalents of the Presidency. Thus we have seen Governors Carter, Reagan, Clinton & Bush, and Vice-Presidents Nixon & Bush make the jump, while Senators Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale & Dole fell short. (Vice-President Gore lost to Gov. Bush, but it could be that he lost points because he was a Senator before he was VP.)

But perhaps more telling than who lost in the "Super Bowl" is the list of powerful Senators who didn't get through the "playoffs", the primaries. There is a long line of Senators who lost in the primaries, some very early, most because they couldn't gain traction over their Senatorial records: Bayh, Gore (until the Vice-Presidency), Harkin, Biden, Kennedy, Simon, McCain, Scoop Jackson, Sam Nunn, Bob Graham, Orin Hatch, Bill Bradley, Phil Gramm, Eugene McCarthy, Alan Simpson, Bob Smith, Joe Lieberman, Ed Muskie, Frank Church, Byrd, Hart, Alan Cranston, Fritz Hollings, John Glenn, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey, Lugar, and on and on. For a history of recent primary campaigns.

Kerry is finding that his position as Senator is weighing increasingly heavy around his neck. If the Swift Boat guys were the stiff left jab to his campaign, the drum beat of commercials highlighting his Senatorial votes will be the right hooks which finish him off. Today the road to the White House goes through the governor's mansion, or the Vice-Presidential residence. Senators need not apply.

W's Misadventure's--Who Cares?

John Kerry's campaign and supporters have launched an attack on President Bush's character centering on what he may or may not have done in the National Guard, what he may or may not have smoked at Camp David while his father was President, whether Laura Bush was a pot head in the 70's, etc.

This kind of attack failed when Bob Dole tried it in 1996; it will fail today for Kerry.

Presidential campaigns are about issues and personal history. But, unfortunately for Kerry, the events of the 60's and 70's and 80's and 90's are relevant only when they concern him, not the President. It may seem unfair to Team Kerry, but the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, truth is that we look to a person's character, and the events of his or her life leading up to a run for the White House, because we have no way of knowing how he or she will react once in the Oval Office. Until PETA lightens up and permits courses on bird-entrails reading at our elite colleges, the best we can do to predict Presidential conduct is to look at a contender's past.

Thus, Al Gore could have rightly and appropriately delved into W's Guard service record, and his use of illegal substances, to the extent it would have been relevant to the voters. Similarly, when Clinton campaigned on his cleaning of the Aegean stables that was the Arkansas education system, repeating with great pride the incredible accomplishment of moving the state from 50th in education all the way to....49th, it was up to George Sr. to ridicule the Clintonian promise to bring that "educational prowess" to the nation. It was too late for Dole to do so.

By the time a person has been President for three years, we know what we have: good, bad and ugly. That Clinton did or did not sleep with anything that moved while he was Governor was an issue before he became President; only his conduct in the White House (which was unknown at the time of the re-election) was relevant in the Dole campaign.

Did W do cocaine at Camp David in the '80's? Who cares? We've seen him in action. Does any rational American think he's going to hit the crack pipe if another terrorist attack occurs? Did he miss a few obligations in the Guard? Who knows? Who cares? Like him or not, can anyone fairly claim this President has been AWOL?

We don't know John Kerry, We need to know where he stands on issues (and that includes the multiple stands he has taken on each issue). And we have to know as much as we can about John Kerry as a man. We know how President Bush has governed, and we can make an informed decision on him on his record. But we have no idea how a President Kerry would react, both to foreign and domestic crises. Perhaps even he doesn't know for sure.

Because the Cold War is long gone we have forgotten a cold, hard truth, but it's one we must remember during a Presidential election. The person sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office also has his finger on the button controlling our nuclear forces. He is not a County Executive, or a Governor. He is not a legislator. He is an executive with the power to crash stock markets with an ill-timed statement. And he has the power to end all humanity.

And thus Kerry faces the problem of all contenders. We know what we got-- we don't know what we are going to get. Kerry has to convince us that a Kerry in the bush is better than the Bush we have in the hand. He can't do that by concentrating on the pre-Presidency W.