Q&A

I am asked the same questions a lot: in IT, we call those “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQ). Here are some of them, with the answers:

Why do you want to be elected to the School Board?
I am running for Lewis-Palmer School Board because I want to make a positive difference in the district, which has had recent fiscal and other challenges. Challenge also brings opportunity: a chance to do things better, to innovate and ultimately to provide a better education for the students of the district at a cost that the taxpayers can afford.

Do you believe that schools need more money?
I am not convinced that schools, in general, need more money. Over the past forty years we have doubled or even tripled the amount of money spent on education and yet student achievement has remained flat. In fact, science scores have even dropped. We have increase by 100% the aggregate staffing of schools yet student enrollment has increased by only 10%. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. What we need is a bottom-up review of what we spend our money on and why we spend it, based on our district’s mission, vision, legal requirements, and priorities. If, after that kind of assessment, it turns out that we need more money, I will advocate for it.

What should be the funding priorities for the district?
Funding priorities for the district should be closely aligned to its mission and legal obligations. All funding should be able to be aligned with a specific goal. The mission of any school district is to educate students and so the top priority for the district should be activities that directly relate to teaching. This includes such things as teacher compensation, classroom materials, and other activities that directly support classroom teaching. Secondly, the district maintains a number of school buildings which contain the classrooms. These, too, need to be maintained. When budgets are tight there is a tendency to put off short-term maintenance which can result in greater long-term costs. Long-term sustainability rather than short-term expediency should always be the goal.

In the wake of continued budget cuts, what innovative measures would you implement in the school district to ensure high quality teachers and a high quality education?
Senate Bill 191 gives school district more flexibility in teacher pay, but higher pay is not the automatic answer. Just as in technology and many other areas, throwing more money at a problem is not a way for fixing it. We’ve been doing that for forty years with nothing in the way of student achievement to show for it. Teachers don’t teach solely for the money: we need to improve working conditions and allow teachers to do their job—teach.

What are your thoughts about Proposition 103?
I am against Proposition 103. It is not good public policy; it is simply a proposed tax hike with no coherent justification. The governor doesn’t back it, the legislature wouldn’t take it up and there is little support for it outside of the education establishment. The money would be dumped into the General Fund with no guarantee it would be spent for education.

Who do you think is ultimately responsible for student success?
I believe in personal responsibility: ultimately each student is responsible for his or her own success. Since most students in the public education system are minors, parents bear much of that responsibility. The school district should be working in partnership with parents. We should be giving them useful tools to help ensure their children’s success. Everyone in education is responsible for performing their role to the best of their ability. Teachers are responsible to do the best teaching job they can, and bus drivers for getting the students to school on time. One of the goals of public education should be to produce a graduate with a certain amount of useful knowledge and the ability and desire to be a life-long learner.

What is your definition of success?
My definition of success would be whether the graduates of our school district have obtained that basic level of knowledge and have the skills to continue to learn. We should be taking our students from dependence to independence.

What is the role of the school board within the district and the community?
A school district is organized like most large organizations, with a governing board responsible for overall direction and operations. That’s the school board’s role with respect to the district—its inward-facing role. It also has an outward-facing role to communicate with the community at large and represent the community in executing its role as the governing body of the school district. It should balance the interests of parents, students, teachers, taxpayers and voters.

What personal issues or challenges will you champion on the board?
As a member of the school board, I will champion three general categories of issues. The first is budget. In business, you learn that there is a yearly budget, an asset ledger, and a long term plan. In government, unfortunately, the focus is almost solely on the yearly budget. As a result, school districts tend to think only in terms of balancing that yearly budget. When there are difficulties with the yearly spend plan, the resort is to a mill levy override or a bond issue—which is only a temporary fix. Planning must be both long term and sustainable.

Secondly, I will focus on teaching. As a teacher, this is near and dear to my heart. As a leader, I recognize teaching as what we do. To be a truly great school district, we need to have good teachers and perform our teaching well.

Finally, I am by personality and training focused on innovation. The current school structure is a hierarchical organization built not unlike a military unit or a factory. This is not by accident: the public school system was designed by progressives like John Dewey to turn out factory workers and obedient citizens. Today, our workforce are knowledge workers not factory workers. They need to be strong, independent, free-thinking adults. Technology has made each of us the center of our own networks—but public schools are still rigidly hierarchical, more concerned with enforcing rules and maintaining authority than with actually educating children. We are not teaching eternal truths, we are teaching current fads. Yet there is much innovation in education today—indeed, it is an exciting time to be in education—and Lewis-Palmer has a great opportunity to be a part of that, if not even a leader.

If faced with voting on a science curriculum, would you support one that includes theories like evolution and creationism, exclude certain theories, exclude all theories and teach only proven facts, or another choice not listed?

Thanks for your question: it’s one I wasn’t asked at the public forums and so couldn’t answer.

Science is not about belief, it is about reason. Yet reason does not contradict faith (Thomas Aquinas). Science is coming to the conclusion that the universe started with a “big bang.” What caused the bang to happen? Only faith, supported by reason, can give us the answer because the question is inherently unprovable.

Yet I don’t want the state-supported school system teaching faith–they will usually get it wrong. The Founders didn’t want the state pushing any specific religion–that’s what freedom of religion is all about. Teaching about different faiths in a comparative, non-judgmental way: I’m all for that. Does that belong in a science curriculum? Probably not.

With regard to science curriculum: yes, teach all theories. Teach evolution as what it is: the Theory of Evolution. I think natural selection has much to recommend it, but by extension to say that all life evolved by accident is pretty far-fetched. I’m sure you are aware of a number of good logical arguments against evolution, and I think they ought to be taught as well.

Science is supposed to be about observation, testing and proving. I think beliefs and belief systems belong in the social science curriculum. (I’ve taught in both areas.) There’s far too much “belief” in the science curriculum: global warming is the perfect example of that. Stick to provable facts.

I hope that’s clear. It’s a controversial area. I believe if we are about providing education, we should be teaching all competing points of view and let the students, guided of course by their parents, come to their own conclusions.