Diane Ravitch debates StudentsFirst lobbyist
Watch Diane Ravitch dismantle Rhee’s proxy, Tim Melton, on issues of teacher tenure, seniority, testing, and teacher evaluation.
From Minnesota Public Radio. Read the original article here.
Tim Melton left the Michigan House of Representatives to become Rhee’s lobbyist after helping her push her agenda through the Michigan legislature. His status status is that of a revolving door lobbyist—called “perhaps the most pernicious lobbying strategy” by ThinkProgress. Convicted and imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave this explanation of how corrupting the revolving door can be: “You know, when you’re done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider coming to work for us.’ Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to ‘em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they’re gonna do. And not only that, they’re gonna think of things we can’t think of to do.”