|
Anti voucher essay { May 1 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62440-2003Apr30.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62440-2003Apr30.html
In Reversal, Cafritz Says She Wrote Web Essay
By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 1, 2003; Page B01
District school board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz, after saying that she did not write an essay against school vouchers posted on her Web site and that a computer hacker might have put it there, has acknowledged that she and a former aide wrote the column.
The anti-voucher essay, which appeared on the Web site under Cafritz's byline and photo as recently as two weeks ago, drew attention last month because Cafritz had just endorsed a Bush administration proposal to start a voucher program in the District.
Cafritz initially said she had never seen or approved the essay, although she acknowledged that her position on vouchers had changed. "I never wrote those words," she said in a letter to the editor that appeared in The Washington Post on April 19. In an interview two weeks ago, she said of the Web column, "I haven't seen it and I did not write it and I don't know how it got there." She suggested that someone likely had broken into her Web site and posted the material without her permission.
But Cafritz retracted those comments this week after her former executive assistant said in an interview that he and Cafritz had written the essay last year and that she had approved it. The former assistant, Philip E. Pannell, also noted that the essay was published under Cafritz's byline in two D.C. community newspapers in August.
"I apologize for telling you something that was untrue," Cafritz said in a voice-mail message to a reporter. She said she was very harried last year and had not remembered what she wrote. "I was so busy last year with so little help, it's amazing, you know, that I can remember my name," she said.
Cafritz has been criticized by many other District officials for her recent endorsement of school vouchers, which would provide parents with public money to send their children to private or parochial schools.
Several D.C. Council and school board members said this week that they were bewildered by her shifting explanations about the Web site material.
Council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), who is on the council's education committee, said the episode has further undercut Cafritz's credibility. "Her position is to put a public face on the Board of Education, and incidents like this do not put a good public face on the school system," Fenty said. "The hacker -- I didn't believe that when she said it in the paper. Come on, that is ridiculous. It just adds one more level of insanity to this whole issue."
Cafritz said yesterday that she was only being "snide" when she speculated that a hacker was responsible.
School board member Tommy Wells (District 3) said the attention that Cafritz has received on the voucher issue has been a distraction from the board's work. "It's indicative of her leadership style," Wells said. "It's inconsistent."
In the essay on the Web, Cafritz wrote that school vouchers "will diminish the already strained resources of the public schools." In more recent comments, she has said she changed her mind about vouchers after witnessing the frustration of parents and children in the D.C. public schools.
Pannell said he wrote the essay against vouchers last year and showed it to Cafritz, who then added several sentences. He said he was dismayed when he read comments from Cafritz denying any knowledge of the essay. "I'm very angry about this," said Pannell, who is president of the Ward 8 Democrats. "There's a certain intellectual dishonesty on this that I really don't appreciate."
Pannell, who resigned from his job with Cafritz in November, added: "I love her to death. She's like a sister to me. I'm unemployed right now. She pays my health insurance every single month. But don't lie on me. I don't deserve that. Do not lie on me."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
|
|
