That's the headline of a thoughtful letter in today's Washington Post, coming to the defense of Tom Nida, who's under fire from some who question whether his day job at United Bank conflicts with his role as chair of the D.C. Public Charter School Board. I came to his defense here, but today's letter-writer puts it best:
No one works harder than Thomas A. Nida to improve the educational outcomes of D.C. students. He is a tireless advocate for change in what is acknowledged to be a broken public school system. As thanks for his selfless service, The Post found it appropriate to pillory him on the front page... The implied message is that if you do business in the District, don't even think about volunteering in public affairs. Lord knows, if the District were to actually benefit from some of your volunteer work, your business might benefit as well, and that would constitute a conflict of interest! By this logic, only retirees, government employees and journalists would be qualified to serve on public boards.This article has done enormous damage to the effort to engage volunteers from the business community in the hard and thankless task of fixing our public schools.
Well said.
Thomas Nida photograph from D.C. Public Charter School Board website
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