Mayor Vincent Gray told reporters a lot of provocative things this week (pretend we are coughing while covertly saying “SUVgate” and “Sulaimon Brown.” Oldest trick in the book.). But in the carnage, a little education misspeak with big implications slipped by.
On Wednesday, Gray announced that D.C. will fight an arbitrator’s ruling that D.C. Public Schools improperly fired 77 teachers in 2008 because school officials failed to tell the probationary teachers why they were being terminated. Gray also accused Arbitrator Charles Feigenbaum of letting an important meeting slip: “A hearing was supposed to be taking place tomorrow to discuss compensation for the fired teachers,” Gray said. “However, the office of the attorney general was informed late yesterday that the arbitrator never scheduled it. As a result, it has been postponed indefinitely.”
Just one problem: It wasn’t true.
This isn’t Feigenbaum’s first time at the rodeo, and he promptly returns our e-mails and phone calls, so we raised an eyebrow and gave him a call. “I am completely unaware of what he’s talking about,” Feigenbaum said. He had no knowledge of any hearing.
So we double-backed to Doxie Gray, the mayor’s spokeswoman, who confirmed that we heard the mayor right. “That’s what we were told, that the arbitrator canceled it,” she said.
But a few hours later, we got the correction: “We were informed of another arbitrator ruling and mistakenly thought it was the teachers’ case,” she said in an e-mail. Case closed.
It may seem like small peanuts, but Gray’s comments cast Feigenbaum in a bad light. According to lawyers, it’s very difficult to overturn an arbitrator’s ruling unless either party can prove extreme bias. Given that Feigenbaum was mutually chosen by DCPS and the Washington Teachers’ Union, and that he’s ruled against unions in the past, that would be a weighty charge for the District to put on the table. But Gray definitely didn’t sound like they’d be sharing a meal any time soon.
