UW professor will ensure superintendent forum is no easy task

A University of Washington professor says she plans to challenge the candidates for Superintendent of Public Instruction on how they’ll approach education as a whole.

While the forum at Town Hall in Seattle will be focused on children with disabilities, our state’s educational charter requires equal funding for all students, Dr. Ilene Schwartz told KIRO Radio.

“We can’t talk about one set of students without talking (about) the other set of students,” she said.

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Superintendent of Public Instruction is one of the most influential positions up for grabs in the upcoming general election. The superintendent is tasked with directing our public schools at a time when the Legislature has failed to fulfill its mission to fully fund basic education. The nonpartisan job pays $132,000 a year and oversees some $9 billion in education spending.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, candidates Chris Reykdal and Erin Jones will square off in a forum on “diversity and inclusion” in our schools. Schwartz will moderate.

State Rep. Chris Reykdal, of Tumwater, has served three terms in the state House as a Democrat and is an administrator for the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. He’s also been a high school history teacher.

The other candidate, Erin Jones, of Tacoma, is the first African-American woman to run for statewide office in Washington. Jones works for the Tacoma School District as a teaching coach and program administrator. This is her first run for public office.

“We really are looking at what these two candidates have to say about the education of children in general,” Schwartz said. “I need to know before I can make a decision for election day. I need to know what these candidates think about all these children.”

And when Schwartz says all, she means all.

When it comes to diversity and inclusion, children of all backgrounds have special education needs, which Dr. Schwartz says can only be addressed by improving the schooling of all children regardless of ability, though she says some of our communities are disproportionately affected.

“Students of color and students who live in poverty are over-represented in the number of students with disabilities,” she said. “And so, making sure we address that issue and making sure all students with disabilities — regardless of their home language or parent’s ability to advocate for them — have access to high-quality education, that’s really what we’re interested in trying to get at.”

As to what she believes the problems are and what she’d like to hear from Erin Jones and Chris Reykdal?

“Our schools are so inadequately funded when you think about where we are in terms of our peer’s states. We fund at a ridiculously low level,” she said. She also believes in better teacher training and reorganizing schools so they aren’t taught in the “old” ways.

Through the lens of diversity and inclusion, Dr. Schwartz hopes to highlight the differences between the two candidates.

“If they have real differences in policy, then it allows the voters to make informed choices,” she said.