Family ties

National Review, May 25, 1992

CALIFORNIA schools chief Bill Honig awaits his day in court after being indicted on conflict-of-interest charges. But whether or not he broke any statues, he is guilty at least of boneheaded judgment: He allowed a private educational group headed by his wife, Nancy, to seek consulting relationships with school districts. Honig is ridiculing the controversy over all this as the concoction of his political enemies, but his actions hardly paint him as a pillar of integrity.

Reporters at the Sacramento Union rate a salute for forcing the issue out of the shadows. For over a year they trained a light on Mrs. Honig's program, the Quality Education Project (QEP), which she rounded just after her husband's election in 1982. The project's stated aim was to increase parent involvement in schools. It was housed in the Honigs' home, where it paid $30,000 in rent over a two-year period.

In the face of apathy from the media establishment-and scornful dismissals from the Honigs--the Union asked again and again a perfectly sensible question: Should the wife of California's education chief be peddling a consulting service to schools-- and in the process drawing a $100,000-plus salary funded by corporate grants?

Eventually a preliminary federal audit chimed in, charging that Honig used his influence on behalf of QEP and recommending that he refund $222,590 in federal money that an inspector said was used to advance the project. As controversy built, Mrs. Honig resigned from QEP. Later came her husband's indictment for allegedly misusing funds to support the program.

Consider the irony. QEP is billed as boosting the role of parents in their children's schooling. But if Bill Honig is keen on that goal, why is he so quick to reach for his spanking paddle when reformers propose experiments with educational vouchers, which would allow the ultimate in parent involvement by giving families more choice in where their kids are taught?

The QEP caper is likely more a case of invincible arrogance than of larceny in the heart. Whatever the legal issues, however, we're left with a picture of the Honigs dancing a jig at the very edges of propriety. No small irony there, considering the sanctimony that often infuses Bill Honig's pontificatons, especially when he's arguing that Truth and Justice demand yet another taxpayer shakedown.

It's alway a kick, isn't it, to discover that the class moralist is a secret backslider?