In Illinois Race, a Teaching Career Is Questioned

In Illinois Race, a Teaching Career Is Questioned
By JEFF ZELENY
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: June 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/us/politics/17kirk.html?th&emc=th


WASHINGTON — Representative Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate, has often reminisced about his time as a teacher.

On the floor of the House, in campaign commercials and during interviews, Mr. Kirk has invoked his experience in the classroom. At a speech this spring to the Illinois Education Association, Mr. Kirk declared, “as a former nursery school and middle school teacher, I know some of what it takes to bring order to class.”

A review of public comments that Mr. Kirk has made over the last decade shows that while he may refer to himself as a former teacher, he does not talk about the brevity of his experience: a year in London at a private school and part-time in a nursery school as part of a work-study program while he was a student at Cornell University.

The biographies of political candidates are receiving extra scrutiny this year, as accusations of embellishments or exaggerations have touched Democrats and Republicans. With an unusually high number of candidates on the ballot, strategists in both parties are beefing up their teams of researchers to pore over résumés line by line.

The background of Mr. Kirk, a five-term congressman who is running for the Senate seat once held by President Obama, has come under additional examination after he apologized this month for errors and discrepancies about his military record.

His Democratic rival, Alexi Giannoulias, is raising questions about Mr. Kirk’s classroom experience, including his time as a nursery school teacher. The Giannoulias campaign provided The New York Times several examples of Mr. Kirk referring to himself over the years as a former teacher. The comments were verified and more imprecise references were found by The Times as it reviewed his background.

Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the Kirk campaign, said that his work in the nursery at a United Methodist ministry called Forest Home Chapel in Ithaca, N.Y., took place in his final year of college in 1981. The campaign did not provide verification, and it could not be independently confirmed. A longtime member of the church who had a son in the nursery around the same time said she did not recall any male teachers.

“Like many Americans, Mark Kirk worked during college to help pay for school,” Ms. Kukowski said. “One of his jobs was a nursery school teacher with the responsibilities one would expect.”

Ms. Kukowski said that the congressman’s full-time experience as a teacher came after he received a master’s degree at the London School of Economics during the 1982-83 school year at Milestone College, a private college preparatory school in London, where he taught European history and English. The school, in the Kensington neighborhood, closed in 1993, according to the Department of Educational Services in Britain.

In a speech on the House floor on Sept. 19, 2006, as he talked about school safety, Mr. Kirk spoke about “the kids who were the brightest lights of our country’s future, and I also remember those who bore scrutiny as people who might bring a gun to class.”

Mr. Kirk declined an interview on Wednesday to talk about his time as a teacher. His spokeswoman said the congressman was referring to nursery school students in Ithaca, not his students in London, during that speech on the House floor in 2006.

“Congressman Kirk’s formative experiences in the classroom stayed with him,” Ms. Kukowski said in a statement.

In a House Budget Committee hearing five years earlier, shortly after Mr. Kirk arrived in Congress, he talked about his time as “a teacher, both nursery and middle school.” He added, “I did leave the teaching profession, but if we had addressed some of the teacher development issues, which I want to raise with you, I might have stayed.”

Mr. Kirk left Milestone College in 1983 and began working on the staff of an Illinois congressman, John Porter, the following year and did not return to teaching.

The Senate race in Illinois is among the most closely watched in the country. If Republicans hope to expand their majority — or even win control of the Senate — the contest is among those that Republicans must win. And Democrats have sought to capitalize on Mr. Kirk’s series of misstatements about his career in the Navy Reserves, including that he came under fire while flying intelligence missions over Iraq.

When the discrepancies in his military record came to light, Mr. Kirk went on an apology tour, telling the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune: “I am sorry, absolutely. You should speak with utter precision.” He added, “For me going forward, if you see a problem, fix it.”

Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association, said both Senate candidates were meeting with his group later this week to be interviewed for a prospective endorsement. He said that he was unaware of the limited nature of Mr. Kirk’s teaching experience, but he said “questions of credibility” would be asked of both candidates.

Mr. Giannoulias, the Illinois state treasurer, also has faced questions about his background. For months, the White House and Democratic leaders searched for an alternative candidate.

Emma Graves Fitzsimmons contributed reporting from Chicago, and Caroline Crampton from London.