Mike McMillan should be the next Chairman of the Knox County Board of Education.
People want real change and the other candidate for chairman, Doug Harris, is merely more of the same.
If anyone doubts that, merely look where the establishment is on this issue. Doubtless the Knoxville News Sentinel will fire up some new editorial or bogus story to try defeat McMillan. The establishment is already circling the wagons in an attempt to protect one individual: Jim McIntyre.
McMillan has been the most vocal critic of McIntyre on the board of education for the past three years. For that matter, McMillan has been the only McIntyre critic on the Board.
It was Mike McMillan who faced a vicious and falsified ethics complaint pursued by Indya Kincannon only because McMillan followed state law. It was Mike McMillan who was the only member of the Board to resist the provisions of the “side agreement” with the superintendent that even the Knoxville News Sentinel termed “un-American.” In fact, McMillan used the term “un-American” way before the Sentinel did. It was Mike McMillan who has been the biggest supporter of teachers on the board. It was also Mike McMillan who has objected to unfair rules promoted by other Board members to stifle free speech by teachers, parents, and students that are critical of McIntyre.
Educators have been under attack by the McIntyre regime for the last several years. Many teachers have been fired, retired or simply gone elsewhere due to McIntyre’s dictatorial approach.
McMillan was himself an early McIntyre victim of trumped up charges after having been a teacher for more than thirty years. The Sentinel and business elite will surely attempt to beat McMillan over the head any way they can, assert he was a bad teacher when Doug “High Tax” Harris has no teaching experience whatsoever. But then, the Sentinel has never acknowledged we have a superintendent with almost as little teaching experience as Harris, which is none at all.
Mike McMillan represents real change on the Board and goodness knows this community really needs it. Mike McMillan is for allowing everyone — parents, students, teachers and citizens — to address a Board they elected. Mike McMillan is for accountability and opening up a process the Sentinel and others would never have tolerated for a single moment in another legislative body.
It’s time for the voices of the people to be heard; we’ve heard enough of the high tax bureaucrats and hypocrites.
Mike McMillan has proven himself and, in my opinion, should be the next chairman of the Knox County Board of Education.
