Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Am I getting paranoid?

Check out this little provision in the charter school bill passed by the House on line 401 of the bill:

"(9) The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board shall appoint an individual to serve as the executive director and general counsel of the board. In addition to possessing the qualifications established by the board which are based on national best practices, the executive director and general counsel must be licensed to practice law in the State of Mississippi and must possess an understanding of state and federal education law. The executive director and general counsel, who shall serve at the will and pleasure of the board, shall devote his full time to the proper administration of the board and the duties assigned to him by the board and shall be paid a salary established by the board, subject to the approval of the State Personnel Board. Subject to the availability of funding, the executive director and general counsel may employ such administrative staff as may be necessary to assist the director and board in carrying out the duties and directives of the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board." Bill

Compare that language to the Senate version on line 327:

"(i) The Mississippi Public Charter School Authorizing Board shall appoint an executive director to serve at the discretion of the authorizer with qualifications established by the authorizer based on national best practices."

So who is the House bill trying to create a job for? A little bit too specific, if you politicos know what I mean. Are there any former legislators who need a job?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you are paranoid, so am I.

It's been done so many times and in RFPs as well with only ONE candidate or bidder in mind.

Shadowfax said...

Is Dick Molpus a lawyer? Not that he understands education........

Anonymous said...

I agree with being paranoid, but see it the other way. It looks like the Senate bill was leaving room for someone in particular, and the House said, "No flunkies allowed. This person will actually have to do a real job, and not just 'telecommute' from home and turn in fake expense reports."

But I'm probably being WAAAAY too optimistic.

Anonymous said...

8:33 You ARE way too optimistic :-)

This looks like they want a lawyer with no experience teaching in charge of the whole thing.

King of like hiring a particular fox to guard the henhouse.

Anonymous said...

http://www.tru-law.com/attorneys/jeff-rimes.php

Anonymous said...

What do you expect from a bunch of worthless lawyers who make up the laws?

Anonymous said...

10:33, hate to say this but most of the legislators are not lawyers. That was true a couple of decades ago, but now lawyers hold less than a third of the seats. There are more legislators that list "consultants" as their occupation (thanks to the black caucus members)than any other single occupation.

Anonymous said...

He's a freakin' preacher-lawyer!

Anonymous said...

The bill requires someone serving as GENERAL COUNSEL to actually be familiar with the law and y'all are upset? Sounds like sour grapes from a bunch of "consultants."

Anonymous said...

Good catch, KF. When the versions of the bill are that different between the houses, there's an issue that they are not talking about.

Anonymous said...

11:20 - no, serving as General Counsel should require a law degree. But combining the General Counsel and the Executive Director into one position is strange. Normal process would be to employ an Executive Director, and either hire on an "as needed" outside lawyer, or employ a General Counsel. They are two different job responsibilities - to combine them leaves open the question of whether a lawyer is the best person to administer a program. Generally, that would not be answered in the positive. Lawyers are typically terrible managers - by the nature of their training.

Anonymous said...

another fine example of who's teaching our children: http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/29/high-school-teacher-tweets-half-naked-photos-tells-the-world-she-was-high-while-grading

Anonymous said...

12:09 has nailed it, 11:20

Unless it's running a law firm, I don't think being a lawyer is necessary to be a CEO. There's something funny about that version of the bill for sure.

Shadowfax said...

I've known several directors of private sector departments who were what I'd call 'failed lawyers' or ones who had either never been in a courtroom or had a pissant practice or failed the bar, yet they had law degrees and supposedly knew how to negotiate the yellow pages when it came time to call a real lawyer. What capable lawyer worth his/her salt will settle for a 90k director's position? Also questionable is whether the job will fall under the auspices of PERS and the State Personnel Board and if the latter is true, why is the legislature writing job descriptions?

Anonymous said...

Y'all couldn't see the trees through the forest if you were Superman, Spiderman, and Batman all rolled into one. The girl running the pro charter school coalition group there in Jackson is being paid by a bunch of pro-corporate, for profit, educational companies to get this stuff passed so that they can sell online and textbooks to these schools. Do your homework, look it all up oh great research creatures. OF COURSE some Republican, business/lawyer flunkie is going to be the damn gatekeeper for the thing, stop being so idealistic, maybe do your homework and research the pro-charter groups as much as you enjoy calling-out Nancy Loome.

Anonymous said...

Even Watkins and Eager law firm got out of having the managing partner be the CEO...they hired a CPA to do it now for them.

Anonymous said...

2:07 that's an, un, _interesting_ perspective.

You mean these "pro-corporate, for profit, educational companies" (please name them, BTW) can't make any money selling "online and textbooks" to the schools that currently exist? why not?

Anonymous said...

9:59 is on to somsthing.

Preacher Lawyer is associated with Miss. Center foPublic policy;
A school board attorney;
A friend of the Speaker of the Hovse; and
Represented the convicted child molester who pled guilty in Hinds County last week but got no jail time (who incidentally went to the Speaker's church)

Shadowfax said...

Holy Insider Shit!



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