THE Board of Education should have created a more credible committee to evaluate the performance of Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos. Instead, BOE Chairman Junpan Guerrero named two of Inos’s closest associates to the panel—board members Esther Fleming and Marja Lee Taitano. The two actively supported Inos when she was the Covenant Party’s candidate for lt. governor. Earlier, they voted to change Inos’s contract so she could get into politics despite the supposed non-partisan nature of BOE and the Public School System. Now they are tasked to “evaluate” the performance of their friend.
Is this BOE for real? Does Guerrero think that the public is too stupid to notice these conflicts of interest?
BOE says the evaluation will be based on the results of the ongoing survey among school principals. So why did BOE create the evaluation panel? Why not just survey the principals, hand the results to BOE members, call a meeting that will be open to the public and allow board members to explain what they think about extending Inos’s contract.
But no. BOE has to have an evaluation panel AND a survey. So who will ultimately make a recommendation to the board? The members of the panel, of course, who can ignore the survey results.
BOE should stop this charade. If BOE members want to re-hire Inos—and provoke public outrage—then they should have the guts to do so openly.
Now if Guerrero really wants an impartial evaluation of Inos, then he should ask Taitano and Fleming to recuse themselves from the panel. At stake is the credibility of the evaluation process—and of BOE itself. Indeed, Guerrero should listen to House Education Committee Chairman Daniel O. Quitugua. “I’m concerned about the participation of [Taitano and Fleming],” the lawmaker told the Variety. “Their presence [on the panel] would leave questions in the public’s mind regarding impartiality. There’s a need to build public confidence that BOE can handle this issue. To avoid any suspicion, I think the board needs to appoint somebody else.”
Guerrero should also remember what he told our reporter after he was elected to BOE. He said he “hopes to see PSS…to be non-political and its leaders not affiliated with any political group.” He said he would work for “a strict reinforcement of a policy stating that BOE and PSS are non-partisan agencies.” He added, “We need…to ensure the public that politics is not our focus here and that we’re not using it as a vehicle for a political gain.” According to Guerrero, the last elections exposed the active affiliation of certain education officials with certain political parties. “PSS should get out of politics. This should not be repeated,” he said, and he was right.
Chairman Guerrero, don’t let your own words haunt you.
