Bay Windows - Local News, March 4, 1999
Scott A. Giordano, Bay Windows staff

The Commissioner of Education is responsible for seeing that all programs approved by the Board of Education -- including the Safe Schools Program for gay and lesbian students -- are implemented. The chairman plays a pivotal role in overseeing the nine-member Board and setting the tone for debates during policy-making decisions.

Six of the nine Board members need to vote to support a Commissioner candidate in order for the appointment to be made. At the Board's Feb. 23 meeting, five Board members voted in favor of Driscoll, who received a recommendation from Governor Paul Cellucci's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. Four Board members voted to support Peyser, who heads the Pioneer Institute -- a Boston-based conservative think-tank. The third finalist, who appears to be out of the running, is Richard Ekman, the chief operating officer of the Andrew Mellon Foundation in New York.

Republican Gov. Paul Cellucci reportedly had backed Peyser behind the scenes and pushed the Board to appoint him as Commissioner, but two Board members refused to vote for Peyser because they are so alienated by Silber, who had backed Peyser for the appointment. In the aftermath of the Feb. 23 meeting, Silber sent a March 2 letter of resignation to Gov. Cellucci and requested that Peyser be appointed Chairman of the Board, allowing Driscoll to be appointed Commissioner.

"Let me make a proposal to resolve the impasse. I offer my resignation as Chairman with the request that you appoint James Peyser to be the next Chairman," Silber wrote to the governor. "I await your decision on whether to accept my resignation, and I offer it with the hope that you will not accept it unless Mr. Peyser is appointed as Chairman of the Board of Education to succeed me."

Cellucci accepted Silber's resignation late on March 3, and Peyser told Bay Windows he would accept the offer to become chairman.

"The governor has accepted Silber's offer and he will be, at some point soon, appointing Peyser as chairman of the board. It's expected that the Board will then vote and confirm Driscoll as Commissioner of Education," said Jos Juves, a spokesperson for the governor, at about 2 p.m. March 3, immediately before Bay Windows went to press.

Prior to that announcement, gay activists had expressed concern over the possibility of Peyser's appointment because he has told Bay Windows he has no knowledge of the issues affecting gay and lesbian students, nor was he aware of the purpose of a Gay/Straight Student Alliance (GSA) -- the school-based programs that allow gay, bisexual and supportive non-gay students to meet and discuss common issues and problems.

Although he has not become Commissioner, Peyser still will have a great deal of influence over the entire Board when it votes on whether to approve grants for the Safe Schools Program, including funds for GSAs.

Peyser has voted to support grants for GSAs and the Safe Schools Program as a former member on the Board of Education, but he told Bay Windows that he has no knowledge of what a GSA is nor what it does, and he also wasn't aware of any safety concerns among gay and lesbian students.

"What is a GSA? To tell you the truth, I am not familiar with any of the details in how the programs operate in the schools," he said. "My only connection with [GSAs] are in voting for the grants that are made through my membership on the Board. The Commissioner recommends the grants be made and the Board approves the grant proposals. The only comments I have made about the [Safe Schools Program] in the context of these votes is to question whether we are spreading the resources too thin to be effective.

"The grant sizes are about $1-2,000 each. Would it more effective to concentrate funds on fewer schools rather than spreading it out to all the schools that apply? ... My level of ignorance in terms of what is actually done with the money in schools leaves me unable to say whether it's an effective program or not," he added.

When asked how he would like to address anti-gay harassment in Massachusetts schools, he said, "I am not really versed on the issue, so there is not much I could say beyond what I've already said." But he added that he is willing to meet with members of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth to become more aware of such issues.

Lesa Lessard, vice chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, said she would definitely be concerned with having a Commissioner who is not knowledgeable on the issues and concerns facing gay and lesbian students. She believes there are serious problems in local schools for gay and lesbian students who are harassed and sometimes physically assaulted due to their actual or perceived sexual orientation.

"What I find fascinating is that him saying 'What is a GSA?' in and of itself says quite a lot, when certainly the work of the Commission and the Department of Education has been well documented and should be part of his knowledge base," she said, before she learned that Peyser would become chairman and not Commissioner. "When we are dealing with the safety and well being of all students, the Commissioner of Education should have knowledge of all the programs and groups.

"I would like to see a Commissioner of Education actively advocate the safety and well being of every student in Massachusetts," she added. "I think it would be hard pressed for anybody to [address the issues facing gay and lesbian students] without being aware of them. They need to know the issues before they can tackle them."

She was not available for comment after the announcement was made that Peyser was appointed chairman.

But David LaFontaine, the chairman of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, said there is reason to believe the Commission can educate Peyser about gay-youth issues.

"We have been successful at educating people who didn't understand the issues of gay and lesbian youth and why GSAs are needed. Most principals who now sign on to the GSA grants didn't even understand the need for a GSA several years ago. We've been able to increase the number of GSAs from two to now more than 150 because we haven't written off people who didn't initially seem that sensitive to understanding," LaFontaine said. "The most positive thing about Peyser is that he has consistently supported all the grant proposals funded and recommended by the Governor's Commission."

Kevin Carleton, a spokesperson for the Board of Education, said the chairman not only gets to vote on the Commissioner's proposals, but also has some sway on how the other Board members may vote.

"The Board sets policy. The chairman is the head of the board and makes one vote and can set the tone but can not alone set the policy," Carleton said. "The Commissioner is the one ... who makes sure the Department of Education follows the policies passed by the Board, so the Commissioner must be fully aware of what the policy intentions of the Board are and make sure they are carried out."

Carleton said at press time that the Board still had not scheduled a time to reconvene and make its official Commissioner appointment. Juves wouldn't confirm that Cellucci had supported Peyser for the Commissioner position.

"The governor is committed to working with John Silber to find a permanent commissioner who is going to take a bold approach towards public education," he said prior to Silber's resignation, without answering whether he believed Peyser should be that person.

Pioneer Institute

Some activists also are concerned by Peyser because of his position as executive director of the Pioneer Institute, which is conservative in nature and whose founding member has contributed money to a radical-Right Political Action Committee (PAC).

The Pioneer Institute describes itself on its web site (http://www.pioneerinstitute.org) as a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute that "believes that individual freedom and responsibility, limited and accountable government and the expanded application of free-market principles to public policy contribute to greater human dignity, happiness and economic property."

Peyser told Bay Windows that the group is focused primarily on educational reform, and it does not take any position on gay and lesbian or other social issues.

"We focus ... specifically with an eye towards improving student performance through parental choice and competition. We focus on public management issues, like regulatory reform and restructuring of government agencies, and we also focus on economic opportunity, which has to do with creating environments that encourage entrepreneurship. Those are the areas of our focus in terms of the issues. We really don't do anything on social issues," he said.

Surina Khan, a senior analyst from Political Research Associates (PRA) -- a Somerville, Mass.-based organization that tracks the national religious Right -- said the Pioneer Institute is known to focus primarily on issues such as advocating for charter schools, and she confirms that it hasn't taken any positions on gay and lesbian issues in any of its written materials. Bay Windows also couldn't find any mention of gay and lesbian issues on its web site.

But Chip Berlet, another senior analyst from PRA, said that although there is "no smoking gun" to alarm the gay community about Peyser or the Pioneer Institute, the group's omission of gender and sexual orientation issues by itself is some reason for concern.

"I think there is a narrow vision [in the Pioneer Institute] in which issues of race and gender identity are simply viewed as trivial, meaningless or perhaps even annoying," Berlet said. "Looking at the reports that [the Institute has] put out, there is insensitivity simply by omission because issues of race and gender are absent from much of their analysis. It's not that they are bad on the issues; it's that they are silent on the issues, which I think is bad for public education."

Berlet also recalled that Silber and his "cronies" from Pioneer Institute were involved with a controversy surrounding a Social Studies curriculum back in 1995.

"There was a very broad-based curriculum revision proposed by the Board of Education, and Silber rejected it and got people from the Pioneer Institute to create a new curriculum that if you were a straight, while, male living in 1950 may have been appropriate but not in this day and time," Berlet recalls. "Even though the Pioneer Institute really puts forward that it is only a less government type of model, I think there is an alarming lack of sensitivity to multi-cultural issues, and [it seems] to value a world that is based on a straight white man's Christian reality."

Another red flag for some is that the Pioneer Institute's founding chairman, Lovett C. Peters, recently gave $250 to a Wellesley-based Political Action Committee (PAC) called the Massachusetts Political Action Committee for Working Families (MIPACWF), which is known to be associated with both local and national religious-Right individuals and organizations that have anti-gay agendas.

But Peyser said he isn't familiar with Peters' personal contributions, and they shouldn't be made an issue because they were not contributions made on behalf of the Pioneer Institute.

Despite the concerns of some activists, others don't see Peyser as a threat. Gary Daffin is the co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus and the partner of the Pioneer Institute's former executive director who hired Peyser. Daffin said he has no information that leads him to believe Peyser would work against gay people.

"I would be extremely surprised if there is any evidence at all of anti-gay sentiment [from Peyser,]" Daffin said. "Jim's wife is also on the board of For the Love of Life [a local HIV/AIDS organization,] so there is a history in his family of supporting things that are very important to gay and lesbian people."

Daffin added that -- based on his knowledge of the Pioneer Institute -- it's not a conservative organization "in the sense of religious-Right conservatism," but rather on market-oriented issues, as Peyser himself said.

Regardless of how Peyser will be on gay-youth issues, Lessard said Driscoll is the best person to become permanent Commissioner.

"I am very familiar with Driscoll who has been an active supporter. For [The Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth,] this is pretty simple. Driscoll is someone we have worked with for several years who has been very supportive of what we want to do," she said. "Peyser is still an unknown."
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