Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/68725
Our community interest Building rela- tionships with legislators A t DSEA's Annual Legislative Reception, local association leaders take advantage of an opportunity to talk one-on-one with many legislators. This year's event, held at Dover Downs, attracted 27 legislators, plus State Treasurer Chip Flowers and State Auditor Tom Wagner; 34 DSEA members; and 11 other lobby- ists, including members of the Coalition of State Workers United for a Better Delaware. Discussing teacher and student accountability, specifically the problems with the stu- dent testing system, are (from left) Jim Testerman (DSEA-Retired), Rep. Joe Miro, Mike Matthews (Red Clay E.A.), and Shirin Skovronski (Christina E.A.). Rep. Stephanie Bolden and Christina Para Albert Deschamps know each other from when they both worked in the same schools in Christina. Connecting the dots between corporate business and "education reform" groups When you start looking under all the proverbial stones, connections emerge. • Newark Charter School apply- ing for a waiver to be able to double its size, build a new 1200-student high school, and threaten the viabil- ity of Newark H.S. since its stu- dents come solely from that same feeder pattern/geographic area. P • Following the uproar – from both sides of this issue - by the Newark community, House Education Comm. Chair Terry Schooley calls for a hearing on charter schools – no specific bills – so that the public could come and let the legislators know their opinions about charter schools. • School board elections, where candidate mailings that came from a business-related entity – a 501(c)(4) "social purpose organiza- tion" – Voices 4 Delaware Education Action Fund, Inc. – founded by peo- ple with ties to the Wilmington cor- porate business community, which took advantage of a legal loophole and did not disclose to voters its funding sources and list of expendi- tures to voters. We protested the mailings, as did Rep. John Kowalko (D-Newark), protested these mail- ings and phone calls to the Dept. of Elections. erhaps it was the perfect storm: • At about the same time, Speaker of the House Bob Gilligan (D- Sherwood Park) and Senate President Anthony DeLuca (D- Newark) introduced a bill, House Bill 300, closing that loophole and requiring in all future elections that expenditures by groups such as Voices be filed in a timely manner. More dots to connect • There also was a request for "gen- erous donations" from the 1,000 audience members at the State Chamber of Commerce dinner in early January during a keynote speech by Skip Schoenhals, former CEO of WSFS and former head of Vision 2015 (funded in large part by the Rodel Foundation). He urged them to get involved in school board races and elect "strong" new members. • This speech was given major space that same week on the edito- rial page of the News Journal. • Following in April was a fundraising appeal from Schoenhals via an e-mail to hun- dreds of his colleagues and State Chamber members. Their contri- butions were urged for specific can- didates whose names and addresses were provided, people who "deserved their support" in each of four races (in Red Clay, Christina, Appoquinimink, and Indian River School Districts). There was no indication of where candidates www.dsea.org stood on issues or if all candidates had been interviewed. Just give, and give generously. In fact, the candidates he was endorsing were not the ones our interview committees had chosen except in Indian River. We do know that the candidates credentials include: important positions in the Republican Party; involvement with Vision 2015; graduates of private schools; or children in charter schools. • In early April Red Clay residents were called with a "push poll." This is polling where questions are phrased in such a way as to change your mind. If you said you worked in a public school, by the way, the pollster hung up. • And then a few days before the school board elections, there were live Get-Out-The-Vote calls, not from the candidates' volunteers, but from a professional call center out- side of Delaware. Meanwhile, Voices 4 Delaware Education Action Fund, Inc., had amassed sufficient anonymously - contributed money to support three of the four same candidates (not the candidate in Indian River) men- tioned in the Schoenhals fundrais- ing letter with: • "Push Polling" whereby voters are called and read negative mes- sages about the candidates against whom the Voices' candidates were running while trying to make the respondent think that it is a legiti- mate public opinion call. • Numerous direct mail pieces that portrayed the preferred candidates of Voices as supportive of 'school choice' and other 'reform' ideas. • Live phone calls urging voters to get out and support the Voices can- didate in the five days prior to the election. In contrast, when DSEA's PAC mails to voters, it always indicates the name of our PAC and its treas- urer, and files the spending report with the Dept. of Elections, within 24 hours after making the expendi- ture. There is nothing in current Delaware Code requiring this time- ly filing, but DSEA decided over five years ago to comport itself in such a transparent manner. Voices still silent Meanwhile, in the month since the school board elections and despite calls for transparency, the Voices organizations have remained silent: • No one knows who contributed to either of the two Voices organiza- tions, nor the amounts of their con- tributions. • No one knows the vendors to which Voices paid for its campaign activities nor the amount that was spent with each of them. May/June 2012 DSEA ACTION! 9