Keep Bergeson as schools chief

• Published October 17, 2008

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Voters should re-elect Terry Bergeson as superintendent of public instruction Nov. 4.

Bergeson, 66, is running for a fourth term and faces the challenge of Randy Dorn, 55, executive director of the Public School Employees of Washington, a lobbying organization for 26,000 bus drivers, tutors, technicians and other school workers.

Dorn brings solid credentials to this run for statewide office. He served in the state Legislature from 1987 until 1994 and has experience as both a classroom teacher and principal. He was one of the key architects of the state's landmark education reform measure that passed in 1993. It was that legislation that led to the establishment of academic standards for students and the launching of the controversial Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

Dorn is very much in the attack mode in this campaign. He's sharply critical of Bergeson's leadership and the WASL exam, which was established at a time when business leaders in this state said too many high school graduates could not write clearly, balance a checkbook or count change. Dorn said he's fully supportive of an assessment system, but believes the WASL is too long, not diagnostic, not tied to technology and takes too long to get the test results back. He's enamored of the Measures of Academic Progress test used in Yelm School District with testing of student comprehension three times a year.

Dorn says under Bergeson's leadership, the state has slipped from 25th nationally in per-pupil spending to 42nd.

What he fails to mention is that the Legislature determines the amount of money spent in the state's K-12 education system, not the superintendent of public instruction.

The Olympian's editorial board believes Bergeson has done a good job with the financial resources she has been given by lawmakers.

She was at the helm when the state struggled to set academic standards and hold students and educators to those standards through the WASL. As Bergeson is quick to note, the state has come a long way since then. Washington consistently ranks among the top states in the nation in which more than half of the eligible students take the SAT. We were third on the ACT results and the number of students taking advanced-placement classes has quadrupled. About 94 percent of last year's senior class passed the reading and writing portions of the WASL. That's a huge achievement.

Yes, there's still work to do, especially on the math portion of the test. But passage of the math portion will become a graduation requirement, along with science, in 2013.

While K-12 challenges remain, the state is clearly moving in the right direction in terms of increasing academic standards and holding educators and students accountable to those expectations. While remediation is necessary for some students moving on to college, the business community applauds Bergeson's leadership in creating a well-educated work force.

We fear that Dorn, who is supported by the state's teachers union, would start from scratch and take this state backward in its education reform efforts.

Bergeson has done battle with the Washington Education Association, the teachers union she used to lead. Bergeson clearly is not in the pocket of the teachers union. And she has steadfastly fought against legislators who wanted to lower standards and abandon the WASL as a graduation requirement.

Someone in this state has to believe in kids and stand up for them and their individual academic success. That person is Terry Bergeson, whom voters should return to office Nov. 4.