On the recordApril 16, 2012
The control board reached out to take control of the board of education. It had control of virtually every other arm of the D.C. government. But John Payton and the board of Appleseed knew that the law which set up the control board gave it no authority to take over the board of education. It was an elected body. What to do? Appleseed very much opposed the board of education. Yet, the control board had done an illegal act, except nobody knew it but technical lawyers or people who paid attention to the fine letter of the law. The Appleseed board engaged in the appropriate debate as to whether it should sue the control board for illegal action in taking over the board of education. John Payton cast the deciding vote for the lawsuit, and he did so because, he said, he did not want to be part of an organization that failed to stand for the rule of law. Note how John Payton handled this dilemma. He knew that the board of education didn't stand by the children. What he did, as a member of the Appleseed board, was to settle the case, ultimately returning power to the school board, and then went to work restructuring school governance, giving governance to the Mayor and eliminating the board of education. So you see what John did. He stood for principle on both occasions. He found a principled way to keep the control board from exceeding its authority, illegally, and he found a principled way to eliminate the D.C. school board without using illegal means.…
