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State leadership stuck in mediocrity, but GOP offers few solutions
By Danny Westneat
Published: October 19, 2024, 6:01am
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It’s no secret, or fake political talking point, that the public school system in the state is slipping. We have school districts going into a form of bankruptcy, as in Marysville. Others are in an educational crisis over closing schools, as in Seattle.
Where is the state leadership? There’s been little rallying to the cause or sense of purpose. It also seems it’s becoming accepted that the pandemic-era “learning loss” is baked in — that there’s nothing to be done about it. The kids of 2020-22 are just going to be left behind. All of this ought to be a huge deal. It’s definitely no time for “cheerleading mediocrity,” as The Seattle Times’ Editorial Board said about Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal.
So count me among those who are open to a big shake-up in the leadership and direction of the schools. I wonder, though, where would it come from?
Reykdal, a Democrat, has a challenger in the election — Peninsula School Board member David Olson, who won the state Republican Party endorsement. In a recent debate between the two, it was welcome to hear Olson highlight the urgent need for more tutoring and mentoring to get students back on track academically.
But Olson also has some, shall we say, quirks. His speech to the state Republican convention in Spokane was a red flag. Near the end of a five-minute bid to get the party’s endorsement, he went all MAGA.
He bizarrely urged high school grads not to go to college. Imagining if they went into the skilled trades instead, he said the four-year universities then “could all go bankrupt and that would save America!”
The crowd erupted in cheers. That’s today’s GOP, thrilled by a fever dream of universities failing.
Olson later backtracked, saying he wasn’t serious. In a remark that sums up the politics of this era, he said he had gotten carried away by the GOP convention’s “weird environment.”
He’s not the first to fall under MAGA’s oddball spell, I guess. But it turns out that isn’t the end of it.
Olson filled out a candidate questionnaire for the iVoterGuide, which is put out by a Christian group called American Family Action. Its mission, it says, is to “serve as a firewall between biblical values and those who seek to destroy America.”
Asked about public funding of education, Olson wrote, “I do not support the state funding post high school education.”
No funding for higher education at all. So much for the University of Washington, Washington State, four other state universities and the entire community and technical college system.
I’d argue that the single best thing the government here has ever done, on any topic, was creating the University of Washington. With its economic output, research, spinoffs, Nobel Prize winners and diaspora of hundreds of thousands of graduates over more than 150 years, the UW remains today the engine of the region.
The GOP’s schools candidate doesn’t even believe in the premise?
Also in the questionnaire, Olson advocates for abolishing the federal Department of Education. It funds schooling for low-income students and kids with disabilities. And he wants to put the Ten Commandments in schools.
I bring all this up because the demise of the Republican Party in Washington has been a regular topic in this space. Readers often ask why I focus on it. Why I don’t spend all my column space on the Democrats, who are in charge.
Well, this is why. Our state school system is on a lackluster run under Democratic control and needs invigoration. But where can that come from?
In Washington, elections are binary choices. While the schools chief technically is nonpartisan, in reality we have an eight-year incumbent Democrat being challenged by a Republican. The expectation — the hope — is that Republicans will bring a legitimate competing vision, at least to challenge assumptions and put some pressure on Democrats. What the local GOP offers up is a guy leading cheers for the higher ed system to fail.
What do you expect voters to do with this choice, Republicans? It’s a nonstarter to have a schools chief who doesn’t believe in public universities. It also makes no sense politically, as big shares of the local electorate — including Republican voters — went to these or similar universities.
I don’t know when the local GOP is going to get over its “weird environment.” But it’s a big reason why things often feel so stuck around here: We desperately need two sane political parties.
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