Education reform group asks for personnel file of teacher/blogger who opposes them.

[madfloridian]

They have harassed this blogger before by asking the school district for all his school emails. They got them. The blogger wrote about it as it happened.

Now they have requested his personnel file from his school district.

The return of Velderman. This time dressed as Kyle Olson.

It was about 9 months ago that I first heard of the Education Action Group, a small right-wing cult out of western Michigan.

Their political program consists of hating teacher unions. That’s it.

Ben Velderman, the gofer for the outfit, filed a Freedom of Information request for all of my work emails. As the law required, my school district supplied them. Fascinating reading. Meeting agendas. Paint supply orders. Meeting agendas.

..."Today they sent a new demand to my school district.

This time they want my entire personnel file.

Here's the request from them he posted.



This is a scary group indeed. Not long ago the Michigan Education Association warned their readers to be on the alert for their activities. They sent letters to the editors as one of their activities. One of them landed in the Tampa Tribune.

They are not really a group to make education better. I agree with Klonsky that their goal is very anti-union. Here is what the MEA had to say, and here is a sample of the Tribune letter.

Another "false front" education reform group? Keep eye out for their op eds in local papers.

EAG isn’t really a group. It’s two very partisan men with ties to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Dick DeVos of Amway Corp. fame. Olson’s brother is director of education policy at the Mackinac Center, another anti-union, pro-privatization group. The man who incorporated EAG, Eric Doster, is a Michigan Republican Party lawyer who has served on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project, a political action committee linked to DeVos. DeVos, of course, helped finance the failed 2000 vouchers initiative.

EAG bashes the collective bargaining process and school employees’ rights to inform the community and to work to elect leaders who value students and the employees who teach and help them at school.

The group refuses to tell their funding sources.

Here is part of the letter they wrote to the Tampa Tribune. They are criticizing the Florida teachers' union for filing a lawsuit about the new anti-tenure laws.

By filing this suit, union leaders are telling people that teachers should not be held accountable for the performance of their students. They want us to believe all teachers are equally intelligent and motivated. They're saying that all teachers should continue to have a guaranteed job for life under tenure and remain on a common pay scale, regardless of the outcome of their work.

More than anything, FEA leaders are blatantly displaying their disrespect for the democratic process. They have no interest in the outcome of the elections that put Scott and his legislative allies in office. They are willing to use the courts to overturn the will of the people.

So much for majority rule. Union leaders, with all their wealth and influence, can simply shop for a politically-friendly judge who will rule in their favor. The eventual ruling may have little to do with the constitutionality of the new law and more to do with judges who accept donations from the teachers' union and feel obliged to pay them back.

The MEA warns that people be on the alert...."The MEA website says this EAG group has tactics that "include sending anti-union mail to residents, attending local school board meetings and using the news media to further its negative agenda."