Just who ARE these 'invisible' characters hiding behind the guise of the 'Fordham Foundation,' seeking the demise of YOUR pension system?

Gee, the timing couldn't be better, with HB 151 dominating the news! What a coincidence! ....OR IS IT? This is Divide and Conquer, folks. How many different ways have OUR legislators tried to undermine OUR pension system? You KNOW there has to be something in it for them. What's at stake here? Only OUR MONEY!! Either we go after them or we lose, BIG TIME!! KBB

From John Curry, June 8, 2007
Subject: Rod, Chester, and isn't it a small world?

(Photo: Rod Paige)

Remember the Fordham Foundation who, this week, released a highly critical report about Ohio STRS which said that the STRS of Ohio needed to be restructured? Well, let's see who is now on the Board of Directors of the Fordham Institute...... try Rod Paige, the former Education Secretary in the Bush Administration! You remember Rod, don't you? He's the guy who called the NEA a "terrorist organization!" (http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/02/23/paige.terrorist.nea/) Yep, that Rod Paige! Look at the nice flowery piece Chester wrote about Rod which was distributed in 2005. Chester Finn, by the way, is the current president of the Fordham Institute! It's a small world isn't it? If you are now guessing that the Fordham Institute, Chester Finn, and Rod Paige are really not lovers of public education ... I think you're on the right track.

John
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Outgoing Education Secretary Rod Paige is a great education reformer and distinguished public servant who leaves office after four years of accomplishment, candor, nonstop dedication to America's children, and loyal service to the Bush administration.

With Cabinet members exiting in droves, it's difficult to know for sure who's being nudged out the door and who is leaving on their own volition. Paige had signaled that he was game to stick around a while longer, but the White House reportedly wanted a four-year commitment, which is a lot to ask of a 71-year-old. So as he packs to return to Texas, let us dwell not on the circumstances of his departure but on his achievements, his legacy, and his character.

"We all serve at the pleasure of the President," he told his staff, "and it is perfectly appropriate that I leave now."

Rod Paige wasn't perfect in this role. He is not, for example, a great public speaker when working off a prepared text. (He is wonderfully eloquent, sometimes thrilling, when he speaks from the heart.) He tends to voice the truth as he sees it, even when it upsets folks. One can scarcely forget his apt--if politically incorrect--comparison of the NEA to a "terrorist organization" or his terrific Wall Street Journal critique of the NAACP leadership.

What he was, however, what he is, is a dedicated educator of children and crusader for better breaks for the poorest and neediest among them. A black man who rose from the humblest start in Jim Crow's Mississippi, a product of segregated schools, he became a teacher, coach, administrator, counselor, dean, school board member, and, in time, the reforming superintendent of the largest school system in Texas.

He left that post to travel to Washington at Bush's behest, and there he led the U.S. Department of Education for four eventful years. He didn't always have the leeway he should have to lead it as well as he could. The White House tether was shorter than in previous administrations, far shorter than when I worked there with Bill Bennett in the late 1980s. Paige had limited authority to pick his team and less to pick his policy targets. (Chester E. Finn, Jr.)