Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown criticized New York teachers unions in a Wall Street Journal op-ed over the weekend without disclosing a possible conflict of interest -- her husband, Dan Senor, is a board member of an organization that opposes teachers unions.
On July 29, Brown criticized the New York teachers unions' handling of teachers accused of sexual misconduct:
Under current New York law, an accusation is first vetted by an independent investigator. (In New York City, that's the special commissioner of investigation; elsewhere in the state, it can be an independent law firm or the local school superintendent.) Then the case goes before an employment arbitrator. The local teachers union and school district together choose the arbitrators, who in turn are paid up to $1,400 per day. And therein lies the problem.
For many arbitrators, their livelihood depends on pleasing the unions (whether the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, or other local unions). And the unions--believing that they are helping the cause of teachers by being weak on sexual predators--prefer suspensions and fines, and not dismissal, for teachers charged with inappropriate sexual conduct.
But in her op-ed, Brown never disclosed that her husband, Dan Senor, is a board member of the anti-teachers union organization StudentFirstNY. This disclosure is even more important given the fact that one of the two teachers quoted in her piece, Michael Loeb, has blogged for StudentsFirst.org.
When confronted over the issue of her husband's work on Twitter and her lack of disclosure in her Wall Street Journal op-ed, Brown wrote: "B/c protecting kids from sex predator teacher is a partisan issue?"
This is at odds with a New York Times op-ed she wrote in May that was critical of President Obama, where she included the following statement:
I should disclose here that my husband is an adviser to Mr. Romney; I have no involvement with any campaign, and have been an independent journalist throughout my career.
Questions of disclosure over her husband's work for Mitt Romney also surfaced when she was a panelist during a Democratic presidential debate in 2007.
In contrast to Brown's attitude about disclosure over her husband's job, Washington Post education columnist Jay Matthews included the following statement about his wife's work in a July 27 post about declining test scores:
Disclosure: My wife, Linda Mathews, led USA TODAY's investigation of erasures, published in March 2011.