Last week I had the pleasure of aiding Mayor Dan McKee of Cumberland, RI in his re-election campaign. While I may have never heard of Cumberland, I had heard of the exciting work that Mayor McKee is doing in the education reform world, particularly with his work on the "Mayoral Academies" bill.
Mayor McKee was initially expected to easily win re-election until former Cumberland Mayor Dave Iwuc (‘02 – ‘04) entered the race. As a Mayor who was most remembered for leaving the town with $4 million worth of debt, many residents were undoubtedly puzzled by his decision to run again.
His motives became clear, however, in a letter he sent to every Cumberland resident on the day before the primary. This letter contained absurd allegations against Mayor McKee and completely misrepresented Mayoral Academies. My favorite lines read, "While there is always room for improvement, Cumberland's schools have done well by our students for generations…[Cumberland taxpayers] must have been shocked when Dan McKee ‘declared' that the public school system is failed and unfixable, and then decided the solution was to ‘save' fifty Cumberland students in his Mayoral Academy."
While the NEA was not mentioned anywhere in the letter, their signature was all over it.