McDaniel won’t resign now, wants to meet Jindal

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jul 3, 2009 - Page: 1A

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

State school board official Tammie McDaniel, of Oak Ridge, said she is not resigning for now, at least until she discusses the matter with Gov. Bobby Jindal.

McDaniel said Thursday she has fully supported Jindal’s agenda and that she does not know why his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Waguespack, asked her to step down from the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“I would hope the governor would contact me, and we’d have an opportunity to sit down and discuss this,” McDaniel said, adding that she is undecided on what she will do, whether she speaks with Jindal or not.

Jindal made McDaniel one his three appointees to the board about 18 months ago. Asking her to step down is an unusual and possibly unprecedented move, she said.

When asked Thursday if he planned to contact McDaniel, Jindal would only say in an e-mail response: “Tammie knows exactly where we stand.”

Jindal wrote, “As we’ve said before, we don’t comment on private conversations — and we expect all of our appointees to support a reform agenda and when they don’t, they can absolutely expect to hear from us.”

“I’m a little schoolteacher from Northeast Louisiana, one of the poorest parts of the state,” McDaniel said Thursday. “I’m facing the politics of power and money, and it’s difficult to stand against that.”

McDaniel, who has worked as a teacher and principal, assisted Jindal’s gubernatorial campaign in northeastern Louisiana and she has helped some area legislators with their campaigns.

McDaniel on Thursday discussed the resignation issue in an online video interview with The (Monroe) News-Star and again in a phone interview with The Advocate.

McDaniel is known for an outspoken style and a willingness to publicly question contracts and budgets.

Last week, McDaniel questioned potentially excessive spending in the Recovery School District in New Orleans that was formed after Hurricane Katrina.

She said that may have worked against her.

Jindal was in McDaniel’s neck of the woods Thursday for a bill signing in West Monroe to start a new high-school career track for struggling students to keep them from dropping out.