Besides the President and Governor's election, there is another very important position on the ballot, Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Since Education is the largest share of your state taxes, it might be well to take a very careful look at this race.

There are two candidates, current Superintendent of Public Instruction, Terry Bergeson, and challenger, Randy Dorn.

Mr. Dorn is a former teacher, principal and state legislator who chaired the Education Committee of the Legislature when the "Education Reform - Improvement of Student Achievement" bill was passed in 1993.

Most of you may think of the WASL as being the most important measure of this bill.

This bill, normally called "1209" has cost the State over $2 billion and has told us, what many already knew, that a very significant portion of our students are not learning enough to either attend, successfully, any reputable college or to enter into a trade or profession that would earn them a modest living.

There were "good intentions" embodied in this bill but the outcome of these intentions are perhaps a great illustration of theory and practice having some difficulties in coordination.

Education Reform in the 1990's was taking place in many states as a result of Federal pressure and reports such as, "A Nation at Risk," that outlined the gaps between American education and that of many other parts of the world. Some states have made some very significant gains in achievement as a result of their efforts at "Education Reform."

It is my opinion that Washington is not one of these states.

Why? Mr. Dorn's Legislature included several important objectives in 1209. The first three were:

1. "Establish what is expected of students with standards set at internationally competitive levels."

2. "Parents to be primary partners in the education of their children and to play a significantly greater role in local school decision making."

3. "Students to take more responsibility for their education."

This all sounds like good stuff to me. What went wrong?

The responsibility for implementation of this bill was placed upon a newly formed "Commission on Student Learning" that was to consist of three members of the State Board of Education and eight members appointed by the Governor.

This "blue ribbon" committee turned out to be a collection of educators and high level business officials who then developed, according to the law, "Advisory Committees" to do the actual work. Terry Bergeson was the Executive Director of this Commission for most of its duration.

Instead of putting a group of Personnel Directors, that do hiring, and College Admissions personnel together for this purpose, the group turned out to be more "educators."

There is a belief in education that they "know" what is needed to be learned!

Out of this esoteric group came a costly set of learning expectations that were unique to the State of Washington and not very closely related to either the hiring practices of employers or the admission requirements for competitive colleges.

Theory trumped practice.

As an aside there were several well-established achievement tests already in existence, but using these would have allowed for comparisons to the efforts in other states, provinces or countries, and this would not look good.

Couple this with no measurable involvement of parents and students and you have a perfect recipe for educational disaster.

This program has now gone on for 15 years and achievement levels, after an early upward trend, have leveled off at about the 50 percent level for the all-important, and most easily measured, mathematics. For minorities the numbers are about 25 percent! Do remember that it has cost upwards of $2 billion!

Somewhere along the line the implementers have overlooked the fact that many parents have come to regard schools as day care centers, and some children find that schools are really social halls.

These parents and students have not been "urged" by "A Nation at Risk," or any other prods, to engage in learning.

This was my prediction when I was first shown 1209 in the early 1990's. Simply insisting on kids taking a test, and passing it, without any consequences for failure, wasn't going to "increase achievement."

We are now at an important crossroad for education in Washington.

The State has some alarmingly low achievement scores when compared to the "Internationally Competitive Standards" that the Legislature made reference to, some very low college completion numbers and a nearly invisible vocational training enrollment.

This is not a good sign for the future and the one key to changing this is who will be elected Superintendent of Public Instruction.

I urge you to visit the web sites of both candidates and consider their intentions, and records, in looking at where the largest portion of your state tax dollars will be spent.

www.randydorn2008.com

http://terrybergeson2008.com/