A big victory for Education Alliance

The attempted recall of two school board trustees of the Capo Unified School District (CUSD) was at long last successful last night (see articles below). But the group that achieved this change in CUSD leadership got a substantial portion of its political funding from Education Alliance, a right-wing “back to basics” group with ties to several trustees of the SOCCCD board. (See Education Alliance.) Be on the lookout for hubris.

• LA Times: Capistrano Unifed school board members are recalled:

With the recall Tuesday night of two school trustees in South Orange County, a group of parents, politicians and gadflies claimed their greatest in a series of recent victories: control of the embattled 50,000-student Capistrano Unified School District.

With relatively low turnout, about 70% of voters approved recalling Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke, who between them have 36 years of experience on the board, and replacing them with substitute teacher Sue Palazzo and termed-out Assemblyman Ken Maddox….

• OC Register: New Capo trustees pledge openness:

Capistrano Unified's new trustees-elect, Sue Palazzo and Ken Maddox, on Tuesday pledged an era of open communication and redoubled examination of school affairs. 
“The days of trying to gloss over things are over,” Palazzo said. “At the beginning of my term, it's just going to be truth. People will feel they can talk, raise questions that will be answered truthfully. ”

Maddox and Palazzo will join trustees Ellen Addonizio, Anna Bryson and Larry Christensen in creating a five-person bloc on Capistrano's seven-member school board, once election results are certified….
…
Parents skeptical of the new five-person majority will be carefully watching the board's every move.
Anti-recall leaders have cited a link between the CUSD Recall Committee and the Tustin-based Education Alliance, a political action committee that opposes health clinics and bilingual education in schools, advocates for school vouchers, and wants to curb the power and influence of teacher unions. The recall committee received almost half of its political donations in 2006 from the Education Alliance. Maddox, a former state assemblyman who knows Education Alliance co-founder Mark Bucher through Republican circles, said Tuesday he had not received any donations from the alliance, but would not turn down money from the group.
“There are some things Mark and I agree on, and other things we don't,” Maddox said, citing school vouchers as an area of disagreement. 
“What is for sure is that voters can expect to see five unique individuals who bring their talents to the school board. We're not sitting around as a collective trying to formulate one goal. We are just five people wanting to see a change in the district. ”
Palazzo said the widespread rumors that she and the four other trustees were plotting to take over the school board and enact drastic changes at the district level were unfounded and untrue.
"I have been a public school teacher for almost 40 years, and I follow the California state law,” she said….

WHO IS MARK BUCHER?

• According to the OC Republican Party,

Mark has been actively involved in politics since the 1993 Proposition 174 [174 was a "voucher" initiative] school choice campaign, when he acted as the volunteer coordinator for Orange County . His observations during that campaign of the power and influence of the unions in our state led him to found the Education Alliance, a group dedicated to assisting school board candidates who are independent of education unions, as well as authoring, qualifying, and chairing Proposition 226, which would have required unions to receive permission to use their members’ dues for political purposes.

Mark also oversaw the qualification of Proposition 22, the Defense of Marriage Initiative, as well as Proposition 38, a school choice initiative.

Mark obtained his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Biola University , and his Juris Doctorate from Western State University , where he graduated Summa Cum Laude first in his class, and with the additional honor of Valedictorian. Mark lives in Tustin with his wife, Hanne and their 3 children.

• MARK BUCHER's role in "Fuentes-world" (from Fuentes-world, Part 1):

Back in 1993, Bucher, then a businessman, and two pals—James Righeimer and Frank Ury—fought for passage of the “school voucher” initiative (Prop 174). Apparently, when that measure failed, the three amigos founded “Education Alliance,” in Tustin, an organization dedicated to placing “conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, on local school boards” (Cosmo Garvin).

At the time, Frank Ury was a trustee on the Saddleback Valley Unified School District board—having been elected as part of a slate that took out trustee Raghu Mathur in ‘92!—but, owing to Ury’s support of the voucher initiative, he lost in 1996 to an opponent who was heavily financed by the California Teachers Association (CTA), of which, incidentally, Raghu was a member. (CTA is the parent organization of our own Faculty Association.)