Posted on 03/30/2006 4:13:26 PM PST by calcowgirl
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reappointed to the state Board of Education a top political officer of the California Teachers Association, a union which continues to call for the governor's head.
Schwarzenegger's office said the reappointment of Joe Nunez, 53, of Stockton was neither an election-year olive branch to the union nor politically motivated in any other way.
"Mr. Nunez has more than three decades of experience in education," Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Sabrina Demayo Lockhart said. "The governor is always looking for the most qualified folks... We highly regard each appointment that we make, we look for people who are highly qualified and know the issue areas, and Mr. Nunez certainly fits the bill."
Yet Nunez' reappointment Wednesday came exactly three weeks before Schwarzenegger's Education Secretary, Alan Bersin, is to seek state Senate confirmation of his own Board of Education reappointment.
Bersin, the San Diego City Schools' superintendent from 1998 through his appointment by Schwarzenegger in 2005, is no friend of the teachers' union. At the time of Bersin's appointment, CTA President Barbara Kerr said his "top-down bureaucratic style divided the (San Diego) community, hurt teacher morale and failed to significantly improve student learning."
The governor's unprecedented simultaneous appointment of Bersin as Education Secretary and as a board member came during his war with the CTA over Proposition 74, the teacher-tenure initiative, and Proposition 75, which would've made it harder for the CTA and other public employee unions to spend member dues on politics. The CTA remains a key player in the Alliance for a Better California, a labor coalition aiming to defeat Schwarzenegger's 2006 re-election bid.
Bersin's board nomination required confirmation within a year; that deadline now is about a month away, and his confirmation is on the state Senate Rules Committee's April 19 agenda.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, chairs the Rules Committee. His office offered no comment Wednesday.
Kerr said Wednesday the union is "already on the record as opposing the Bersin confirmation, for many reasons." His history of battles with teachers in San Diego would be enough, she said, but the union also believes having anyone serve both as Education Secretary and as a Board of Education member gives that person "too much influence." Nunez' reappointment won't change that stance, she said.
Kerr said Nunez is "a very bright and honorable person and I think the state board needs his voice." She noted he and fellow board member Bonnie Reiss, the governor's senior adviser and close confidante, have worked well together: "I do believe there are people that respect Joe (in the governor's office)."
Nunez is the CTA's associate executive director for government affairs, running its political office in Sacramento. A Democrat first named to the Board of Education in 2001 by Gov. Gray Davis, Nunez has been a CTA lobbyist or regional director since 1997; earlier, he was with the Stockton Teachers Association and a teacher in the Santa Maria School District. His union job notwithstanding, he has a reputation as a nonpartisan and knowledgeable board member. He didn't return a call to his office Wednesday.
Education Department spokesman Rick Miller said Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell "has the highest regard for Joe Nunez" as a "consensus builder" with deep knowledge of the board and its business.
O'Connell and the CTA sued the governor and the Legislature in August to try to make them repay not only $3 billion in back pay owed to schools that no one disputes, but also another $3 billion they say the governor promised schools two years ago — a promise upon which he reneged.
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Bonnie Reiss is on the board, too? Oh, joy! Lefties unite!
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Democrats... just doing the jobs Republicans aren't qualified to do? Thanks, Arnold.
That's our Gubby.
Never mind that Nunez has CTA blood coursing thru his veins, an organization that despises the Gub (or so they pretend).
Is this a gesture of peace and togetherness or just a further revealing of who the Gub really is? (No, that is not a trick question, unless you believe in Trojan Horses that only know one trick; ie; stabbing their base in the heart as often as they can after they infiltrate their party.)
Hey now, of the 10 appointments he made earlier this week, only 5 were demRats.
It helps to belong to the New Majority or La Raza today or so it appears.
Where's that FO so I can poke his eyes out ?
Just remember "A vote for McClintock is a vote for Bustamonte."
So this guy has 3 decades in education. What good is that if the 3 decades were 3 of the worse in the history of the US? Guys like these are the ones we need out of the education business and into collecting garbage somehwere.
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