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Healey raises questions about influence of Raimondo’s husband
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By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
Posted Oct 29, 2014 at 9:46 PM
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Moderate Party candidate Robert J. Healey Jr. raised questions about Democrat Gina Raimondo’s support from an education union leader and her husband’s role in education policy during Tuesday...
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Moderate Party candidate Robert J. Healey Jr. raised questions about Democrat Gina Raimondo’s support from an education union leader and her husband’s role in education policy during Tuesday night’s gubernatorial debate on Channel 6.
Healey began his closing statement by posing a question to Raimondo, standing at the lectern next to him.
“I’d really like to know [if] Treasurer Raimondo’s husband, Andy Moffit, is engaged in the business of privatizing public education, and I just wonder what deal was probably talked about or cut with the NEA [National Education Association of Rhode Island] when they supported her position on education in her campaign.”
Raimondo, who has the support of NEARI Executive Director Robert Walsh, but not the union endorsement, did not have an opportunity to respond.
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Healey said Wednesday he wants to know what influence Moffit would have on education issues if Raimondo becomes governor.
“She tries to portray him as a schoolteacher, but he is involved in the movement to privatize the public schools,” Healey said. “It’s more than pro-charter. He works for a company for the purposes of making money off [public schools].”
Moffit, who works in Boston, is a senior practice expert and co-founder of the Global Education Practice at McKinsey & Co., an international management consulting firm that serves as an adviser to businesses, government and institutions.
According to his biography on Harvard University’s website, Moffit, in his work, serves urban districts, state education departments and charter management organizations as well as leading philanthropies and education nonprofits, media and technology companies and private equity firms in the education sector.
Moffit also was a board member of the nonprofit group Stand for Children Leadership Center, in 2012 and 2011. The group supports the Common Core State Standards, a uniform set of educational expectations adopted by more than 40 states. The group is also in favor of charter schools, more money for pre-kindergarten programs and greater parental involvement in the schools.
In 2012 and 2011, Moffit and Raimondo made a donation to Stand for Children, somewhere between $1,000 and $4,999, according to the organization’s annual report.
Raimondo’s campaign on Wednesday said Moffit’s affiliations will have no impact on his wife’s education policies if she is elected.
Healey couldn’t explain why he thinks Moffit wants to “privatize” public education. Critics who use this term typically oppose the Common Core State Standards, charter schools and the use of “big data” to gather information on students. They are also opposed to the growing emphasis on standardized testing.
Moffit is also an adjunct lecturer in education at Harvard and Brown Universities. From 1991 to 1993, he taught elementary school in Houston as a member of Teach for America, which recruits and trains recent college graduates to work in largely urban school systems.
Moderate Party candidate for governor Robert J. Healey Jr. questions Democrat candidate Gina Raimondo on the role of her husband, Andrew Moffit, in education policy.
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