Education

We all agree that education is essential to the future of America. An educated work force is necessary for economic development. An educated citizenry is necessary for the effective functioning of democracy. Education allows a person to live a better life and make more money. An educated population is more likely to contribute economically and become more involved in their communities than a less educated population. Educated people are also less likely to get into trouble with drugs, illegal activities, or domestic violence than a less educated population.

Yet we are doing a poor job with education. About a quarter of those students entering school today will not even graduate from high school. The very things that we have tried to do to bring accountability to education have paralyzed it, replacing teaching with testing, and preventing teachers from adjusting to the needs of individual students because of the demands to respond to general governmental rules. It is a “One size fits all” education where children get left behind. Accountability is important, but it must be fair and meaningful.

The demands on teachers have become so severe that the “career life expectancy” of new teachers is now estimated to be as short as five years, given the demands placed upon them, the pay that they receive, and the frustration with reaching the goals that first led them to teaching. We must make sure that we provide teachers with both support and more appropriate measures of accountability so that they can be evaluated by a reasonable standard rather than merely a rigid one. We need to remember that teachers are professionals. We need to provide the schools with the resources they need to succeed, with mentor programs, special services for special needs children, and the technology appropriate for the educational task teachers are faced with today.

I have knowledge of public education having worked my way through graduate school by teaching young teachers in training. My background makes me aware of the complexities of the educational process and the need for accountability that is fair and appropriate, as well as the challenges that schools, teachers and students face today. The problems with public education and higher education are not problems that can be dealt with through simplistic answers, because the problems themselves are not simple. Knowledge of the situation is essential in order to make wise decisions regarding how America deals with our educational needs. I have that understanding.

In addition to the challenges of public schools, there are challenges with higher education. With the weakening of our economy, it’s becoming more and more difficult for families to provide children with access to college or training for a trade. In a competitive and global economy America needs to have the best trained workforce in order to compete. We need to strengthen federal programs that have traditionally helped working families pay for college, but have been weakened over the last eight years. We must ensure adequate and accessible apprentice programs for the trades. Given the need to adjust to a changing world and changing economy, we must provide retraining for family wages and meaningful jobs as workers become injured and unable to work in their former jobs, or when jobs and careers become obsolete. Education must be seen as a life long endeavor and truly accessible in a real life sense to those in need of adding to their skills and understanding of the world.

Higher education has been a familiar world to me, given my years of graduate study and teaching on the college and professional level. I was appointed by the Governor of the State of Washington to serve on the Board of Trustees of Eastern Washington University, which is the group ultimately responsible for the institution, and was elected as Chair of that board by fellow Trustees. It was an honor to be a part of the statewide group selected from the Boards of Trustees and Regents of other universities to explore the needs of higher education. I have even founded a non-profit corporation to explore a different and alternative way to fund higher education for graduates of local high schools, stopping the drift of our youth towards larger urban areas by enhancing the benefits of education, as well as adding to the economic development that an educated workforce would provide. Details of this program are available at www.brightspokane.org.

Education matters to us all, and it matters that we elect someone who both understands educational issues as well as someone who values education. I’ve been blessed by my background to have that knowledge and experience.