An aggressive push to remove William Moloney as the state’s highest ranking education official has turned to the Internet.
From Moloneyresign.com, the nonprofit group ProgressNow has collected roughly 375 names from people who say Education Commissioner Moloney needs to step down.
Executive director Michael Huttner said the group plans to deliver the names and comments to the four Democrats and four Republicans on the State Board of Education.
“Our goal would be that this would prompt some serious questions to be raised by the entire board” and an evaluation of Moloney, he said.
Moloney, meanwhile, said he was aware of the website, which he called “the Jared website,” referring to state board member Jared Polis, who is also a member of the ProgressNow board.
Polis has called Moloney’s leadership “lackluster.”
Moloney called the push for his resignation a “distraction” and retaliation for his holding school officials accountable for educating students.
Democrats on the divided state board, which hired Moloney in 1997, have tried to fire Moloney before but never had enough votes.
Last month, Polis and another Democrat on the state board, Karen Middleton, criticized Moloney’s leadership.
Their criticisms followed a report by the Colorado Association of School Executives calling for stronger leadership from Moloney and the state board.
And this month, state Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, and state Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada, asked Moloney to resign, saying his department is slow to respond to public requests for information and he bullies school district superintendents.
