Earlier this week, Governor Bev Perdue appointed Cumberland County Schools head Bill Harrison to be CEO of the Department of Public Instruction and chairman of the Board of Education.
The thing is, we the voters already elected someone to the position. Unfortunately, it appears she doesn't want to fight for her job. See this article for more on their "arrangement."
Why is June Atkinson, the duly elected Constitutional officer that the voters have charged with overseeing public education in our state, just sitting idly by while the Governor (again — remember JB Buxton?) basically strips all her power and puts in place a hand-picked caretaker?
Why is she not fighting for her power? Why is she not making a big deal out of being turned into basically a figurehead? Because of her silence, it seems Atkinson is content to just sit there, collect her $123,198 per year salary and let the Governor due whatever she wants to the department.
But the voters put Atkinson in charge, not Perdue.
Where's the outrage from Atkinson? Where's her press conference saying the voters elected HER to be in charge of education and the Governor is overstepping? Where is Atkinson's position on any of this?
Can you imagine if you had being elected to do a job and then have someone else take all your power, responsibility and oversight away? You'd at least put up a fight, right? You'd have some pride to stand up for yourself?
So why is Superintendent Atkinson just rolling over and taking it?
The voters actually put Perdue in charge. What the voters want is a good education system. They vote for a governor based on the education platform as part of the package, and they’d rather have that ship functioning efficiently. They only voted for Atkinson because the position is on the ballot. Take it off the ballot, then, and we don’t have any problem. It’s also probably a bad sign about (Democrat) June Atkinson’s professionalism that two Democratic governors would clearly rather work with anyone other than her.