U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, knows a thing or two about how to reach teachers -- like sending an education-themed campaign e-mail to their school district accounts.

Ros-Lehtinen this summer paid a fee of $63.33 to obtain the e-mail addresses of tens of thousands of Miami-Dade teachers and district employees.

''It's all public record,'' said Miami-Dade schools spokesman John Schuster.

Earlier this month, Ros-Lehtinen sent schools employees a campaign e-mail touting her track record on education. ''Students and educators need more and better resources,'' the e-mail states.

School district rules forbid employees to use their district e-mail addresses ''for political purposes,'' but there is nothing in those rules to prevent those who don't work for the district -- including a congresswoman -- from sending political e-mails to teachers.

The campaign of Ros-Lehtinen's Democratic challenger, Annette Taddeo, criticized the tactic.

''It's inappropriate,'' Taddeo campaign manager Anastasia Apa said, ''and it's a back-door attempt to alleviate her embarrassment from the teachers deciding that they have to go a different way.'' The United Teachers of Dade endorsed Taddeo.

In a written statement, Ros-Lehtinen campaign coordinator Keith Fernandez said: ``When the names were provided through the public domain, available to everyone, there was no indication given that we could not use them to send them information.''

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