Wayne Gersen was a school superintendent in New Hampshire for 11 years. He was appalled to learn that the new Republican governor, Chris Sununu, appointed a completely inexperienced businessman, who home-schooled his own seven children, as the state’s next education commissioner.
The only way to block this appointment is by vote of the state’s five-person Executive Council, three of whom are Republicans. If even one of them is a public school parent or graduate, there is a chance of stopping this unqualified nominee.
This is a portion of the letter that Gersen wrote to the Executive Council members.
“I am writing to express by unequivocal opposition to the appointment of Frank Edelblut as Commissioner of Education. As a former NH Public School Superintendent of 11 years (SAU 16 from 1983-87; SAU 70 from 2004-2011), a Superintendent with 18 additional years of experience in other States, and one who has worked as a consultant for the past six years in Vermont and New Hampshire, I have a great understanding of and great appreciation for the work performed by a chief school officer in a state. I also know that overseeing a state department of education requires an in depth knowledge of how public schools are governed, how they are managed, and the challenges employees in public schools face. It is evident from what I have read about Mr. Edelblut that he possesses no knowledge of the workings of public schools. Mr. Edelblut asserts that his skills as a private businessman are transferable to overseeing a complex public agency. The experience of other businessmen with no public sector experience who take over schools shows otherwise. Mr. Edelblut also asserts that his experience as a CEO provides him with an understanding of “what kids need to be successful”. While he may know what a HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE needs to be successful IN HIS BUSINESS, I do not believe that gives him any sense of what a Kindergartner needs to be successful in Colebrook, Concord, or Contoocook.
“Most troubling to me is his lack of experience in dealing with public schools as a parent. If Mr. Edelblut was a successful businessman who ALSO served on his local school board, or who attended his child’s PTA meetings or back to school nights, or who had any children who attended public school I might be open to an assertion that he has some sense of the challenges of public schools. The fact that he chose to homeschool his children instead of working with his local school board or local principal or his child’s teacher experience speaks volumes about his commitment to the cause of improving schools. Parents who are engaged in public education soon gain an appreciation for the hard work required to educate all children and find ways to improve their local schools through teamwork.”
If any readers live in New Hampshire, please express your opposition to this absurd nomination. If you don’t live in New Hampshire, contact the governor’s office to let him know that this appointment makes New Hampshire a laughing stock and undermines the hard work of the state’s educators and its students.
With appointments like Betsy DeVos and this unqualified nominee in New Hampshire, our nation is not only showing disrespect for public education, but hurtling back to the early nineteenth century, when children went to religious schools, charity schools, charter schools, were homeschooled, or were without any education. Rushing backward two centuries will not prepare our children to live in the 21st century.
The aim of the GOP being to destroy public education, experience and qualifications for the job are really irrelevant.
Or to turn contempt, resentment and inflated senses of entitlement into public policy.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
This is consistent with the DeVos nomination
Obviously this kind of thing is now, and has been, a norm. It’s a measure of how deep the inroads the reform/privatizing movement has made. Opt-out didn’t put a dent in the big picture.
In addition to the run of the mill greedy billionaires and corporations that want to destroy public education, we have to contend with the Christian right and libertarians that want to set the clocks back a hundred years or so. These people used to be considered the fringe, and now they’re the norm.
The ed reform “movement” is now so ludicrous public school parents, teachers and leaders are actively excluded from public school policy.
They’re not interested in any input from the 90%.
Trump announced some ed hires yesterday. None of them have any experience in public schools. They’re excluding our schools.
If public school parents, teachers and students are excluded from public school policy in ed reform, do we have to follow their directives?
Remind me why is it that anyone should spend their time becoming a credentialed teacher and administrator before running a school. Who would have thought that it could be so easy as being a businessman? Throw out the professionals!
There is no reason. The game is up. Aspirations to achieving a spot in a dying profession…..none too smart. I have my doubts that I will see all of my 16 remaining years until retirement.
Software is the future of the profession. Not teachers. Argue about how awful and abhorrent that is till you are blue in the face, we let that devil through the door already.
If someone really wants to teach, direct them to a job at a private school. They’ll be wildly underpaid and overworked and will depart after about 2 years, but they’ll scratch the teaching itch, get past it, and move on to much greener fields, wherever they are.
For me, after this it’s Walmart greeter time.
UGH … how stupid. But NOT a surprise. I bet their cocktail parties where they pat themselves and each other on their backs are filled with hate.
“Home on derange”
Home home on derange
Where DeVos and the Gersen’s all play
Where seldom is heard
From a teacher (absurd!)
And the charters are funded each day
Being a retired high school history/herstory teacher in NH, I find the nomination of Mr. Frank Edelblut to be NH’s next Commissioner of Education completely appalling. On the front page of the NH Concord Monitor is a photo of our new Governor, Chris Sununu (son of John Sununu, Bush 41’s Chief of Staff), and the accompanying article is about Gov. Sununu speaking at an event that extols the virtues of “school choice.” Sununu, Edelblut and many other NH citizens support school choice advocate Betsy DeVos. Sununu proclaimed January 22-28, New Hampshire School Choice Week!
The NH governor also mentioned his support of House Bill 386, a bill that would “tweak” the law that allows businesses to get tax credits for donations to “nonprofits” that fund scholarships for students that attend a charter school. a private school, or who are home-schooled!
In NH’s largest and only state-wide newspaper, the Union Leader, also on its front page is an article — NH Parents stand up for school choice.”It mentions the same rally that Gov. Sununu spoke at and focuses on all the “options” that will be available to families. The Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Manchester (NH’s largest city) said: “School choice isn’t just a great idea — it’s a necessity.” On the Leader’s Editorial page is a piece entitled: “School choice is about kids, not systems.” It is written by a man named Charles Arlinghause who directs a “free market think tank” called theJosiah Bartlett Center which is subsidized by the Koch brothers. Arlinghause is currently on leave as he is serving as interim budget director for Gov. Chris Sununu! Talk about placing the fox inside the chicken coop! It appears to some in NH that Mr. Arlinghause is a “presstitude.”
I will be sending my Executive Councilor a message to vote “NO” on Mr. Edelblut, but of the five councilors, three are hard-right, so it seems the libertarian, Republican will be NH’s next commissioner of education. How low can we go?
Will Thomas,
Why do Republicans hate public education so much that they put totally unqualified people in charge of it?
Power and control for “true believers,” and for some, the profit motive. Near the end of my 32-year career, I was hearing my school and my wife’s school referred to as “government” schools as if this was some dark and nefarious entity.
Diane,
I don’t think Republican (and Corporate Neo-Dem) politicians actually hate public education, left to themselves they would be pretty nearly indifferent to it.
But ever since Reagan, politicians have increasingly become paid actors whose chief skill is always holding the label to the camera of whatever product they are selling for whatever corporation paid them the most to sell it.
And that is what we are seeing more and more of today. They see their constituency as being the corporations that pay for their campaigns and under the table perks, and they see the people as a market population to be conned into buying whatever their sponsors pay them to sell.
Who do we contact to complain? I am a NH resident and horrified by this proposed appointment.
Question: How can you be a successful businessman and be able to home school seven kids? Is he superdad?
Yah. Likely, the wife or hired help, did whatever was done for the home instruction, Mommy-conferred diplomas.
Thanks for spreading the word on this!