When Seattle goes to the polls on Tuesday, four of the seven seats on the Seattle School Board will be decided. The current school board has made its share of mistakes. The last superintendent overspent the budget by $35 million before the board discovered the problem and fired the superintendent (the deficit has since been corrected). The search for a new superintendent was poorly handled (I blogged about it extensively, go here and look at my entries during October 2003). I wish the board had done some things differently, but I'm going to vote to keep the incumbents.
The board members that are elected on Tuesday will still be in office in the Fall of 2007 when David starts kindergarten. I have a stake in good schools and in a responsible school board. The incumbents are hard-working, conscientious public servants who I believe will learn from their mistakes and improve the schools. Most of the challengers are, frankly, nutty. They are extreme left-wing ideologues who are pushing a bizarre agenda and can be expected to cause a great deal of damage to the school system. Unfortunately, they are running stronger campaigns than the incumbents.
This table summarizes the various endorsements:
| #1 | #2 | #3 | #6 | |
| Alki Foundation | Peterson | Flynn | Waldman | Stewart Hoagland |
| Seattle Times | Peterson | Flynn | Waldman | Stewart |
| Seattle P-I | Soriano | Flynn | Butler-Wall | Stewart |
| Seattle Weekly | Soriano | Flynn | Butler-Wall | Stewart |
| The Stranger | Soriano | Flynn | Butler-Wall | Stewart |
| Seattle Education Ass. | - | Flynn | Butler-Wall | Stewart Hoagland |
| Shark Blog | Peterson | Brown | Waldman | Hoagland |
I'll discuss the individual races in separate posts above. If you live in Seattle please be sure to vote for the responsible candidates. If you don't live in Seattle, but know somebody who does, please forward this link to them.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 31, 2003 03:16 PMI applaud your reporting on the school district elections. Based on my experience with the San Francisco School District, however, I fear that the best one can hope is that elected school board members do no harm.
My conclusion is based in part on recent revelations that $100 million of $300 million in San Francisco school bonds were missing and impossible to account for (according to a big five accounting firm hired for the audit). The blame, needless to say, was directed at the fired superintendent. More disturbing was the elected board members' response. 'We didn't know' said they. If one can hide $100 million from elected representatives, why do we need them? Elections for school board usually turn on 'diversity' and 'inclusiveness'. Meanwhile someone is walkin' out the back door with a chunk of one hundred mill.
All the more reason why your scrutiny is important. If parents and voters want to ignore the facts, tough on them. But at some point people who run for school board oughta be accountable.
Fred Jacobsen
San Francisco