Kevin Johnson Blames Teachers Union For Sexual Abuse And Harassment Allegations

It's not KJ's fault that he has multiple allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment lodged against him - it's his "enemies" in the teachers union:

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.

Michelle Rhee's Husband, Kevin Johnson, Target Of New Sexual Harassment Complaint

The Sacramento Bee:

A former aide in the Sacramento city manager’s office filed a claim last month against Mayor Kevin Johnson alleging the mayor sexually harassed her multiple times over a seven-month period at City Hall, according to a copy of the claim obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

The employee – identified in the claim as Estrellita Ilee Muller, 32 – alleged that she was summoned to the mayor’s private library at City Hall by Johnson’s security officer and that the mayor pressed his body against her, felt her torso and tried to kiss her. Muller filed the claim with the City Clerk’s office in April and is seeking $200,000 in damages, according to the document. She also filed a formal discrimination complaint with the city’s human resources director in October 2014 – a complaint that was found insufficient by that office.

Read the whole Bee article - the city's investigation into the complaint sounds rigged for the "insufficient evidence" outcome.

This would not be the first time Kevin Johnson has been accused of sexual harassment and or other sexual-related crimes - he has a pattern of this kind of behavior:

In 1997, Johnson signed a draft confidential settlement with a Phoenix teenager who had claimed the former NBA player molested her, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Bee in 2008. The agreement amount was $230,000, according to the document.

The settlement stemmed from a 1996 investigation by Phoenix police into an allegation that Johnson, who was 29 at the time, disrobed in the presence of a 16-year-old girl and touched her inappropriately. The allegations were made to police by the girl’s therapist.

Johnson denied the allegations and no criminal charges were filed in the case.

In 2008, soon after Johnson launched his first mayoral campaign, a police report filed by a former teacher from Sacramento High School surfaced alleging that a 17-year-old student at the school told the teacher Johnson had approached her from behind, massaged her shoulders and touched her breasts.

Sacramento police later said the girl recanted her story and found the allegation to be unfounded.

Johnson founded the nonprofit St. HOPE organization that operates Sacramento High School as a charter school.

A separate allegation made in teacher Erik Jones’ report charged that Johnson tried to get into bed with a volunteer from the Hood Corps program, an urban volunteer program that was part of St. Hope. Police did not investigate that allegation because the young woman was not a minor.

There are not at least four allegations against Johnson - the 16-year old in Phoenix, the 17 year at KJ's charter school, a teacher at the same charter school and now a city employee.

The Muller complaint alleges there are other incidents with city employees that have been covered up:

The claim states that Muller’s supervisors at City Hall “failed to take appropriate action to protect” her from the alleged incident or “subsequent incidents of harassment.” The claim states Muller told “several representatives of the city regarding the conduct of Mr. Johnson on several separate occasions” and that those representatives “offered no helpful advice and took no action in response to receiving the information.”

“Plaintiff alleges on information and belief that Mr. Johnson had acted inappropriately with respect to other city employees and representatives in the past and that representatives of the city knew, or had reason to know, of facts establishing this,” the claim states. “Notwithstanding this, city representatives did nothing to effectively deal with the situation or to protect plaintiff and similarly situated employees.”

Imagine Kevin Johnson was a teacher instead of Michelle Rhee's husband.

What would Campbell Brown, Michelle Rhee, and the rest of the education reform contingent be saying about this?

Right now all we get from them is silence.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article21025047.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article21025047.html#storylink=c

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article21025047.html#storylink=cpy

Andrew Cuomo Deals From Michelle Rhee's "Perv Teacher" Fear Card Deck

Governor Cuomo yesterday:

"The teachers’ union represents the teachers. I understand that. … I represent the students and I want to do the best we can for the students and for their education," he said. "One of the issues we have to work through where the teachers’ union doesn’t agree with me is, I want to evaluate teachers, and I want to be able to get bad teachers out of the classroom.

“I understand the union’s issue; they don’t want anyone fired,” Cuomo said. “But we have teachers that have been found guilty of sexually abusing students who we can’t get out of the classroom. We have a process where literally it takes years and years to get a bad teacher out of the classroom. And I understand the teachers’ rights, but I also understand the students’ rights. And the Albany government, the Albany media, is very responsive to the teachers’ union and their groups. I get it. But the students have rights, too. And this whole education system is about the students.”

See what's he's doing there?

Mary Ahern did:

@TeacherArthurG @nbianculli @perdidostschool He's blurring issue of faulty VAM w/the sexual offenders scenario to play on ppls' worst fears.
— Mary Ahern (@mma718) January 1, 2015

So did Arthur Goldstein:

He's talking about people who were convicted of nothing anywhere. Like Andrew Cuomo, so far. @nbianculli @perdidostschool
— Arthur Goldstein (@TeacherArthurG) January 1, 2015

So did Nick Bianculli:

@mma718 @TeacherArthurG @perdidostschool His claim of teachers found guilty of sexual misconduct w/out losing jobs must be substantiated
— Nick Bianculli (@nbianculli) January 1, 2015

@mma718 @TeacherArthurG @perdidostschool And yes, eval of teachers and sexual misconduct by teachers are two completely different issues
— Nick Bianculli (@nbianculli) January 1, 2015

Cuomo's fear mongerig is straight out of the Michelle Rhee/Campbell Brown education reformer playbook.

Whenever they want to try and turn the public against teachers, they trot out the "Perv Teacher" fear card and play it liberally - even when the whole thing is made up.

Michelle Rhee, for example, fired 266 teachers in Washington D.C. when she was schools chancellor, claiming that they were sexual and physical abusers of children.

She was lying, er, "misspeaking":

Michelle A. Rhee, the chancellor of District of Columbia schools, finds herself at the center of a controversy again, this time over comments attributed to her in a business magazine saying that some teachers who were laid off last fall had sexually and physically abused students.

Rhee laid off 266 teachers and a few dozen administrators in October in an effort to close a budget gap, a move that led to student protests, a lawsuit by the local teachers' union, and a contentious face-off with the local city council. Rhee was accused by her detractors of using the budget as an excuse to lay off veteran teachers without having to work with seniority rules.
 
But her response defending her actions to Fast Company startled many.

"I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school," Rhee told Fast Company. "Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?"

Rhee's comments, first circulated over the weekend in D.C-area media, sent shockwaves around the region and beyond, invoking the ire of many teachers and some of Rhee's sharpest critics, including the local teachers' union president and the city council chairman.

"With a callous, nonspecific statement that names no one and thus blames all, Michelle Rhee has called into question the ethics of 266 men and women, and she's done it in a way that gives these individuals almost no recourse to defend themselves," George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union, wrote in a letter to D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who is Rhee's boss. Parker asked Rhee to apologize to teachers in his letter.

Questions immediately arose. If these teachers had been physically and sexually abusing children, why were they allowed to remain until a budget crunch required dismissing teachers? How many of the 266 teachers had been abusing students?

As the Washington City Paper explains, Rhee and other school officials are required by law to immediately report any suspected abuse of children they are aware of.

I asked Rhee on Monday to shed light on the context in which she made her comments and if she had moved to take any legal or disciplinary action against those teachers who had allegedly abused students before the October layoffs. Answers to me—and the legions of other people wanting an answer—were slow in coming.

After nearly five days of silence on the matter, Rhee responded to us all a short time ago via a two-page letter she wrote to the council chairman and two other members about their numerous concerns.

The chancellor said her comment to Fast Company was made "some time ago" while explaining that teacher performance and not just seniority was an important factor considered in deciding who to terminate during the layoffs caused by a budget cut.

"I was describing the kind of conduct that was appropriate to take into account in implementing the reduction in force," she wrote. "The examples I gave involved a very small minority of the teachers who were terminated in the budget reduction."

How small a minority? Rhee says one teacher had "serious allegations of sexual misconduct," and that teacher had been removed from the school immediately. The case was referred to police, and the teacher was not in the classroom during the time of the layoffs, she said.

Six employees who were laid-off had been previously suspended for using corporal punishment on students. Two employees had served suspensions for "being AWOL on multiple occasions and several other employees had egregious time and attendance records." In the case of these actions, the discipline procedures embedded in union contracts prescribed suspension, rather than firing for those offenses.

Have you got those numbers now?

One teacher accused of sexual misconduct, already taken out of the classroom.

Six teachers with previous suspensions for "corporal punishment."

Two with previous suspensions for being AWOL.

But she said this:

"I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school," Rhee told Fast Company. "Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?"

Nonetheless Rhee felt no compunction to apologize to the vast majority of teachers who weren't accused of having "sex with children" or hitting children.

Ironically Rhee is married to a man who has been accused of multiple events of sexual misconduct and was alleged by a US Inspector General to have helped him cover up some of those allegations, but that's a story for another time.

The point here is, whenever reformers want to drive up public outrage against teachers, they play the "Perv Teacher" fear card and conflate the issue with whatever other issues they want.

As Mary Ahern noted in her tweet, Cuomo's conflating sexual misconduct (which no one I know defends - certainly not the UFT, as Mike Mulgrew's response to Campbell Brown shows) with evaluation of so-called teacher effectiveness.

That Cuomo feels the need to conflate the two and play the "Perv Teacher" fear card shows you how little confidence he has in his argument that the public education system needs to be broken.

It also shows you how scummy Cuomo is.

Like Rhee, he has no problem smearing teachers as criminals in order to get them off the payroll.

Is Bill Cosby Still On The StudentsFirst Board? (UPDATED - 10:40 AM)

StudentsFirst seems to have scrubbed their website a bit.

When I put in a Google search for Bill Cosby + Board of Directors + StudentsFirst, here's what comes up:

StudentsFirst Board of Directors | StudentsFirst.org

https://www.studentsfirst.org/board-directors

StudentsFirst

One of America's most beloved comedians of all time, Bill Cosby has captivated generations of fans with his comedy routines, iconic albums and best-selling ...

And yet, when you click on that link, you don't find the page with the Board of Directors listed or the page with Cosby listed as sitting on the board.

Instead, you just get the StudentsFirst.Org page.

I looked around the StudentsFirst website, including under the "Who We Are" tab.

The Board of Directors page seems to have disappeared from the site.

Now I see plenty of stories about Cosby joining StudentsFirst back in September 2012.

I even see a video of him talking about StudentsFirst and education reform.

But I don't see any stories about him stepping down.

Strange that StudentsFirst.org has lots of information about "Meeting Their Team" - including Michelle Rhee - and learning about their "Mission," but alas, no information about their board.

You'd think they want to publicize information about their board, especially since there are some real luminaries sitting on it, including Roland Martin, Joel Klein, Connie Chung and Bill Cosby.

It's as if something happened recently that made them decide to scrub their Board of Directors page, but rather than own up to it, they did it in the dark and hoped nobody noticed.

Now it's possible I've gotten this all wrong here and I'm just missing the information about the Board of Directors at StudentsFirst and all the wonderful members on it.

It's possible that I'm just missing the information about Cosby and his commitment to education reform and children on the Studentsfirst website.

Or it's possible that Cosby stepped down and I'm missing the notice for that on the World Wide Web.

Though I don't think this is the case - Valerie Strauss has a Washington Post piece dated August 13, 2014 about Michelle Rhee stepping down from StudentsFirst and joining Miracle Gro and Cosby is said to still be a member of the StudentsFirst board as of that date.

So it seems likely Cosby was still a member of the StudentsFirst Board of Directors when the sexual assault allegations against Cosby that have long been in the public domain went viral the past few weeks.

It seems that StudentsFirst wanted to distance themselves from the sexual assault (including statutory rape) allegations against Cosby as quickly and as quietly as they could.

If they did want to distance themselves from Cosby and the growing scandal around him, it's a shame they didn't go public and explain EXACTLY why they wanted to do that.

Berklee College of Music did just that with a scholarship Cosby sponsored at the school.

Alas, it seems the "students first" people at StudentsFirst haven't take that same route.

That's a shame - this could have been a teachable moment for us all, as the "Blame Teachers First" crowd turned on one of their own who looks to be a serial sexual assaulter.

You can bet if this was a teacher alleged to have committed these egregious acts, the StudentsFirst crowd wouldn't have gone quietly.

But they seem to have taken the coward's route out instead and scrubbed him away in the middle of the night.

If I've gotten any of this wrong, I will publicly apologize to StudentsFirst and Michelle Rhee herself  for vilifying them for secretly scrubbing their ties away to a man alleged to have committed at least 18 acts of sexual assault and more coming out every day.

Just let me know, StudentsFirst folks.

Is Bill Cosby still a member of your board or not?

UPDATED - 10:40 AM: Patrick Sullivan left the following comment on the post:

 Looks like they took their board page down. Google has a cached copy as of 10/31 that includes Cosby. This link should bring it up:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mWnrmFEAN-QJ:https://www.studentsfirst.org/board-directors

It seems Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst did not have the guts to go public with their cutting Cosby loose.

Too bad, but not unexpected.

After all, Rhee helped sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, go away.

It seems Ms. Rhee and her fellow ed deformers are only looking for accountability against people who are accused of sexual misconduct when they're teachers.

13 Rape Allegations (Including One Statutory) Against Bill Cosby, But Whoopi Goldberg Still Defends Him

From the Daily News:

A shrill, backstage brawl at “The View” Wednesday left co-host Rosie Perez in tears while panelists Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell battled over how to cover the latest allegations against Bill Cosby and the racially charged upheaval in Ferguson, Mo., sources said.

O’Donnell believed the show — now overseen by ABC News — needed to delve deeper into both controversial subjects, while Goldberg wanted to steer clear of the topics altogether.

Ultimately, both news stories were discussed at length on the air by the panel.

“There’s terrible frustration and there are problems,” a source close to the show told the Daily News. “Whoopi didn’t want to talk about Cosby and Ferguson, Rosie (O’Donnell) did — how could you not? These are topics that are uncomfortable for everyone, but it’s ‘The View’ and it’s their job to talk about topics that might make some people tense.”

Whoopi was happy to bash "bad teachers" not once but twice over the summer, claiming teacher tenure protects them.

Yet she defends her pal Cosby - now with 13 public rape allegations against him including one with an underage girl of 15 - by trying to ensure "The View" steers clear of the topic.

This comes after she defended him earlier in the week and attacked one of his accusers, saying she had "lots of questions" for her.

Apparently Whoopi doesn't want to address any of those questions publicly on "The View" anymore.

Another teacher-basher exposed as a hypocrite and a phony.

Hey, Whoopi - if you have such concern for the kids, why not let "The View" cover the Cosby story, including the allegation that your friend Bill Cosby repeatedly had sex with an underage girl?

Good God - the show is supposed to cover the news.

The public implosion of the iconic Bill Cosby into sexual predator and statutory rapist certainly is news.

And like I said in an earlier post - you can bet if this was a teacher accused of these crimes, you'd be one of the first throwing stones.

Awaiting The Campbell Brown Denouncement Of Bill Cosby

Here's where education reformer Campbell Brown denounced the teachers unions for defending 97 teachers or school employees accused of sexual misconduct over a five year period in NYC.

97 teachers and staff accused (not convicted, btw - just accused) is slightly more than 0.001% of the teaching and school staff overall.

Still, Brown says this is a major problem and the system needs major reforms.

She has gone on TV and written about this repeatedly to educate the public about the need for reform.

Meanwhile fellow education reformer Bill Cosby has been accused of raping 16 women over the course of his career.

Every day now a new allegation against Cosby surfaces - there were two just yesterday (including a TMZ story in which an actress alleges Cosby assaulted her in the dressing room of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.)

One commenter at Perdido Street School writes:

Where is Campbell Brown when you need her? Oh, she is only interested in alleged teacher predators.

Indeed, here's the silence we have from Brown on Cosby.

Another teacher-basher, Whoopi Goldberg, actually defended Cosby earlier this week, saying that she has many questions for one of Cosby's accusers.

I wonder what teacher bashers like Brown or Goldberg would be saying were there a teacher out there who had 16 allegations of sexual assault lodged against him, with a new one surfacing every day?

I bet silence (in Brown's case) and defense (in Goldberg's case) would not be the response.

Funny how that goes.

Brown's been silent on her another education reformer's alleged sexual misconduct.

Her husband, neo-con Dan Senor, sits on the board of Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst even though Rhee is alleged to have helped cover up her husband, Kevin Johnson's, sexual misconduct with employees of his charter school.

The hypocrisy of education reformers like Campbell Brown and teacher bashers like Whoopi Goldberg knows no bounds.

It seems any teacher accused of anything is guilty automatically and ought to be fired.

But fellow education reformers and celebrities like Cosby and KJ - they're entitled to a stonewall defense.

Bill Cosby And Kevin Johnson - Brothers In Education Reform AND Sexual Predation

When Diane Ravitch blogged in 2012 that Bill Cosby was joining Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst board, I left the following comment on her post, comparing Cosby to Rhee's husband, Kevin Johnson:

reality-based educator

September 17, 2012 at 6:13 pm

Actually Bill Cosby was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a 32 year old woman in 2004. She tried to bring a criminal case against him in 2005, but police declined to file charges. She brought civil charges against him. Her attorneys found 10 other women who also claimed to have been drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby in the past. Nine were listed anonymously in the court documents, one made the accusations publicly. The court documents are here:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/bill-cosbys-prior-bad-acts

The LA Times covered the story, including the settlement Cosby reached with the woman, here:

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/nov/09/news/wk-cosby9

Cosby settled the 2005 case for an undisclosed amount, the alleged victim of the assault signed a non-disclosure agreement, so no other details of the case emerged. But People magazine covered the aftermath and interviewed three other women who claimed they had been drugged by Cosby and assaulted. People also reported that Cosby had paid off several women who had made these accusations in the past against Cosby.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20059561,00.html

I have two things to say about this:

First, Cosby fits right in with Kevin Johnson, Rhee’s husband, who himself has at least two accusations of sexual misconduct lodged against him (one by a minor.)

Second, how dare anybody with so many accusations leveled against him in the past lecture people about bad behavior, as Cosby has been known to do?

I stand by that comment tonight- both the Cosby part and the KJ part.

Cosby still fits in at StudentsFirst, which was founded by a woman who made sexual misconduct allegations against her boyfriend (now husband) go away.

Cosby lost his Netflix special, NBC canceled a sitcom they were developing with him and TVLand has stopped running The Cosby Show reruns.

While Cosby is free from the criminal justice system since all of the reported acts happened long ago, his career and reputation are in tatters.

His fellow ed deformer Kevin Johnson, however, remains free and clear tonight, still in power as mayor of Sacramento, even though he's got at least two accusations against him for sexual misconduct.

Isn't it time somebody revisits the Michelle Rhee/Kevin Johnson sexual misconduct case and cover-up again?

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?