Sanford Appoints Anti-public Education Person to Education Oversight Committee

The SC Barbecue site: (http://scbarbecue.blogspot.com/2008/07/newest-eoc-member-signed-anti-public.html) has the following statement concerning Governor Sanford's appointee to the State EOC:

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Newest EOC member signed anti-public school pledge

Somebody please tell Gervais this is a joke.

Somebody please tell me that the newest member of the Education Oversight Committee is not a signatory of an oath against public education … a pledge that says:

"I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in education."

According to this press release (pdf), Julie Hershey of Greer is Mark Sanford's latest appointee to the Education Oversight Committee, the group charged with supervising our public schools.

But the press release neglected to mention one thing.

Ms. Hershey is a signatory of a pledge against these very same schools, according to the website of the "Alliance of Separation of School and State," the California-based group that champions the above oath. She's been a signatory since at least as far back as 2004, according to an archived version of the site.

If this scenario – the governor appointing an anti-public school oath signatory from Greer to the Education Oversight Committee – sounds familiar, there's a reason.

What the heck is going on here?