Jeb Bush Foundation executive director-cum lobbyist backtracks

I'm a few days late in posting this, but for those education policy wonks out there who may have missed page B6 of last Tuesday's Portland (Maine) Press Herald, there's an update on the employment-and-lobbying status of Patricia Levesque, the executive director of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which is active in shaping Maine education policy.

In short, a day after a newspaper in Tampa picked up on Levesque's dual role, her lobbying firm suddenly pulled all its 2013 client registrations in Florida. The Foundation says she's going to become an actual employee now, instead of being contracted through her apparently conflicted lobbying firm.

More details within.

Levesque and Bush's foundation featured prominently in my Sept. 2 Maine Sunday Telegram investigation, the story which recently received the 2012 George Polk Award for Education Reporting. She and two foundation colleagues are speaking this Friday at Maine Gov. Paul LePage's education conference.