Daily News Picks Up Deadspin Report On Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Kevin Johnson

From the NY Daily News:

In the days leading up to Donald Sterling’s lifetime ban from the NBA, one of the strongest advocates for disciplining the Clippers’ owner was former All-Star guard and current Sacramento, Calif., mayor Kevin Johnson.

“The players are waiting for the commissioner to act decisively,” Johnson said in late April, speaking on behalf of the players’ union. “They want the maximum of what the constitution and bylaws will allow and we’re trying to figure out what that is. They want a decision to be made quickly and decisively. If you don’t respect the players in this league, then the values that we all espouse are for naught. If what has been alleged and stated is authentic then there must be sanctions that make it clear that the NBA family will have zero tolerance for such conduct today, tomorrow or ever.”

Johnson got his wish when NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million after Sterling admitted he made the racist comments in a taped conversation between himself and his former girlfriend.

But while Johnson may be viewed as a strong, moral voice in the Sterling saga, a Deadspin report published last week revisited dark chapters in the California politician’s past — including alleged sexual misconduct by Johnson when he was the president and CEO of St. HOPE Academy, a charter school organization he founded in Sacramento — and misuse of federal funds the school received.

The St. HOPE matter came less than a decade after Johnson, according to a joint U.S. Senate and House report, paid “$230,000 to resolve claims brought by a Phoenix teenager who alleged Johnson molested her.”

Arizona prosecutors never filed criminal charges against Johnson in that matter but an investigation into the ex-NBA guard’s tenure at St. HOPE ultimately led to an August 2008 referral to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of California by the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) “for criminal and civil prosecution of Kevin Johnson” and another St. HOPE executive for misuse of federal funds.

“I will tell you that my staff, which had a totally nonpolitical agenda, looked into all the allegations,” says Gerald Walpin, the former Inspector General for the CNCS, whose office ultimately made the referral to the U.S. Attorney’s office to prosecute Johnson the same year the former hoops star ran for mayor of Sacramento. Walpin was fired by President Obama in the ensuing fallout. “I would not have referred it to the U.S. Attorney’s office unless there was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. And there was no doubt that there was established documentary evidence of misuse of federal funds.”

Read the whole Daily News piece, read the more detailed Deadspin piece by Dave McKenna they picked up on and ask yourself this question:

How did Kevin Johnson get away with what he got away with and why is he considered anything other than a sexual predator?

Kevin Huffman: Common Core "Not A Curriculum"

Maybe this is just semantics, but...

Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman told reporters earlier Tuesday that one misconception is that common core is a curriculum, “and it’s not.”“The common core is a set of standards that says your child should know ‘X’ at the end of the year,” he said. “The curriculum is still up to local schools and local districts, the way it always has been.”

While it's nice to say that "the curriculum is still up to local schools and local districts, the way it always has been," the reality is that the same Common Core "assessments" will be given in many different states, thus making what local schools and local districts can emphasize much less, uh, local.

The point is, Mr Ex-Michelle Rhee is playing a bait and switch game here, like many reformers, to fool people into thinking the Common Core is not something developed, funded and promoted by a very small reform cadre far from the local school districts and shoved down the throats of the states while most people weren't paying attention.

Now that people are waking up to the reality of the Common Core - and the national tests that will go along with them - they're not liking what they're seeing and they want some questions answered.

But as is often the case with the reform movement, Huffman just shucks and jives concerns of others and lies about the Common Core not taking away curriculum decisions from local schools and local districts.

Not a surprise from a guy who wants to take away the power to accept or reject charter school proposals from the local districts and give it to himself and his fellow central bureaucrats.