A trip down memory lane . . .

Okay. Spotty wants a show of hands. Who remembers Cheri Pierson Yecke? Most of you? That's good.

For those of you who are a little hazy, let Spot refresh your recollection. Yecke was the hot shot Commissioner of Education that Tim Pawlenty brought in from Washington DC and environs to straighten out education in Minnesota. (The governor also managed to find a cushy assistant commissioner job somewhere in state government for Yecke's hubby. He may still be there, but Spot is not sure.)

Anyway, Yecke was a divider, not a uniter, right from the beginning. You can Google Yecke's name until Excel runs out of juice, and you will be hard pressed to find her saying anything good about public education in Minnesota. Remember, for years Minnesota has had one of the top public school systems in the nation in test scores, graduation rates, etc. But, oh no, Yecke was an acolye for No Child Left Behind, the program designed to eventually show that all public schools are failures, and she wanted to get a head start. (When Jim Ramstad is back in Minnesota, he says he wants to get rid of NCLB, incidentally, but he seems to always forget to try when he gets back to Washington.)

Spot will get to Senator G in a moment, please bear with him.

Anybody ever heard of the Maple River Coalition or EdWatch? This is the group that believes that public education is a vast left wing conspiracy. Did this EdWatch outfit support Yecke? Oh you betcha.

Senator Michel has sat on the Education Committee since he entered the Minnesota Senate. He sat in on the confirmation hearings for Yecke, and he voted for her in committee and on the floor when she was turned out of office, an extremely rare thing for the Senate to do. Senator Michel was incensed when this happened, saying that the Senate had "no right" to reject Yecke just because she was a divisive (and Spot says destructive) force in Minnesota public education. Well, apparently it did, because Yecke is no longer the Commissioner of Education.

And what is Cheri Pierson Yecke doing now? Why, she's running for Congress. What a Horatio Alger story! In fact, she wrote a fourth grade level book report for the Star Tribune recently on how the Little House of the Prairie Books are a blueprint for life.