Mr. Johnson suggested that the attacks were being orchestrated by political opponents, starting with the teachers’ unions. Before he took office, a nonprofit organization he created wrestled control of the Sacramento High School and turned it into a charter school, ousting the unionized teaching staff.
“I ended up turning the high school I went to into a charter high school,” he said in the interview before his announcement. “And as a result, I probably made a lot of enemies in the teachers’ union. California and Sacramento are ground zero when it comes to one of the strongest special interest groups in the country. I did what I thought was right for kids. I created problems and enemies back then, and they have been enemies for life.”The mayor said he realized this issue would come up when he considered running for office in 2008, eight years after he retired from professional basketball. “It was very clear to me that when I had to make a decision on whether I was going to run for mayor or not, that the allegations would resurface,” he said. “I didn’t have any inkling that they would dog me throughout my political career, but that’s the reality of it.”
Perhaps he thought he could survive the allegations the way Bill Clinton survived his.
Maybe he would have, but for the video tape and the age of the girl at the time of the alleged abuse.
But bet that the allegations made against him at St. Hope, his charter school, along with the sexual harassment complaint filed against him by a Sacramento city employee and some unseemly behavior with another woman who worked for the National Conference of Black Mayors, didn't help matters.
I read somewhere last night that the national media were starting to dig into the story that Dave McKenna of Deadspin had done so much to move forward.
If that's the case, we may yet get more to this story that not only puts an end to Johnson's political career, but finishes him off Cosby-style too.
Same could happen with his wife, Michelle Rhee, since she is alleged to have helped him cover up sexual misconduct allegations at his charter school.
Let's hope the old saw is true, that the mills of justice grind slowly, but exceedingly fine, and that these two despicable characters face their karmic debt in the here and now.
ReplyDeleteNah. I bet his narrative that this is a reprisal by teachers' unions will stick.
ReplyDeleteAll the sudden people will begin to see charter school douches as victims? NOOOOO!
The enormous and daily-reinforced narrative is very simple: public school teachers and their unions are THE problem and are hyper-powerful and charter folks are fighting the good fight, are the innovators and heroic disrupters and will soon have Apple commercials focused on them.
Lets not assume this narrative structure is getting reversed in the media or the courts.
"California and Sacramento are ground zero when it comes to one of the strongest special interest groups in the country." Special interest groups are those with loads of money, invested in political movements and candidates who will further push their special interest agendas. Where exactly do teachers and teachers' unions fit with that?
ReplyDeleteInteresting that first teachers unions are blamed for protecting sexual predators, then if they come out against a sexual predator, they are again demeaned. Seems teachers unions are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Teacher unions represent public school teachers. As such, they would not be in favor of private charters like KJ's, which have the goal of diverting limited public tax dollars for education away from public schools and into charters ,and turning those dollars into private profits for a few. KJ's several sexual predator allegations are a separate issue. Sexual predators do not belong within 50 miles of a school with minor children in it! Where there's smoke, there could well be fire. This needs to be fully investigated. OTOH, what responsible parent would send their youngster to a school run by an alleged sexual predator in the first place? It's not just a single, isolated allegation. Three or more would be a pattern of behavior.
ReplyDelete