Campbell Brown Uses A Paid Organizer Of StudentsFirstNY As The Face Of Her Tenure/Seniority Lawsuit

From the Daily News:

Seven families will file suit Monday to end teacher tenure in the fiercest attack yet on job protections enjoyed by New York State educators.

The families, including five from some of the most impoverished communities in the city, claim their children were underserved in school due to incompetent teachers who only kept their jobs because of tenure rules that violate kids’ constitutional right to a sound, basic education.

The lawsuit will be filed in Albany and is backed by the politically connected journalist-turned-education advocate, Campbell Brown.

“There’s no reason why my kids should not be reading on grade level. The law should be changed,” said Nina Doster, 33, of South Ozone Park, Queens. The mother of five is a plaintiff in the suit and also a paid organizer for the StudentsFirstNY advocacy group.

“Every child should be subject to the best education and teaching in every classroom,” she said.

One of the plaintiffs is on the StudentsFirstNY payroll as an organizer?

Doesn't that set up at least the appearance of a conflict of interest in the case?

I mean, this parent is part of a lawsuit that is financially backed by the same financial interests that back StudentsFirstNY.

In any case, Brown's lawsuit here in New York is going to have a rougher road than the Vergara lawsuit in California.

But observers say it will take much more than just education horror stories to win the case.

Brown “has to prove inequity, inadequacy and causation — that the different legal constellation in New York causes the learning issues that we see throughout the state,” said David Bloomfield an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Are teacher tenure and seniority rules the reasons why Ms. Doster's kids are not reading on grade level?

And do teacher tenure and seniority rules lead to systemic problems around the state that cause learning issues like this?

That's what Brown and her cohort have to prove.

To my mind, that they're using a paid organizer for StudentsFirstNY as one of the faces of that lawsuit to prove that says a lot about the legitimacy of the lawsuit.

Ironically, the former head of StudentsFirstNY was Micah Lasher, Mayor Bloomberg's former liason in Albany.

So now what we have here is a woman who works for an organization that was led by Michah Lasher, a Bloomberg crony, suing over teacher tenure and seniority rules in the NYC school system that supposedly caused her children learning problems while Michael Bloomberg was running the system and Michah Lasher was pushing his agenda in Albany.

To make matters worse, we don't know who Campbell Brown's donors are and she refuses to reveal the list, but it is thought that the education reform-friendly Bloomberg may have donated to her cause, as he has donated to StudentsFirst, the parent group of StudentsFirstNY in the past.

I dunno, I'm not a lawyer but it seems to me there are all kinds of conflict of interest problems with that part of the suit.