Lawmakers To Discuss Giving Seattle Mayor Power To Appoint School Board Members
The role of Seattle's mayor in the city's education system will be up for debate in Olympia this week.
A House Education Committee will take public testimony at its meeting Tuesday ona bill that would give Seattle Mayor Ed Murray the power to appoint two of the seven members of the school board.
The suggestion has touched a nerve with a coalition of parents who've long distrusted the idea of city officials meddling in the school district's affairs. They say Rep. Eric Pettigrew's proposal undercuts the will of the voters and could give supporters of charter schools a foothold in the district.
But Pettigrew, D-Seattle, echoed a sentiment Mayor Ed Murray has also expressed: More people care about how well students do in school rather than about who governs the school district and how.
"The bottom line is: Are we educating kids?" Pettigrew said. "For a number years, consistently, for kids in my district, that hasn't been the case. So I'm looking for anything to shake things up to do things differently."
'We've Seen Very Little Change'
Lawmakers will consider Pettigrew's bill one week before they take up another proposal he's co-sponsoring — a bill that would split Seattle Public Schools into two districts — in hopes of shaking up the district.
"It may be a governance issue, it may be a money issue, it may be an administration issue, it may be a finance issue — I don't know," Pettigrew added. "All I know that is we've been doing the same things over and over again for 30 years, and have seen very little change."
While district officials point to improvements in test scores, particularly among vulnerable populations, superintendent Larry Nyland has also said as many as one-quarter of Seattle Public Schools' 51,000-plus students aren't yet mastering basic Lawmakers To Discuss Giving Seattle Mayor Power To Appoint School Board Members | KPLU News for Seattle and the Northwest: