Endorsements and Ratings

The Seattle Times will announce its endorsements for the August 16 primary this week. They will announce their endorsements for School Board elections on Thursday, July 28.

The Municipal League has released their ratings for school board candidates. Incumbents Carr, Martin-Morris, and Maier were rated "very good", Steve Sundquist (his name oddly mis-spelled), was rated "Outstanding". Challengers did not fair as well. Michele Buetow and John Dunn got the same "very good" rating as the incumbent, Kate Martin and Sharon Peaslee were rated as "good". The rest got either "adequate" or "not qualified" except for Joy Anderson for whom they had insufficient information.

The King County Labor Council has endorsed candidates in just two school board elections, John Dunn in District #3 and Martha McLaren in District #6.

The King County Democrats endorsed Kate Martin and Jack Whelan in District II, Michelle Buetow in District III, and Marty McLaren in District #VI.

UPDATE: The Stranger announced endorsements on Wednesday July 27. Sharon Peaslee, Kate Martin, John Dunn, and Joy Anderson.

UPDATE: The Seattle Times announced their endorsements on Wednesday, July 27. Peter Maier, Sherry Carr, Harium Martin-Morris and Michelle Buetow, and Steve Sundquist.

UPDATE: Worst Endorsements Ev-ah: This Voter's Guide from Fuse purports to be a "Progressive Voter's Guide", yet it endorses all of the incumbents for Seattle School Board. The rationale is pretty weak. In supporting Harium Martin-Morris, the nicest thing they can say about him is that he is Black.

Comments

mirmac1 said…
The Muni League has sunk to a new level of insignificance and mediocrity in the political landscape. Have they been under a rock for the last three years?
7/25/11, 2:58 PM
Charlie Mas said…
The Municpal League are well-meaning individuals who have no knowledge of the issues. Candidates who speak smoothly get high ratings. The Muni Leagues has no way to know if the claims are true or false.
7/25/11, 3:01 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
I checked Steve's responses to see what was so outstanding and I'm not sure I get it except that he's very polished.

He did say this:

"It is important to note that while school boards form a governance team with the Superintendent and
are ultimately responsible for the delivery of educational services, it is vital that the board does not
perform the administration of day-to-day functions. As the policy-makers and overseers of the district, school boards work with their administrators to adopt policy and establish plans and goals, and then must evaluate whether those plans and policies are being followed and met."

He clearly wants people to know he is not going to micromanage but then has a very vague statement about "evaluating" if the plans are policies are being followed.

He also had this to say about Pottergate:

"Additionally, when confronted with lax management oversight of the district’s Regional Small
Business Development Program, we moved quickly to a unanimous and decisive termination of our
Superintendent and Chief Financial/Operating Officer, saving our citizens and district from a
potentially long, debilitating, and trust-destroying process."

Oh is that what buying off the super's contract did? Whether Director Sundquist wants to admit it or not, much trust has already been lost and NOT regained.
7/25/11, 3:40 PM
Jack Whelan said…
Just finished the endorsement interview with the Seattle Times Editorial board. Interesting that as we were leaving we passed some well-dressed women being escorted into the interview room, and when I signed out Wendy Kopp's name was at the bottom of the list. Staff confirmed that our favorite TFA person was the one we passed. Anybody know if anything is afoot TFA-wise?

Lynne Varner asked most of the questions and shaped the interview.
7/25/11, 3:59 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Peter said this:

"The School Board’s duties are to set policies in a consistent and forward looking manner, to hire (and fire) the Superintendent and periodically to evaluate her or his performance, and to hold the
Superintendent accountable for managing the District and implementing the priorities set by the Board."

If the only thing you do to hold the Superintendent accountable is to fire her, that's not going to really help.

He also spoke of lobbying at the Legislature and yet, he was smiling and laughing when Silas Potter said he, too, had been lobbying (but shouldn't have). If that was Peter's turf, why didn't he say so to Potter?

Sherry had this to say:

"A clear plan for holding the Superintendent accountable for progress must also be visible to the community."

"Also vital is the understanding that accountability for performance, actions and results is an important part of the relationship."

This is all coming a little late on the part of these incumbents.

I will say that reading through the incumbents' statements, I really think Sherry should have received an Outstanding. Her's was detailed and well-fleshed out. I don't get why Steve received Outstanding.

I read through the challengers questionnaires as well. I think Kate Martin received a Good rather than Very Good because she gave very short answers. Ditto on Marty McLaren.

I don't understand Jack Whelan's Adequate. I thought a lot of his community work was valid for the job and he should have received a Good ranking at least.
7/25/11, 4:07 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
I'm sure Ms. Kopp was there to tell them what will be happening in SPS and at UW's COE because it is clear from the public disclosure e-mails that TFA is the driver's seat.
7/25/11, 4:08 PM
Anonymous said…
as a spy on all the deformista email lists, I haven't any notice of 1/2 of the Kopp-Kipp-Kryme Cyndicate in town.

Surely her greatness can't be out here in the pacified northwest without being feted by The Great One?

Sh_Spy_Spy
7/25/11, 6:00 PM
Anonymous said…
The Muni League action confirms Seattle Politics is a club sport and results are not important in gaining a recommendation.

If a football rating service recommended QBs Ryan Leaf and Rick Mirer as top pro prospects it would eventually have some crow to eat. But to still be recommending them after 4 really lousy years in the Pros would have been preposterous.

The muni-league recommendations are a complete farce. The league like many of the club-sport connected politicians are endorsing slick hucksters.

Steve Sundquist = Outstanding ...
my question is only ... What is the Muni League rating supposed to mean?

=======
This is the circus.
You can fool some of the people all the time.
You can fool all of the people some of the time.

Will the Muni League be able to fool at least 50% of the voters this time?

-- Dan Dempsey
7/25/11, 9:31 PM
StopTFA said…
Interesting. Well I did send along to ST reporter Susan Kelleher my complaint to the Higher Education Coordinating Board regarding the UW's sneaky attempt to create a modified degree program to accomodate the Teach For Awhiles without running it by regulators.

I also informed the school board (for what it's worth).
7/27/11, 11:45 AM
StopTFA said…
Please add the TFA tag to this string. Thx.
7/27/11, 4:58 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more