A number of people have asked me for my views on the contest. I think it is worthwhile not only to state my preference, but to explain it.
I grew up in Montgomery County and benefited greatly from the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS); like me, our two sons went through MCPS. I have been active in MoCo public school matters since 1984, when I became co-president of the PTA at Rosemary Hills Primary School, a magnet integration school. Subsequently, I was public affairs director for the MoCo Gifted & Talented Association and served on the Superintendent's Advisory Committee on GT Education, the PTA at Cashell Elementary School, the citizens committee advising the opening of Rosa Parks Middle School, and the Richard Montgomery H.S. PTSA. In 2002-05, I was a member of the BOE's Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development. Since 2006, I have been Advocacy Chair for Metro DC PFLAG, working on MCPS issues. I have been involved as a supporter of BOE candidates every cycle since 2000.
I supported the incumbent, Phil Kauffman, in 2008 and 2012. I generally agree with him on big-picture policy issues. Over the years, however, I have been disappointed with the approach he takes to the job. As Phil candidly admitted at the BOE Candidate Forum in Olney on April 11, his view is that once the Board hires a Superintendent, the Board should simply defer to the Superintendent. Experiences during the Weast and Starr years have convinced me that this is not a good idea. Too much deference to the Superintendent can be a real drag on progress, as I learned during the 2005-14 struggle to secure a sensible LGBT health education curriculum. (See my blog post detailing that struggle.) During that time, with one exception between 2005-08, all of the Board members agreed with what should be done, but the Board as a whole did not press the matter with Weast or Starr, who were reluctant to act. I believe that a more proactive Board committed to acting collaboratively with the Superintendent―but remembering that the Superintendent works for the Board, not the other way around―could have resolved the issues by 2007 at the latest. Instead, it took until 2014; we had seven years of ineffective health education instruction as a result.
I also suspect that this lack of collaboration and communication with Joshua Starr―who had great ideas on important matters such as teaching approaches (social and emotional learning) and the insanity of high stakes testing, issues where the members of the Board substantively agreed with him―may have had much to do with the breakdown of communication that led to the unfortunate situation a year ago, when his contract was not renewed. MCPS, with more than 156,000 students, has, by necessity, a large bureaucratic structure. That is all the more reason for a truly collaborative relationship between the Board and the Superintendent. Even the best bureaucracy, public or private, tends to ride on inertia, and it takes constant vigilance and effort on the part of those working in the bureaucracy and those to whom they report to keep it effective. Any time a Board member, faced with a serious concern about something at MCPS, simply shrugs and says or implies, Well, that is something I can't really do anything about, I cringe. I worked in the federal bureaucracy for 40 years, and I always found that the best way to deal with bureaucratic sclerosis was to challenge it. That is the culture we need to have much more of throughout MCPS.
So that is the perspective from which I see the upcoming election. Phil Kauffman is a fine and dedicated person. But I do not think his approach is best for MCPS.
Consequently, I looked closely at the four people who are challenging him in the primary. I remembered Mike Ibanez from previous elections―he has run several times. A Catholic school teacher, he made it clear, in response to questions during earlier campaigns, that he was not in favor of health education curriculum that dealt with LGBT matters consistent with the wisdom of every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association; for many years now, those groups have made it clear, for example, that being gay is not an illness, that LGBT people can be perfectly happy consistent with their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that notions that people can consciously change their sexual orientation or gender identity are dangerous and should be rejected. So, obviously, Mr. Ibanez was not an alternative, from my point of view.
Gwendolyn Love Kimbrough does not have a history in Montgomery County but has worked in the D.C. School System. Her involvement with a failed charter school in D.C., which included allegations of significant financial improprieties, did not inspire confidence, and her lack of MCPS involvement convinced me not to investigate her qualifications any further.
Fortunately, the other two contenders appeared very promising.
Jeanette Dixon retired recently as principal of Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, and she is very well-regarded by people in the Paint Branch community. When I wrote to her to inquire about her views about LGBT matters, she responded in a positive, indeed passionate, manner. And she certainly is not shy about stating her opinions about the administration of MCPS, as illustrated in an open letter she sent during the run-up to Joshua Starr's decision not to seek reappointment when it became clear that he could not garner support from a majority of the BOE members. I had hoped to speak with her about other MCPS issues during the meet-and-greet portion of the April 11 BOE Candidate Form in Olney, but she was unable to attend. I think having retired principals on the Board is a good idea, but of the seven elected non-student members now, two are principals (Mike Durso and Judy Docca). Three of seven, all things being equal, might be too much. The Board, in my view, needs people from a variety of life experiences to work best.
Sebastian Johnson was the Student Member of the Board of Education (SMOB) in 2005-06, the school year following the lawsuit brought against MCPS by Mat Staver's Liberty Counsel, a lawsuit that was settled by MCPS, requiring it to start the health education curriculum process over again. When I got in contact with Sebastian, I noted that he might not recall much about it, since the Board itself did not do much during that year. Sebastian responded with a clear understanding of what had been going on and statements of support for LGBT students, including transgender students. He asked to meet, and we did so a few days later. Since his support for LGBT students was clear, I spent most of the time chatting with him about his own experiences and a wide range of MCPS issues.
The child of a single mother in Takoma Park, Sebastian attended his home school, Blair, for high school; during that first year of high school, one of his teachers recognized his potential and urged him to apply to the Communications Arts Program (CAP) at Blair―a county-wide program that had a competitive admissions system. He thrived in it, and became active in student council activities, leading to his election as SMOB for the 2005-06 school year. As a scholarship student at Georgetown University, he spent part of his undergraduate years at the London School of Economics; after finishing at Georgetown, he taught at a public charter elementary school in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and then earned a masters degree in public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He now works at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, analyzing state tax and budget policies.
We shared our own MCPS experiences. He was particularly interested in the Rosemary Hills Primary School, and we talked a lot about how to assure that more kids from "non-educationally-advantaged" families (my phrase, not his) would be able to get into the pipeline to signature programs like the CAP, but also how to increase the quality of education for all kids, particularly those who do not come to the classroom with advantages. He is sensitive to the need to work with the County Government with respect to programs designed to help the most vulnerable, so that MCPS and the County Government engage in more coordination. The time he spent working as a County Council staffer, combined with the experience he already has as a SMOB, could help in that regard. Sebastian is definitely on board regarding the problems of too much high-stakes testing. Indeed, the only issue where we might differ a bit is on the issue of student activity fees (I am opposed to them completely); we had a very useful discussion about ways of raising the needed funds without putting students in the awkward position of seeking aid for the fees. He definitely is in the camp of those who believe that the Board should be an active collaborator with its top employee, the Superintendent, rather than a generally hands-off overseer.
In sum, I was extremely impressed with Sebastian, and his performance at the April 11 candidate forum in Olney confirmed my impression. Since I firmly believe that a healthy mixture of backgrounds and experiences is essential for an effective Board of Education, the inclusion of a smart and experienced new member who is only a few years away from being an actual MCPS student would be a very good thing. Very few 27-year-olds would have the experience to do this well. But, as outlined above, Sebastian is uniquely qualified.
So for these reasons, I will be voting for Sebastian Johnson. Check out his website here.
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