We just learned that Ohio Governor John Kasich has replaced state school board member Martha Harris, a highly qualified retired teacher who is passionate about quality education, in the middle of her term on a technicality. Although she has served two years since being appointed by former Governor Ted Strickland in early 2009, Kasich's office is now claiming that the proper paperwork was never filed in the state senate for her to be confirmed so her term was voided at the end of the last legislative session. Kasich has appointed Angela Thi Bennett to replace Harris.
It seems like an unnecessarily confrontational move (as if that would stop John Kasich) and like Kasich was digging deep to find a way to get Harris off the board and replace her with one of his own choices. So why did he do it?
I'm in a good position to comment on this because both Bennett and Harris ran for state school board from my school board district in 2008. Both are near neighbors of mine, and both showed up at candidates' nights I attended stumping for votes. I had the chance to talk to both, and found Harris to be the most experienced and knowledgeable about education. Bennett, a young attorney, seemed bright and sincere, but didn't have the background that Harris had in education.
Both lost to a "name" candidate, former congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar (she represented a district that included much of what is now Dennis Kucinich's district), since people just don't know much about school board candidates. Harris finished second, Bennett was third.
Right after the holidays I ran into Harris in the Target near me, and she told me with excitement about her appointment. Kasich's muscling her out is a real loss to the kids of Ohio.
So I looked around for reasons why Kasich might want to upset this apple cart and came up with a couple, right under my nose while I was busy wondering if this was about theocratic issues like "intelligent design" and school prayer. (It still might be — I'm not sure). For one, as a former teacher, Harris is emphatically pro-union and pro-public schools. Among Kasich's campaign pledges was to destroy both. And then there's the issue of what Bennett believes, which I'm not at all clear on. Apparently she's issued some vaguely pleasant-sounding statements about "school choice" and "highly qualified teachers," as well as ending teacher seniority. All of those can be coding for union opposition and intent to destroy public schools; they can also be the remarks of a naive young woman who knows little about the real-life impact of the dreadful education policies being shopped around today by both parties. I recall that the number one qualification she was touting when she ran was that she had attended public schools. Yeah well, so did I. But with what Arne Duncan did to the Chicago schools, there's no way my parents would be sending me there today.
Kasich said at one point during the campaign that he intended to "break the back" of the teachers union. He's also aggressively in favor of redirecting education funding to charter schools, no surprise since the largely failing for-profit charter schools I don't see him sending his twin princesses to are heavy donors to Republican candidates and officeholders in Ohio. It's not unlikely that he wants a state school board who will sit by passively while he does his damage.