This year, four of Seattle’s seven-member school board are up for reelection: Sherry Carr, Peter Maier, Harium Martin-Morris, and Steve Sundquist.
Though they cast a unanimous vote in March to terminate Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson, this was one of the only times these four voted against the controversial and divisive superintendent. In fact, all four have a dismal record of voting or thinking independently, or representing the will of their constituents.
And there’s word that Wednesday night, all the directors except Betty Patu voted in favor of laying off more teachers. Again. It’s shameful that the school board should be so willing to make cuts that will directly hurt our kids, while the central office remains heavily overstaffed and the district continues to pour millions of dollars into wasteful and unnecessary standardized testing.
UPDATE: Linda Shaw at the Seattle Times confirms this morning that the school board did indeed vote to RIF teachers. Seattle schools to send out 70 pink slips. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week from the School Board.– sp. 5/5/11
These past four years, Sundquist, Maier, Carr and Martin-Morris all voted for pay raises for Goodloe-Johnson (bringing her already generous salary up to $264,000 plus benefits) and repeated extensions of her contract, despite the absence of actual positive results from her “Strategic Plan for Excellence,” and despite a damning state audit (see: Schedule of Audit Findings and Responses, Seattle School District No. 1, King County June 21, 2010) and other signs that she was doing a less than stellar job.
At the same time the board heaped repeated financial rewards on Goodloe-Johnson, they voted to close and split schools, RIFed teachers and made various other cutbacks that directly and negatively impacted Seattle school children, all in the name of budget crisis. This apparent hypocrisy has not been lost on parents, kids and teachers who have been at the receiving end of these painful cuts. (This paragraph has been added to the original version. — sp. 5/5/11)
All four also voted for a “performance-based” bonus for Goodloe-Johnson after she met only 4 out for 17 performance goals, and for allowing short-term, crash-course Teach for America, Inc. novices to be hired in Seattle (see: Seattle School Board rubber-stamps yet another item on its Broad Superintendent’s ed reform agenda: Teach for America, Inc.), and for the pricey New Technology Network STEM contract, just to name a few baffling or simply bad votes.
Carr, Sundquist and Maier also voted for the costly and poorly planned school closures of Goodloe-Johnson’s 2008-09 “Capacity Management Plan,” and the unjustified splintering of the gifted education program, as well as the weak Discovering math high school text book — ignoring the concerns and opposition of thousands of parents and teachers.
Their voting pattern has been so predictable that district observers in the parent advocate community have referred to them as rubber-stampers, or bobbleheads, nodding yes, yes, yes to everything Goodloe-Johnson proposed, never seriously questioning the data or plans the superintendent or central office administrators fed to them.
The Pottergate scandal, which led to Goodloe-Johnson’s ouster, was a wake-up call for them, for they apparently finally realized that information was regularly being kept from them, or they were lied to. Although the 17 Percentgate scandal of a few months earlier should have woken them up too.
Have they changed? With all the recent post-scandal talk about the school district needing to regain the “public trust,” will these four board members finally start to represent their constituents who voted for them — and not a superintendent with an imported corporate ed reform agenda? Or is it too late — have parents and voters soured on them entirely?
So far, only one challenger has announced: Michelle Buetow, will take on Harium Martin-Morris in District III. Judging by the deep disappointment expressed in the blogosphere over Harium Martin-Morris’ votes and comments (he once reportedly said that it isn’t the school board’s job to question the superintendent), Buetow has a decent chance of unseating him.
Other groups in the community are actively courting candidates to challenge the four. So more names should emerge as we head into summer.
Another detail: These four board members got elected with unprecedented amounts of campaign money, much of it from the same backers, most with business ties, who support corporate ed reform. Clearly it’s also time to establish campaign finance limits for school board races.
Right now in Seattle, the school board is one of the only public offices where the sky’s the limit, so the most moneyed or connected candidates have a huge advantage, and a few moneyed contributors can in turn potentially heavily influence the election outcome. Consequently, in the 2007 school board election, candidates Carr, Sundquist, Maier and Martin-Morris were able to raise over $400,000 between them, grossly outspending their opponents.
Parent and public ed advocate and blogger (and former school board candidate himself), Charlie Mas, has just launched a new blog, Change the Board. with the purpose of reforming the school board — in all senses of the word.
Indeed, it’s fair to ask: What have Sundquist, Maier, Carr and Martin-Morris done to earn four more years on the board? After all, to a large degree, they were the chief enablers and supporters of the superintendent they just fired. They approved most if not all of her costly, divisive, autocratic — and failed — policies. The entire school board was cited in the state audit last year for failing to oversee the superintendent, and mismanaging district resources. The board members apparently turned a blind eye to Goodloe-Johnson’s ethical breaches as well.
It doesn’t add up to a winning picture that inspires much confidence in these candidates.
–Sue p.
Seattle Education 
There are a wealth of voters ready to vote for whatever opponent shows up to take on Maier. Ditto for Carr and Sundquist.
And there are a lot of us who will go door to door to make that happen.
Dora
How does someone become a candidate? If I wanted to run against Maier (for example), how would I “throw my hat into the ring”?
John,
Please contact me by phone, 206-853-9790 or e-mail me at dora.taylor@gmail.com and I will put you in touch with people who have been through the process themselves and would be glad to answer all of your questions.
I am thrilled that you are considering running!
Dora
Dora
Last night’s board meeting was painful to watch. But thank you, Betty Patu, for sticking up for what’s right. Equity. Our most needy children.
Despite her “yes” vote, which was highly disappointing, I also appreciated Shelly Carr pointing out that there is an ongoing problem with the enrollment numbers provided to the board.
On board elections: Boy, I sure don’t envy the board their jobs. They’re unpaid, right? I agree with Reuven Carlyle that they do need to be paid if they are to do a good job. Otherwise, he’s right — with a few exceptions, it’s only the “leisure class” who can take on the job. Here’s the full article:
http://reuvencarlyle36.com/2011/05/04/are-we-asking-too-much-of-full-time-volunteers-on-the-seattle-school-board/
Here’s my proposal: we pay the school board the same as we pay teachers. While we’re at it, the same goes for the superintendent and other district executives.
Kristin,
Sue and I have also discussed the idea of school board members being paid and also the possibility of having a paid staffer or aide like the legislators have who can comb through information and present it in an organized fashion to the members. That’s what central district staff is suppose to do but their work is sloppy, has multiple errors, many times is biased and does not include many factors that need to be incorporated when making decisions such as riffing teachers.
I also like the idea of cutting back on those hefty salaries and redistributing it so that the board members are paid.
That said, there is still no excuse for board members to know less than many of us know on any given topic. I don’t get paid a whit, neither does Sue and so many others in Seattle who know what’s going on and can get to information to make informed decisions for our children.
Time after time, the board members just look like deer in the headlights at those board meetings and their votes reflect a complete lack of understanding of the information. I know that some of it had to do with the Broad borg but the board directors have not taken the responsibility since then to be the leaders rather than the followers. They will wring their hands over the “achievement gap” but then turn around and approve riffing teachers and counselors.
It is definitely time to find real leaders among us who can take on the mantle.
Dora
Sundquist has been a disappointment for West Seattle. New assignment plan and school closure process have been disastrous for the community and he’s been too busy with Governance to get his hands dirty with details. I think he thought this would be another corporate board job. It’s not.
Peter Maier? Please. He hasn’t had an innovative idea in 4 years. He rides on the coattails of being a longtime ed levy supporter. His heart is in the right place, but he didn’t actually get involved in the reality of poor operations until Pottergate bit him in the butt, which was so sad because he was supposed to be the Tight Fiscal Operations Guy. On the student side, it’s nice that he finally noticed the pocket of poverty in his district. Low and behold he’s trying to do something about standards at those schools. He needs a challenger, yesterday.
Carr should have been a hell of a lot better than she was for the past 3.5 years, given that she was past head of PTSA, and a business woman. But no, she had no voice until the Bad Audits. She’s more formidable now. Too little too late? Voters will judge.
Martin-Morris has been unengaged for 2 years, ever since he threw in his lot with Maria Goodloe-Johnson and acted as her biggest board backer and National Ed Reform Policy Wonk instead of community representative. Not the soundest of career moves. He also seems very tired. Glad he has a strong challenger.
In short, this Blog needs to do its part to get solid challengers to all the incumbents.