by Jon DiPietro
In an August 12 opinion piece on SeacostOnline, Bill Duncan retread some heavily worn ground in the latest sequel to Swamp Things: The Educreaucity Fights Back. Current DoE Commissioner Frank Edelblut has been in the crosshairs of the education bureaucrats (to whom I refer as “educrats”) since day one because he dares to challenge the status quo.
Mr. Duncan has courageously seized the colors of the Educrat Army to storm that hill once more asking, “Do we have the education leadership we need in NH?”
I would like to answer Mr. Duncan’s question with a story. I recently received an email from VLACS that raised some privacy concerns for me. I posted the email in a Facebook group and within hours, two state representatives (indefatigable parental advocates Lisa Freeman and Victoria Sullivan) responded with offers to follow up on my concerns. The very next morning, I received a call from Commissioner Edelblut. He heard those concerns and asked, “What would you like me to do about it?” And he was not being sarcastic. He quite literally and quite sincerely wanted to know how he could be of service.
That’s not only leadership, it’s the best kind of leadership. The kind in which people remember they’re serving us and not the other way around. Let’s compare that with Mr. Duncan’s, who referred to parents as “bottom feeders” if they dared criticize him. Or perhaps he prefers the leadership style of former BoE Chair, Tom Raffio, who called a group of Manchester parents “crazy” during his appearance before the school committee in May 2015.
Thank you for asking this important question, Mr. Duncan. I think we have had quite enough of your elitist, condescending style of leadership. I much prefer the humble servant style we currently have with Mr. Edelblut.
