A Voter’s Guide To the D.C.
State School Board Race
The WAMU Voter Guide for each State Board of Education candidate in each ward that will
elect a school board representative on Nov. 6. It highlights the amounts raised by each
candidate and a summary of their responses to key issues.
​Ward 1 Candidates
Candidate Callie Kozlak
Amount Raised According $18,140.61
to Oct. finance reports.
Are you currently satisfied  YES: ​More or less -
with the ​structure of M
​ ayoral  there is value and
control of schools?  efficiency in having a
centralized system that can
leverage dedicated
resources for health,
facilities, transportation,
parks & rec, public safety
to holistically support our
schools. Nonetheless,
balance of power among
governing bodies is
healthier for advocacy. My
approach will focus on
empowering kids and
communities, not the
power structures of
government.
Are you currently satisfied  NO:​​ ​I would like to see
with the role of the State  the Board have more
Board of Education? regulatory power to shape
Jason Andrean
$65,349.66
YES: ​I support Mayoral
control, under which executive
management of the education
system is assigned to the Mayor
and oversight responsibility to
the DC Council. We should
continue to find ways to
increase the transparency and
accountability in our system.
YES:​​ ​Our priority must be to
keep politics out of education, to
the greatest degree possible.
Emily Gasoi
$29,384.00
NO:​​ ​While I agree there
have been some
improvements over the past
11 years of education reform
in DC, I also think there is an
inherent conflict of interest
when the State
Superintendent both reports
to the Mayor and is charged
with evaluating the
effectiveness of the Mayor’s
policies. There is fear among
some of “returning to how
things were” before Mayoral
control if we change course,
but there’s no reason to
believe that we can’t keep
what’s working, while also
pursuing changes that make
our system more
accountable, more
responsive to stakeholder
needs, and ultimately, more
democratic.
NO:​​ I'd like to see the state
board have more authority in
promoting independent

What is one of the biggest  GENTRIFICATION: ACHIEVEMENT GAP:
issues impacting students in  we have an incredibly
your area and how do you  diverse Ward and an
plan to use the state board  opportunity to integrate our
seat to impact that.  schools so that kids are not
Earlier this year the school
board did not approve a new
policy the state
superintendent wanted to
implement regarding credit
recovery. In your opinion,
what should the ideal credit
recovery policy include?
Should schools have 5  YES:​​ The rating system
star-ratings?
policy like Boards in other
states. Nonetheless, I want
to focus on using the
current power and platform
of the Board to stay 100%
focused on solutions and
improvements for kids and
communities.
growing up racially and
culturally isolated. I will use
my seat on the board to
take a hard look at equity
gaps, meaningfully engage
communities and
educators, and determine
what conditions and inputs
it will take to support the
unique needs of students
and create high-quality
schools across the city that
serve as magnets for
families from all different
backgrounds.
FLEXIBILITY AND
RIGOR​:​ I don’t think we
should take ideas off the
table for supporting student
pathways to college and
career ready; and
recognize that students
and families face a host of
situations that may impact
their ability to excel in a
more traditional pathway to
graduation. An ideal policy
should provide flexibility
but ensure rigor of credit
recovery courses by having
DC teachers and trained
educators lead on
developing course content
and curriculums.
helps provide a baseline
comparison for publicly
differentiating schools and
seeing where there are
equity gaps. Such a
system is a means for
putting pressure on all
Simply giving SBOE more
authority will only further
politicize education
policymaking. Instead of giving
SBOE more authority, Council
should allocate more resources
so that SBOE can more
effectively do the job with which
it is currently tasked, including
its role as a primary conduit for
serving as a voice for the
residents of our respective
Wards.
The persistent achievement gap
between children of color and
white children continues to be
an issue. To address that issue,
I will use my SBOE seat to
advocate for equitable funding
in schools, additional out of
school time funding, and
additional mental health support
in our schools and communities.
ELIGIBILITY AND
RIGOR:​​ C
​ redit recovery
policies should outline when a
student is eligible to take the
course, what courses are
considered to offer similar levels
of rigor when compared to the
underlying course, and how
credits in the credit recovery
course are earned.
YES:​​ ​While the STAR ratings
system (or any rating system for
that matter) is not perfect, we
should view it as a legitimate
starting point in the process
toward ensuring uniformity and
greater transparency across
both traditional and charter
research on what's working
and what isn't. The State
Board needs to be able to
initiate work, conduct
investigations, and pursue
lines of questioning on behalf
of their constituents on any
subjects of concern.
POVERTY:​​ ​I think
stressors related to poverty
and other out-of-school
factors that impact students’
ability to learn and thrive are
one of the biggest issues. I
am currently on the DCPS
Community Schools Planning
Committee and I will continue
to advocate for strengthening
and expanding our
community school
partnerships, which bring
targeted wrap around
services and enriched
curriculum to students, their
families, and the community.
QUALITY AND
RIGOR:​​ O
​ SSE’s credit
recovery proposal did not
ensure that content in Credit
Recovery courses would be
comparable in quality and
rigor to regular course
content. The ideal credit
recovery policy would specify
the standards and require an
assessment that determined
students growth after taking
the CR course.
NO: ​A rating system may
be good for rating the quality
of a hotel, but schools are
complex organizations based
on human relationships and
diverse individual interests
and needs.

The School Board recently
commissioned research into
teacher turnover. What other
topics should the board look
into and why?
Do charter schools or DCPS
need more oversight or
transparency?
How much testing is too  While I believe
much testing? How much  assessments should be
accountability should rely on  less high-stakes for
test?  individual teachers and
public officials to ensure no
neighborhood has a
concentration of 1- star
schools, while other
neighborhoods have all 5’s
– but for families, the rating
system should serve as
one tool among many
sources to decide on which
school is best for their
children.
DIVERSITY: ​The
Board should look at the
issue of school diversity,
including policies and
strategies to integrate
schools across the district
by race and class. Scaling
bilingual education is
another issue to ensure
more families have access
to its benefits for brain
development, academic
performance, inclusion,
and equipping children with
skills for a global and
diverse society.
BOTH NEED
MORE:​​ The District
should be held accountable
to provide timely data in
forms that are accessible
and intuitive for the public. I
will do this by leveraging
federal and DC laws and
regulations for data
collection and reporting,
meaningfully engaging the
community for input and
feedback, and supporting
OSSE in the
implementation of
requirements for an
accountability system, as
well as flexible policy
options for further
identifying equity gaps.
students, we should not
abandon or dilute a
district-wide means for
evaluating the progress of
students, breaking that
data down by race and
other identifiers, using it to
examine the root causes of
equity gaps, and driving
sectors. The goal is to hold
schools accountable and
provide parents with the
information necessary for them
to compare and determine
which schools are best for their
children.
FUNDING SCHOOLS:
The board should have a study
conducted to make
recommendations on how we
can more equitably fund our
schools. Would be helpful to
know what evidenced-based
practices can significantly
improve outcomes and what the
associated costs are.
BOTH NEED MORE:
All schools need more
oversight. I plan to work closely
with DC Council, which has
oversight function of the
schools, to make sure thoughtful
measures are in place that
increase transparency of our
schools.
Standardized tests cannot
capture the many qualitative
attributes that make for great
schools and educators. While I
believe some degree of
standardized testing should be
retained as a tool and part of the
measurement and evaluation
process, it must be viewed as a
part of a broader process.
WEIGHT OF TESTS:
We need a Research
committee to look at what
school evaluation criteria are
being used by states and
districts across the country
that have taken advantage of
ESSA to roll back the weight
of test scores in their
accountability plans in order
to encourage the kinds of
practices and cultural norms
we actually want to see in our
classrooms .
BOTH NEED MORE,
ESP. CHARTERS:
Yes to both. I will advocate
that charters be subject to
FOIA and other transparency
requirements government
entities are subject to. I
would also advocate for the
public release of data on
teacher turnover in DCPS
and the racial breakdown of
its teaching force.
I advocate dialing back the
weight of test scores on the
school report card to 55%
and making up the difference
with criteria that actually
encourage the kinds of
practices and cultural norms
we want to see in our
schools. Criteria might
include teacher retention
rates, retention of a diverse
teaching staff, support for
family engagement, and
 hard decisions around social emotional indicators for
resources and students.
community-led solutions.

Fun Fact?  ALWAYS COOKING:​​ I grew up ON THE RADIO:​​ ​I wrote

watching my mom and and recorded a story for
RACING:​​ I have run 10 grandmothers cook and host WAMU about my experience
marathons, which honestly
family dinners. To keep the in Head Start experience
has prepared me for
tradition alive, I have friends
campaigning. I am finding
over every weekend for dinner.
so many parallels!

Ward 3 Candidates
Candidate Ruth Wattenberg Dora Currea

Amount Raised According $13,630.39 $12,663.00

to Oct. finance reports.

Are you currently satisfied  NO:​​ ​In order to improve YES:​​ ​Mayor control means
with the ​structure o
​ f Mayoral  that mayor is responsible for
research, data, and
control of schools?  bringing to bear all departments
overall policymaking (not
the day-to-day policy and and funded entities to deliver a
administration of the quality education. Council and
schools, which would voters should hold mayor
accountable.
continue to be under the
mayor), the state
superintendent of
education should be
independent of—not
appointed by and
answerable to-- the
mayor

Are you currently satisfied  NO:​​ ​The SBOE is the
with the role of the State  should be made explicit in a
single elected body that
Board of Education?
deals exclusively with
education-- in a city
where families and
residents are often
frustrated by their lack of
a voice in
decision-making about
our schools. Over time, it
YES:​​ ​SBOE's policy role
process whereby DME presents
for guidance and perhaps
authorization an education plan
with policy goals and directives
(including programmatic
priorities currently only
articulated by DCPS). This
should set the context for the

What is one of the biggest  OVERCROWDING​​:
issues impacting students in  The greatest issue our
your area and how do you  students face is that our
plan to use the state board  addressed in the context of
seat to impact that.  improving quality and capacity
Earlier this year the school
board did not approve a new
policy the state
superintendent wanted to
implement regarding credit
recovery. In your opinion,
what should the ideal credit
recovery policy include?
Should schools have 5  YES, but:​​ ​The best
star-ratings?
makes sense to grow Master Facilities Plan and
SBOE authority, as a way budget choices.
of introducing greater
democratic input and
responsiveness into
education policymaking.
OVERCROWDING:
Overcrowding is the issue for
Ward 3, but it has to be
schools are out of space!
As the SBOE rep for
Ward 3, I have been utilization of facilities
deeply engaged in districtwide. SBOE is the ideal
working with our school venue for vetting the policy,
program, and capital investment
communities and DCPS
options in education.
to fully understand the
scope of the problem,
map out options, and
advocate for solutions.
QUALITY, GET TO ROOT
BREADTH AND CAUSES:​​ ​I applaud greater
RIGOR:​​ ​An ideal credit flexibility for teachers and
recovery policy would administrators to help students
assure that credit graduate. However, I agree that
recovery courses must be the vetting process with
comparable in quality, stakeholders should be
breadth, and rigor to the thorough and that we need to
regular courses that they better understand the causes of
why students require credit
replace. Absent this
recovery in the first place.
assurance, the incentives
to push students into
credit recovery courses
so that they can be
pushed to
graduate—instead of
teaching them the skills
and subject matter they
need--will continue, and
we will face more
graduation scandals like
we just experienced.
YES:​​ ​Our students are used
to summative ratings in school
way to provide
families/residents/policym report cards. So whether stars
akers with an apples-to or letter grades, summative
apples way of comparing measures are meant to simplify
schools is to provide an evaluation of complex
undertakings.
transparent, separate
ratings for each school on
each of the key quality
issues: student progress
(arguably the most
important!), school
climate, well-rounded
education, and average
test score, etc. As it is,
 the current 5-star rating
ignores key aspects of
school quality and then
mushes together those it
does consider into a
composite,
non-transparent rating,
which is hard to interpret
and not a reasonable
reflection of school
quality.

The School Board recently CURRICULUMS: SEVERAL TOPICS:

commissioned research into
teacher turnover. What other
topics should the board look
into and why?
First, there is more to do Areas for further analysis
around teacher turnover, stemming from STAR rating
which I call “the canary in include: school climate, high
the classroom” because it school growth measures,
is a warning sign of other review of PARCC, and review
problems in our schools. of weights (growth vs
We need to learn what is achievement; at risk subgroup
causing it and what steps vs all students). The rating
should be taken to should help parents and
address it. Other teachers to identify gaps and
problems we should monitor progress to address
study include: 1) Whether them.
schools are providing
students with a full, broad
curriculum in
history/civics, science,
and the arts (not
narrowing it to mainly the
tested subjects of reading
and math) and 2) the
use/misuse of funds for
educating at-risk
students.

Do charter schools or DCPS BOTH NEED BOTH NEED MORE:

need more oversight or
transparency?
MORE:​​ ​The need for
accurate, transparent
data is even greater in
our charter schools,
which are not even
subject to FOIA—and
were noted as a special
concern for their lack of
data transparency in the
2015 evaluation of DC
schools conducted by the
National Academy of
Sciences. I hope that the
new independent
research collaborative will
begin to address much of
this.
All LEAs need to be held
accountable for delivering a
quality education. We are
closer to making this possible
now that the STAR ratings
cover both DCPS and charter
schools with the same
metrics. OSSE and the
Auditor are being
strengthened in their
compliance roles to ensure
data quality and integrity.

How much testing is too  There should be a high As noted above regarding the
much testing? How much  quality end-of-year test in STAR ratings, there has been
accountability should rely on  multiple subjects. Beyond an effort to complement
test?  that, the large number of
practice tests, test prep,
interim tests, etc. are
clogging up the school
schedule and taking too
much time from instruction.
School accountability
should rely on test score
progress—how much the
students have improved.
achievement metrics with
growth to recognize
improvement. There are also
other measures that are not
based on testing in an effort to
capture the different
dimensions of a quality
education.

Fun Fact?  PIRATE CAT: ​Our cat  DANCING DREAMS:​​ ​I will

has 3 legs, which makes  be a dancer in my next life.
him a great mascot for 
Ward 3!

Ward 5 Candidates
Candidate Zachary Parker Adrian Jordan William “Bill” Lewis

Amount Raised According $44,944.03 $18,548.00 $650.00

to Oct. finance reports.

Are you currently satisfied  NO:​​ ​I believe our system
with the ​structure of M
​ ayoral  should have checks and
control of schools?  balances, which are not
currently reflected in our
current oversight
structures.
NO:​​ ​I believe that politics does
not belong in education. I am in
support of changes that would
see the Office of the State
Superintendent of Education
converted to an independent
agency. Politics should not
impact education reporting and
decisions and making OSSE
independent eliminates potential
political pressure.
NO:​​ ​I believe that politics
does not belong in education.
I favor an independent
elected school board that will
impartially appoint the DCPS
Chancellor and have
oversight over all public
schools.

Are you currently satisfied  NO:​​ ​As the only elected
with the role of the State  State Board of Education be
education body, the State
Board of Education?
Board of Education
should have more
influence and voting
authority over education
policy.
NO:​​ ​The Board should be
expanded to allow members
of the SBOE to initiate policy
versus simply vote on policy
recommendations as
presented by OSSE. As
elected representatives,
members have a direct line to
NO:​​ ​I would like to see the
an elected board with ability
to make decisions, control its
own budget and be directly
accountable to the city
residents that elect the board.

What is one of the biggest  POST-SCHOOL
issues impacting students in 
your area and how do you 
plan to use the state board 
seat to impact that.  graduating from our high
Earlier this year the school
board did not approve a new
policy the state
superintendent wanted to
implement regarding credit
recovery. In your opinion,
what should the ideal credit
recovery policy include?
Should schools have 5  YES, but: ​Given the
star-ratings?
The School Board recently
commissioned research into
teacher turnover. What other
topics should the board look
into and why?
PREPARATION​​: ​Too
many of our students are
schools ill prepared for
college or the career of
their choice. If elected,
while on the Board, I will
continue to hone and
advocate for graduation
policies that place a
higher need on mastery
of content and provides
students the supports
necessary to succeed
after high school.
FLEXIBILITY AND
CONSISTENCY:​​ T
​ he
ideal credit recovery
policy should include
flexibility for students who
have failed courses to
pursue alternative routes
to demonstrate mastery
of content, rather than
being forced to sit in a
class he/she has already
failed all year. There
should also be greater
consistency of programs
among LEAs.
hyper-focus on proficiency
test scores (and in high
school, the sole focus on
proficiency test scores),
our school quality measure
conflates matters outside
of the control of the school
with student achievement.
AT-RISK
FUNDING: ​At-risk
funding and the use of
at-risk funds by schools,
parents and stakeholders and
can move more quickly than
OSSE.
FUNDING:​​ ​The unlawful
use of at-risk funding, which
was designed to promote
equity in resources, must be
use as it is intended. The lack
of economic resources of a
neighborhood should not
stand in the way of promoting
quality education.
IN-SEAT
ATTENDANCE:​​ ​More
robust community
engagement should have
been done to look at the issue
completely. I agree that in
seat attendance should be a
requirement for any level of
credit recovery.
YES:​​ ​I am fine with the star
rating system. Currently
parents use several metrics
(test scores, economic
indicators, 3rd party websites)
to rank and choose schools.
Implementing this metric
allows for an apples to apples
comparison of schools within
tiers. However with the star
rating, OSSE should
implement policy that schools
must also present turnaround
implementation plans to
provide parents and guardians
with additional information.
CREATING A TASK
FORCE: T​ he SBOE should
look into many of the
recommendations of the cross
sector task force such as at-risk
GRADUATION
COMPETENCY: ​I
would use my position to
advise and work within the
committee structure to
advocate for parent and
student input early enough to
make a difference.
PROGRAMS AND
ACCESS:​​ ​An ideal credit
recovery policy should
include the opportunity for
students to have access to
District approved programs
that enable students to attend
evening and weekend
classes to learn subject
matter and recover the credits
they need.
NO:​​ ​5 star ratings create an
exclusionary environment that
potentially degrades a
competing school that is not 5
star rated but meeting the
social and economic needs of
students.
PARENT
ENGAGEMENT:
Parent participation or lack of
parent involvement and
classroom behaviors

Do charter schools or DCPS
need more oversight or
transparency?
How much testing is too  We need to revisit our
much testing? How much  assessment strategy in the
accountability should rely on  District. Tests are valuable
test?  and provide useful
Fun Fact?  KEEP IN TOUCH​​:​ I
Ward 6 Candidates
Candidate
explicit and implicit racial
bias in our schools,
factors surrounding
school attendance trends,
and principal/leader
turnover.
BOTH NEED
MORE:​​ ​To accomplish
this, I will continue to
advocate for an
independent research arm.
I will advocate for fairness
across systems and
continuously promote ways
to make our system more
transparent.
information to schools,
however, many of our
schools are overwhelmed
with testing because there
is not a coherent
assessment strategy in
place across the District.
still check in with one of my
former students every
month to honor a
bet/challenge we created
when he was in my class to
keep him motivated. Until
he graduates from college
(2 years from now), I call
every month to tell him how
many days, hours,
minutes, and seconds he's
away from graduating, as
the first college grad in his
family. We've continued
this tradition since 2011.
Jessica Sutter
preference points and proximity
preferences.
BOTH NEED MORE:
Both sectors need more
oversight in use of funding,
use of at risk funding,
ensuring that all schools follow
FOIA and open meeting laws,
and the creation of a unified
dashboard accessible to the
public to promote
transparency.
Testing is a metric that can
provide insight into college
readiness. However, the sole
focus in education should not
be test preparedness. After
the implementation of the star
rating we can further evaluate
results based on data and can
make recommendations on
the percentage of impact of
test scores.
BACK IN MY SCHOOL:​​ I
mentor and tutored in the same
program that helped me as a
high school student!
Joe Weedon
CHARTERS NEED
MORE:​​ ​Public charter
schools need more
transparency because they
are publically funded in the
same manner as DC public
schools. I do not have a
singular answer but feel that
removing mayoral oversight
would be a move in the right
direction.
20% accountability on
standardized testing and 80%
accountability on classroom
instruction and projects
seemingly would be a fairer
academic environment for
students and teachers.
JOKES:​​ ​Humorous
Amount Raised According $21,281.36
to Oct. finance reports.
Are you currently satisfied  YES:​​ ​I support
with the ​structure o
​ f Mayoral 
continued Mayoral control
control of schools? 
of schools in the District. I
think the education
reforms of the past
decade, including
expanding the supply of
public school options, are
a direct result of mayoral
control and I think the
current governance
structure will enable
future reforms to increase
equity and opportunities
for all students.
Are you currently satisfied  YES, but:​​ ​The SBOE
with the role of the State 
must be more proactive
Board of Education?
in advocating for
state-level policies that
lead to educational equity
for all children in the
District. The SBOE needs
to show the community
that it has a tangible
impact on how schools
serve their children
before it can reasonably
ask the community for
permission to have more
authority over their
students and schools. 
What is one of the biggest  TIME AND MONEY ​:
issues impacting students in  As a former teacher, I
your area and how do you  know that the biggest
plan to use the state board 
issue for District students,
seat to impact that. 
including those in Ward
6, is how we spend our
$15,447.13
NO:​​ ​I support mayoral
control over DC Public
Schools and the Public
Charter School Board;
however, we need common
sense reforms to move us
forward. This includes
increasing accountability and
transparency to ensure all
students are served well in
both sectors. I believe in the
need for greater
independence for the Office of
the State Superintendent of
Education (OSSE) and in the
establishment of an
independent research
collaborative to help build
capacity to improve our
schools.
NO:​​ ​The Board needs the
ability to compel state
agencies to respond to
requests for information and to
initiate policy. These reforms
align with the 2015 evaluation
conducted by the National
Research Council of the
National Academy of
Sciences, which called for
further reforms to ensure our
state agency and state board
are empowered to function as
effective agencies.
EQUITY:​​ ​I have and will
continue to utilize my position
on the State Board of
Education to advocate for all
students in our city and to
increase pressure on our
 most precious resources
to help them succeed:
time and money. As a
member of the State
Board of Education, I will
work to advocate for
more time to be spent on
age-appropriate
instruction and learning
opportunities and that
more money is spent at
the school level where it
can best impact students.
school system leaders to
ensure all students receive
equitable opportunities for a
great education. By investing
wisely, we can empower
communities, reduce gaps,
and increase achievement for
all students.

Earlier this year the school RIGOR AND GAINING MASTERY:​​ I

board did not approve a new
policy the state
superintendent wanted to
implement regarding credit
recovery. In your opinion,
what should the ideal credit
recovery policy include?
joined my colleagues in
TRANSPARENCY: opposing the credit recovery
Credit recovery programs
policy because the proposal
should have school-wide
failed to ensure that students
policies that describe and
were gaining mastery of core
govern them, including
course concepts. Whether
setting them apart from
students gain credit through a
competency-based
traditional experience,
education programs,
competency-based learning, or
should include courses that
credit recovery, we must ensure
are offered only after a
that they master key concepts
child failed to pass the
and that all students are held to
original complete course,
the same high standards.s.
should be equivalent in
content and rigor to the
original complete course,
and should be made
available to all students
with adequate supports for
them to succeed, including
students with identified
special education needs.

Should schools have 5  YES:​​ ​Since 2011, only YES, but:​​ ​The
star-ratings? half the District’s schools accountability plan adopted by
have been rated and our city has its limitations. It
ranked annually, allowing will feature a one-through-five
for public examination of star rating system for every
which charter schools were school that is based largely on
meeting expectations for
test scores and attendance
effectively serving
measures. Ultimately, I did not
students, and which were
not. We need that for all believe our city’s system
schools so that: a) moved far enough away from
policy-makers and test scores and attendance as
educators can see how the primary indicators of
schools are doing and school quality and I voted
make improvements; b) against the city’s plan.
parents and others can
compare all schools, not
just charter schools; and c)
we can improve report
cards over time and on the
same timeline with the
same data for DCPS and
public charter schools.

The School Board recently BEST PRACTICES ACHIEVEMENT GAPS

commissioned research into
teacher turnover. What other
topics should the board look
into and why?
Do charter schools or DCPS
need more oversight or
transparency?
How much testing is too  As a former middle school
much testing? How much  teacher, I know that testing
accountability should rely on  is essential to
test?  understanding what
Fun Fact?  UNUSUAL
AND MORE:​​ ​Schools
that show unusually high
academic growth and any
practices/policy
conditions in such
schools that can be
disseminated across the
District; policies that can
support greater school
integration and take
advantage of existing
school choice
infrastructure and the
growing diversity of DC’s
population; and
principal/school leader
tenure and the
practices/policy
conditions that help
create stable
environments for school
leaders to succeed.
BOTH, BUT:​​ ​We
must ensure that schools
can balance the public
interest in access to data
with their chief
responsibility for educating
and caring for students;
policy makers should
continue to find ways to
streamline data collection
and reporting across
various District agencies so
school staff can focus on
serving students.
students know...there are
multiple ways to show that
schools are serving their
students and I’d like to see
DC continue to explore
innovative ways to assess
accountability for student
outcomes that are
equitable and comparable
across schools.
EXPERIMENTS:​​ I​
loved using projects to get
my students excited about
history. Ask me about the
time I had 6th graders in
Los Angeles mummify
grocery store chickens or
AND MORE:​​ ​The State
Board of Education has been
proactive in pushing for
reforms, including our
investigation into teacher
turnover. While the
establishment of an
independent research
collaborative will remove
some of the need for the
Board to commission
research, we need to look
further into topics around
achievement gaps, how to
build diverse schools, student
mobility, chronic absenteeism,
and other issues.
BOTH NEED MORE:​​.
Both sectors-- DCPS and
public charter schools-- need
increasing accountability and
transparency to ensure all
students are served well in
both sectors. I support efforts
to ensure OSSE, our state
educational agency, is
independent and I will
continue to work with the
council to improve oversight.
I support the common core state
standards and believe that the
PARCC is as valid a measure of
student achievement as other
standardized tests that are
available for this purpose.
However, I believe that our city
places too much weight on
standardized testing as a
measure of school success and
as a result our schools spend
too much time on test
preparation.
BATTER UP:​​ I'm a Capitol
Hill Little League coach.
7th graders in Chicago
paint Sistine Chapel murals
on the underside of their
desks a la Michelangelo.