National Charter School group rescinds award given to R.I. Governor Dan McKee
The fallout from Governor Dan McKee’s decision to sign a charter school moratorium bill continues.
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The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has rescinded its 2009 “Charter Champion Award” for McKee, and the organization’s president and CEO is calling it “the first time we have taken such action in the 20-year life of these awards.”
In a stinging letter to McKee, Starlee Coleman wrote, “it is sad and disappointing to see that you chose to align with the interests of the adults in the state’s teachers’ unions over the interests of children and the state’s neediest families.”
“You put your political ambitions ahead of the people you promised to fight for and that is ultimately how you will be remembered,” Coleman wrote in the letter.
McKee’s campaign declined to comment.
The bigger picture: The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools doesn’t have the clout to swing an election in Rhode Island, but Coleman’s letter is a reminder that McKee has lost a sector that used to be one of his biggest allies.
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He earned the “Charter Champion Award” for his advocacy to create mayoral academy charter schools, which the organization called at the time “the most significant piece of charter school legislation to pass in Rhode Island since the original charter school was enacted in 1995.”
McKee was honored in 2009 with US Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and Georgia legislator Jan Jones.
Other prominent recipients of the award have included Arnold Schwarzenegger, US Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, Michael Bloomberg, and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In Rhode Island, state Treasurer James Diossa, Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, and former commissioner Deborah Gist have all received the award.
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