Here is an interesting op-ed piece from the Anchorage Daily News.
Anchorage Daily News
Apprenticeship raises questions about Palin
Dan Fagan
comment(01/03/09 00:02:01)
Have you noticed how our governor seems to have convinced herself only some of the rules apply to her?
This attitude was really at the heart of Troopergate. It also allows her to do things like take cash from the state for spending more than 300 nights in her own home in Wasilla.
Now it appears the governor may have found a new way to skirt the rules. How is it possible that the governor’s soon-to-be son-in-law, Levi Johnston, is working as an apprentice on the North Slope?
The governor, in trying to dispel rumors the father of her grandchild is a high school dropout, released this statement this past week,
“Levi is continuing his online high school work in addition to working as an electrical apprentice on the North Slope.”
But federal regulations require all members of apprentice programs, union or otherwise, to first obtain a high school diploma, something the governor’s soon-to-be son-in- law does not have. Some apprentice programs even require the completion of high school level algebra or the post-secondary equivalent.
So how is it that the governor’s soon-to-be son-in-law is working in an apprentice program? Is this another case of the governor believing the rules don’t apply to her or her family?
Bo Underwood, who heads up ASRC’s electrical apprentice program, confirmed Johnston is indeed enrolled as an apprentice. Underwood claimed not to know whether a high school diploma is needed to be an ASRC apprentice and said he would check on it. But federal regulations clearly state a high school diploma is needed before entering an electrical workers apprentice program. How is it the man who runs the program does not know that?