As a self-appointed Minnesota "journalist" for this 2010 campaign season, I've been doing some research on DFL candidate for Governor, Mark Dayton.  As I've said many times, I find it amazing that we know so little about this 63-year-old man who has been running for statewide office on-and-off for nearly thirty years. 

Two of the campaign antecdotes that Mr. Daytons shares over-and-over again are:

1.  That he worked in the New York Public School system post-college and

2.  That he lived with a family on welfare while in New York

I'm particularily interested in the welfare story and thought I'd try to track down where exactly Mr. Dayton lived, who the family was, if they still keep in contact, and if they're still on welfare.

As an amateur genealogist, I'm pretty good with finding records, (especially in NYC where I've spent time at the Chambers Street Archives office.)  I decided to sent a request to the NYC Department of Education Chambers Street office where all records are kept for the public schools.  NYC has a superior Freedom of Information Act law whereby requests must be acknowledged within five days.  I exchanged a couple emails with the Department's attorney, and today received the following letter via email:

 

 

 

This is very interesting.

Mark Dayton's current website biography reads:

After college, I taught 9th grade general science for two years in a New York City public school. It was the toughest job I’ve ever had!

This was my request (in addition to standard template language for a FOI request)

Please email the following records:
 
confirmation of employment of:
Mark B. Dayton (birthdate 1/26/47) by the New York City Dept of Education/NYC Public Schools
dates of employment (believe them to be approximately July 1969-July 1971)
job title at the time of employment
school of employment
home address during the period of employment

Now, it's quite possible that Mr. Dayton never took a salary while teaching, however there would still be some record of his employment.  Why doesn't the NYC public schools have any record of Mark Dayton working there when he says he did?

With an insanely left-leaning Minneapolis media establishment-- with long-standing ties to the Dayton family-- it's unlikely that any will bother to ask Mark Dayton about it nor likely that this post will make any news.

Investigating an Emmer antecdote about Minnesota pig farmers?  You betcha.