As mayor, Richard Riordan campaigned heavily for reform-friendly school-board candidates, and was rewarded with a majority on the board in 1999.
"If you want to really, truly reform education, the liberals — the Democrats — have to separate themselves from the teacher unions," he says in an interview. "Because the unions do not care about the children. They care about protecting their own incompetency."
Riordan also chairs ICEF Public Schools, which manages 14 charter schools.
Riordan contribution to the Coalition for School Reform: $25,000
