Scottsdale Teachers union leader glad ex-superintendent is someone else's problem

Eric Kurland has a dozen words of advice for the teachers, students and parents of Kentucky:

"This too shall pass. Hang on. Do the right thing for kids."

Kurland, president of the Scottsdale Teachers Association, doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about the Bluegrass State. But news from there last week hit close to home...

...Belatedly, Scottsdale's impression of Erwin reached the Kentucky board. Kurland told the Louisville newspaper: "She was like a cancer. She took the life out of our district."

Now she'll be in charge of education for all of Kentucky, a big jump from her current suburban Chicago district, which has half as many schools and students as Scottsdale."Nothing surprises me anymore," Kurland told me. "She must have improved greatly. She's an impressive woman to pull it off."

By the end of her four years in Scottsdale, Erwin was not a popular woman. In a Scottsdale Republic online poll after she resigned, 12 percent said she had made the district better, while 70 percent said she alienated people and drove away quality employees.

This from the Arizona Republic.