I posted the 2012 Democrats for Education Reform list of electoral favorites, which included Cong. George Miller of California, then chair of the House Education Committee and an architect of NCLB; Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who fought to keep high-stakes testing and NCLB punishments in the new ESSA and is now a possible candidate for president in 2020. A few years ago, the California Democratic Party passed a resolution denouncing DFER for advancing corporate policies and urged them to drop the D from their name.

Miller was the most powerful Congressional Democrat on education issues, and Nancy Pelosi follliwed his lead. Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott is now chair of the committee, and he too was on the DFER LIST.

A reader who lives in Miller’s district describes what happened:

“Miller was my Congressman. I too had an unpleasant encounter with him at a local hearing where he showed up to personally push to convert one of the high schools in my district to charter. Since then that high school has among other things, experienced huge teacher turnover. Key senior classes have had multiple substitutes with “emergency crediamtials.” They hired an “executive director” whom they pay a quarter million dollars a year,! whose primary job seems to be opening more charters in our county who will hire him as a “consultant” and who hired his wife as an administrator for a salary of $170,000 per year. He also recently put one of the Candidates for Superintendent if the County Office of Education on his payroll as an “Assistant Prinicipal”. The County Office approves charters if they are turned down at the District level.”