This and That
At the Hacks & Wonks news site, after the August primary, there was a Week in Review discussion with Robert Cruickshank, Chair of Sierra Club Seattle (and long-time public ed advocate) and Crystal Fincher, a political consultant and host. (The discussion is very near the end of the hour.)
They said a bit about the Board races but most of their discussion was about The Stranger. They gave The Stranger kudos for "pinning people down" as a "trusted brand" but they wondered if their endorsements were a double-edged sword. Meaning,The Stranger is a major player in endorsements and maybe it was unhealthy to have that much influence early on when it might "cut off debate."
Readers, what do you think?
School has resumed around the country and apparently, things have changed. From the AP:
Across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic.
Kids are staying home for myriad reasons — finances, housing
instability, illness, transportation issues, school staffing shortages,
anxiety, depression, bullying and generally feeling unwelcome at school.
All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, according to the data, which was compiled by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with The Associated Press. Absences were more prevalent among Latino, Black and low-income students, according to Dee’s analysis.
In the end, students who are chronically absent — missing 18 or more
days a year, in most places — are at higher risk of not learning to read
and eventually dropping out.
Here's a good idea - start a banned book club at your high school. An interview from the ACLU:
Since 2021, dozens of states have moved to introduce and pass classroom censorship bills that restrict students and educators from discussing race, gender, and sexual orientation in K-12 classrooms and universities. At the same time, politicians and school boards across the country have also made moves to ban books — especially books representing Black and LGBTQ experiences — from public schools and libraries.
Students who are directly impacted by these censorship efforts are at the forefront of advocating for their right to receive an inclusive education. We spoke with Ella Scott, a junior at Vandegrift High School who co-founded the Vandegrift Banned Book Club in response to book bans happening in her Texas high school.
We started reaching out to our friends first to spread the word about the club and try to build members. We were a very small group initially, as there were only six of us at first. But now, we’ve tripled in size, which is very exciting! We would meet about every month in the library and start plowing through the list of books that our school was attempting to remove and focusing discussions on them.
Their process:
Like any other school club at our high school, we had to go through an application process to become a club. But overall, we didn’t receive any pushback for the formation of the club from our teachers or librarians. They’ve all been really supportive.
The main hurdle though was, at first, we had difficulty getting access to the novels we wanted to read because of our district’s book ban. We asked some of the English teachers who had extra copies of some of the books on their shelves if VHS Banned Book Club students could borrow them for the month, but they were not allowed to do that because of the school district’s ban.
CLU: What advice would you give to other students who might want to take action against book bans and other efforts from adults trying to limit what they can read?
ES: I would say don’t be afraid to break boundaries. I think that was something I really learned from this experience. A lot of adults weren’t asking for student opinions in this book ban debate, but our club is giving it in a place where it wasn’t asked for and I think it has made a huge difference. It’s helping a lot of people understand that students do add value in this conversation, and our opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s.
Comments
I saw this particularly in the City Council District 3 and District 5 races. Rather than compete with each other to show voters who has the best policy ideas or the best ability to get those ideas into local law, the large field of progressive candidates seemed to be trying to win the Stranger's endorsement. And once that endorsement came out, we didn't really see the campaigns fighting as hard for those votes, though Alex Hudson did a better job of fighting hard and running a field campaign. I think campaigns overall need to do a better job trying to win regardless of their endorsements, and I think voters should take the Stranger's recommendations into consideration but not use them as the gospel truth.
That's particularly true of the school board races, which the Stranger simply got wrong. But you notice that Liza Rankin and Evan Briggs aren't really campaigning. They're not raising much money, they're barely out there in the community. Instead they believe, with some justification, that with the Stranger's endorsement they can just cruise to victory without having to directly persuade voters themselves. That's not healthy for our democracy.
It also doesn't help that the Stranger doesn't really understand public education issues. They don't regularly cover the schools, which is understandable given their limited resources. But they're still making school board endorsements as if they're experts on the subject. And too often, they appear to be simply deferring to the word of the board majority, rather than holding them to critical account the way they would any other elected official. Still, it's up to voters to take a close look at the candidates, and ask themselves if they really think SPS is on a good path -- and whether they want to rubber stamp the current board majority the way that majority rubber stamps whatever the SPS admins want.
I have learned to dismiss The Stranger.
But I did point out Hacks and Wonks. Erica C Barnett covers local news, too.