GOVERNOR Juan N. Babauta says the performance of Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos should be evaluated by an impartial panel.
At least two members of the evaluation panel are closely associated with Inos—Board of Education members Esther Fleming and Marja Lee Taitano.
“I think it is up to the two members to look at themselves to see if they can be impartial. And if they feel that they cannot be, then they should excuse themselves from being part of the evaluating team,” Babauta said.
Inos was the running mate of one of Babauta’s opponents in the Nov. 3 elections.
Meanwhile, the House Committee on Education will look into the allegations of impartiality when it meets this week, its chairman, Rep. Danny O. Quitugua, said.
Quitugua, R-Rota, told the Variety that his committee will discuss Fleming and Taitano’s membership on the evaluation panel.
He said several other lawmakers had expressed “serious concerns” about the evaluation panel’s composition.
“I respect the authority of the Board of Education,” Quitugua, a former BOE chairman, said. “But my point is that we also need to protect its integrity. People come and go, but the institution will still be there.”
He added, “If the institution is not going to function the way it should be, as a non-partisan body, then we are not fulfilling the obligation to protect the interest of our children in the commonwealth.”
Besides Taitano and Fleming, the other members of the evaluation panel are Norman Scott, who represents private schools on the Board of Education, and student representative Tracy Lyn Del Rosario.
