We regret calling Christopher Arellano a bonehead. We did it because he flatly refused to even attempt to participate in a good natured pop quiz given by the LA Times consisting of a single basic match question. For a guy who claims to have multiple college degrees the question should have been quite easy. And even if he couldn’t come up with the correct answer, we think he would have been better off by at least trying.

It turns out however that Mr. Areallano’s problems are not limited to his grasp of basic math. In fact there are far bigger questions surrounding his suitability for the position that he is campaigning.

1. About 12 years ago, Areallano came to Los Angeles and was arrested twice for shoplifting. He spent a little time in jail and got community service. It took him several years to actually complete the service during which time a warrant was issued for his rearrest.

2. He got a job for for the teacher’s union working as an area representative.

3. Based on the “great work” he has done for the union, he started campaigning for a seat on the school board. The board has funded his entire campaign, giving him $200,000 (more than the total raised by all other candidates). They’ve also sent teachers into the district on his behalf. (For those of you who do not live in Los Angeles, when the teacher’s union wants something to happen more often than not it does, which is one big reason true school reform has been such a non-starter here for decades.)

4. Only recently, in the waning days of the campaign did Areallano’s past legal problems come to light. He defended them in part by showing how much his life has turned around and citing his multiple college degrees at UCLA and USC as proof of this. Unfortunately these too appear to be in question. According to L.A. Observed, who cited local station KPCC, both schools say they have awarded him no degrees.

When the CEO of Radio Shack was found to have lied on his resume about a degree he falsely claimed he had earned, he was sacked. The reason? Ethics. It will be interesting to see how the teacher’s union deals with exactly the same problem. Our guess is that they will do absolutely nothing and blame the whole matter on his “opponents”.

Even if you accept the fact that the union is going to be able to put pretty much whoever they want on the board in this election, one has to wonder if this was really the best candidate they could find. Were they looking at his qualifications or the fact that they knew they had someone who would do their bidding?

For the record, we did not call him a bonehead for his shoplifting crimes–people do indeed make mistakes and do indeed turn their lives around–good for him for apparently not doing it again since then. But we are calling him a bonehead for the lies and obfuscations in this campaign. A claim that one’s criminal past should be ignored because of multiple college degrees should only be used by those who indeed have multiple college degrees.

tags: teacher’s union christopher arellano

This entry was posted on Friday, March 3rd, 2006 at 9:49 pm by Insider and is filed under (Un)education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.