I’m sure it was merely a coincidence. But one day after the Senate Education Committee went all Patty Hearst Syndrome in its confirmation hearing for education secretary nominee Zoie Saunders, and on the same day the Senate panel voted 3-2 in favor of her, the House Education Committee scheduled a witness who excoriated the politicization of the Education Agency, questioned Gov. Phil Scott’s commitment to public schools, and revealed some backstage maneuverings around the selection of the last secretary, Dan French.

The witness was Krista Huling, former chair of the state board of education. Why was she called, seemingly out of nowhere, on Wednesday, April 24? Committee chair Rep. Peter Conlon invited her to testify in response to “a lot of discussion around the building” about how the education system has changed since Act 98 was passed in 2012. Act 98 made the state Board of Education much less powerful and gave the governor significantly more control over education policy.

And if you think that has nothing to do with Zoie Saunders, well, God bless.

Back to Senate Ed for just a moment. Committee chair and putatively Democratic Sen. Brian Campion joined the panel’s two Republicans in favoring Saunders. Educational entities including teachers’ unions might file that away for the next time Campion comes calling for donations or campaign volunteers.

Enough of that. Huling was on the Ed Board from 2013-19, and served as chair from 2017-19. (She was chair when Dan French was chosen as education secretary.) She was a Peter Shumlin appointee, and is clearly no fan of Phil Scott’s education policy. (Not that she seemed terribly fond of Shumlin either.) In fact, here is her written assessment of Phil Scott the educator.

The current governor does not have a public vision for education, and his only strategy has been to level fund public schools and work to dismantle our public education system from the outside in. Behind closed doors, his office advocates for turning our school system into a voucher system. His administration works to protect the interests of the private school lobby. …To the public, Scott tells people to send a message to Montpelier by voting down budgets, but offers no fixes. I am convinced that he wants the system to collapse.

Huling said that education “is now highly politicized” with key decisions being made “in back rooms instead of open meetings,” there is no long-term policy vision, the board of education has been effectively starved of any resources or support, and “there are little to no protections to preserve a strong public education system.”

Oh, but wait until you read the nuggets she revealed about French’s selection.

As a reminder, the board of education is responsible for conducting the search, interviewing candidates, and forwarding three finalists to the governor. Huling said Scott’s office lobbied her to consider candidates “with no educational experience” because Scott “preferred CEO experience over education.” Huling declined to do so, citing Act 98’s definition of the education secretary as having “expertise in education management and policy.”

It gets better, by which I mean worse. After the board forwarded three names to the governor, Huling says she was called to the office of Scott’s chief of staff Jason Gibbs where she was “asked to slip in an additional candidate into the pool,” a candidate who had not applied for the job. She declined.

Of the three names, Huling said there was one who stood out as an education visionary who “had us ALL most excited.” That person was not considered. Instead, the board’s number three choice was hired.

Yup. Dan French.

“I am convinced the education landscape would be very different if a different choice had been made in 2018,” Huling wrote.

There are unavoidable comparisons with the process that led us to Zoie Saunders, who has the barest smattering of experience in public education. The governor has continued to express his preference for managerial experience over educational, and his choice of Saunders is a reflection of his disdain for expertise relevant to the position. But I suppose her three whole months at the Broward County Public Schools can serve as an Act 98 fig leaf.

I don;t know whether Phil Scott “wants the education system to collapse.” That would be one hell of a big mess to clean up, and Scott doesn’t like messes. But it’s hard to look at his two choices for education secretary and read Huling’s testimony and not conclude that while he may or may not want it to collapse, he doesn’t seem terribly interested in making it work well.

Conlon mentioned that he had “invited a couple of people” to testify on this subject. I don’t see any other witnesses on the committee’s agenda for this week, but we can live in hope. This hearing will have no influence on whether Saunders is confirmed by the Senate or not — in fact, given the Senate’s attitude toward the House, I’d say they might just approve Saunders out of spite. But it should serve as a marker that some people in the Statehouse are truly committed to public education, and are not going to submit meekly to an administration that doesn’t seem to share that commitment.

The House Education hearing can be viewed here, but fair warning: the audio quality is wretched, even by the terrible standards of legislative YouTubery. Her written testimony is attached below.