Monday, March 02, 2009

When the education establishment breaks the law

Jeff Dickert is this week's poster boy for a desperate education establishment afraid that their grip on the state department for public instruction may be slipping away. As WISN's Mark Belling reported first on Friday, Dickert sent out an e-mail invitation to a fundraiser for WEAC-endorsed Tony Evers in violation of the law. Badger Blogger also reported on it on Saturday.
Jeff Dickert is the administrator of the Cooperative Educational Service Agency #7, a state agency that coordinates with the schools of Northeastern Wisconsin. Dickert, in clear violation of the law, has been doing political work on behalf of the teachers union and AFSCME backed candidate, the entrenched Tony Evers. Jeff Dickert has used state resources to not only campaign, but to raise money for Evers, by using his official Wisconsin email account and email list to campaign to public school administrators of Wisconsin and encourages them to pass the message along to their principals and teachers. This is clearly a violation of the law by a public official that is in a position that clearly knows the rules for doing political work with state resources.

Badger Blogger also has posted the e-mail in question. The e-mail had an attached flier created by the Evers campaign. Evers' opponent is Rose Fernandez who ran nearly even with Evers in the primary despite being drastically outspent.

On Vicki McKenna's show today on WISN-AM it was revealed CRG Network is filing a complaint with the state Government Accountability Board. A commenter at Badger Blogger claims Dickert will be on WTAQ-AM with Jerry Bader tomorrow to defend himself.