With education foremost on many voters’ minds, residents packed into the Thurgood Marshall Center for a recent candidates forum focusing on the issue. The event organizer, the Coalition for D.C. Public Schools and Communities (C4DC), comprises education-oriented organizations from around the District.
The June 5 forum began with Phil Mendelson, incumbent DC Council chairman, facing off against Ed Lazere, who is on leave from his longtime post as executive director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.
For the Democratic nomination for an at-large DC Council seat, incumbent Anita Bonds faced off against real estate professionals Marcus Goodwin and community activist Jeremiah Lowery, with the candidates responding to questions pre-written by C4DC.
Mendelson repeatedly stressed his experience and the moves he’d made as chairman, including support for an independent research arm dedicated to evaluating and monitoring the public education system, an initiative for which both candidates repeatedly vocalized support at the forum.
Lazere was emphatic that DC spends too little on education. He referred to the education adequacy study from 2012, which declared that DC was 10 percent below recommended spending levels.
Audience questions, which were collected on notecards throughout the forum, touched on attendance issues, bilingual education and adult literacy.
Mendelson and Lazere were asked a final audience question: Would they support the restoration of a school board to run the DC Public Schools system?
Mendelson stated that he originally voted against the mayoral takeover of education authority, but now believes “the quality of teaching in the classroom is not determined by the organizational chart.” Instead of another organizational restructuring, he said he wants to focus on initiatives he believes actually bring about change in classrooms. He supports strengthening resources for the State Board of Education and making the Office of the State Superintendent on Education independent of the mayor.
Lazere’s response left more room for nuance. While he wants the main focus of the council to be on transparency and accountability, “If there are enough people in the city who think that bringing back an elected school board might do something to make our schools better, then I would be open to a community conversation about it.”
At-large candidates Bonds, Goodwin and Lowery all voiced support for increased transparency and accountability, as well as a move away from a test-based system of education.
Bonds urged examination of how teachers are evaluated, which now relies in large part on student test scores. “We want our young people to learn not just, as some have said, how to take a test,” she said. “We want them to learn, to grow, to be able to think on their feet.”
Bonds, who survived a 2014 challenge for her seat, stressed the need for more focus on creativity and arts education, as well as adult literacy. Her challengers this year, both male millennials, say they want to breathe new life into the position, and this clear was in their responses at the debate.
Goodwin said the cost of living in the city is too high for teachers to afford on their salaries. His vision for DC focuses heavily on increased housing affordability and making homeownership a possibility for more people.
A main focus of Lowery’s campaign has been universal child care. Parents in DC spend an average of $23,000 per year on child care, he said.
Neither Bonds nor Goodwin wishes to return to a school board, which was eliminated in 2007 in DC with the switch to mayoral control. The replacement State Board of Education reviews regulations on matters such as accountability measures, but it does not run the school system.
Lowery differed with his two opponents. Pointing out that mayoral control is not the norm across the country, Lowery suggested moving toward more school-board empowerment.
“Not the original structure, but I do believe we need an empowered school board in DC that has more oversight power, can dictate policy and has more power to hold the chancellor and mayor accountable,” Lowery said.
D.C. residents vote in local primaries on June 19. Only the Democratic Party has contested races. There are no candidates on the Republican ballot except the Ward 6 council seat, and no one is listed on the DC Statehood Green Party or Libertarian Party ballots for council chairman. David Schwartzmann of the DC Statehood Green Party and Denise Hicks of the Libertarian Party are seeking nominations for one of the two at-large DC Council seats available in November.
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