Pilloried for Volunteering in D.C. Schools
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No one works harder than Thomas A. Nida to improve the educational outcomes of D.C. students. He is a tireless advocate for change in what is acknowledged to be a broken public school system. As thanks for his selfless service, The Post found it appropriate to pillory him on the front page ["Public Role, Private Gain," Dec. 14].
What a great way to encourage leaders of the D.C. business community to volunteer their time and energy toward solving the city's social problems!
The allegations made in the article are basically as follows:
(1.) Mr. Nida is chairman of the D.C. Public Charter School Board. (2.) He works for United Bank. (3.) United Bank makes loans to D.C. public charter schools. (4.) Mr. Nida's bonus is based partly on the loan business he generates. (5.) Therefore he is deriving "private gain" from his volunteer work. Presumably, the only ways Mr. Nida could be purified in the eyes of The Post would be for him to resign from United Bank or for the bank to stop doing business with D.C. charter schools.
The implied message is that if you do business in the District, don't even think about volunteering in public affairs. Lord knows, if the District were to actually benefit from some of your volunteer work, your business might benefit as well, and that would constitute a conflict of interest! By this logic, only retirees, government employees and journalists would be qualified to serve on public boards.
This article has done enormous damage to the effort to engage volunteers from the business community in the hard and thankless task of fixing our public schools.
ROBERT H. BRAUNOHLER
Washington
The writer serves on the boards of the JOBS Coalition and the D.C. Students Construction Trades Foundation.
