Faux Sequester: U.S. Dept. of Ed Offers New, Six-Figure Job

Even as the Department of Education prepares to make cuts to federally-funded schools on Native American reservations, the DOE is also offering a new six-figure job to promote “Educational Excellence for African-Americans.” Worse, the job seems to be going to an adviser to Democrat Representative Charlie Rangel.

Reports note that Native American schools in Minnesota are freezing salaries, leaving job openings unfilled, enlarging classroom sizes, and making other cost savings moves to satisfy demands being enforced by the Dept. of Education.

Among those cuts in Minnesota, the White Earth Reservation tribal school may cut the school year down to save money and Red Lake School District has cut security staff.

Minnesota’s Democrat Representative Betty McCollum is calling the cuts “indefensible.”

“It is indefensible that the first wave of reckless sequestration cuts to education will hit our most vulnerable students,” she said.

But as the Department of Education is forcing Native American schools to make serious cutbacks, a new, high-paying job is also going to a Congressional insider.

Fox News reports that David Johns, an adviser to U.S. Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York, is being offered the new job.

“But in Washington, education funding cuts did not stop the appointment this month of a former elementary school teacher and aide to Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. to the job of executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans,” Fox reported. “David Johns was given the newly created job, where he will be ‘asked to identify evidence-based best practices to improve African-American student achievement from cradle to career,’ according to the Department of Education.”

Johns will be making $123,758 annually in his new federal job.

Only a few years ago, Johns’ boss, Rep. Rangel, was slapped with 13 ethics violations by the House Ethics Committee.

Rangel holds a prominent position on the Judicial Watch’s Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians list. Judicial Watch points out that the ethics violations lodged against Rangel didn’t even include many troubling charges.

“It has been alleged,” Judicial Watch says, “that Rangel preserved a tax loophole for an oil company in exchange for a Rangel Center donation and used improper influence to maintain ownership of his highly coveted rent-controlled apartment–the same apartment he improperly used for campaign activities.”