My hope is that people will vote their interests. I'm not holding my breath though.

So does anyone have a favorite in the Countywide school board race? Is it Dan Ryan, like the Oregonian thought, Steve Buel, or Charles McGee? (Or, one of the lesser known candidates)...

Ryan. He's endorsed by school advocacy organizations, and he's willing to shut down some schools when we have too many (no one else is).

He's been a very active school advocate, despite the fact that he doesn't have kids. Nice write up of him in Just Out.

RE: Portland school board race: Charles McGee is the best candidate for Zone 4. He has been endorsed by Lolenzo Poe, Randy Leonard, Sens Carter and Gordly, the Neighborhood Schools Alliance, and many others.

RE: willingness to close schools being a virtue. Sure, sometimes PPS needs to close a school or two. But how many schools is "too many"? At what point are we sacrificing quality, community and livability (the ability to walk to a great school in one's neighborhood) for the so-called "efficiency" of busing kids to large consolidated schools?

Why are neighborhood schools always the one on the chopping block, while the "focus options," which are more costly to run, get extra staffing even during a budget crisis?

I am for McGee as well. We talk about the "achievement gap" among our PPS schools, but when you analyze where the funding is coming from you will see that there is a funding gap among our schools as well. PPS data doen NOT include money raised by PSF and spent by indivdual schools. When you include these funds the schools like Ainsworth, Chapman and Wilson high get extra FTEs while the schools in the Jefferson cluster have to close and Jefferson loses half of its teachers. I see nothing wrong with fundraising, but I believe that all schools in the district should share the pain and the gain. Otherwise Portland Public Schools will turn into Portland Semi-Private Schools.

Even the 5.2 million dollar grant awarded in part to Kenton and Applegate schools is now being dissipated to schools that didn't qualify.

Furthermore Vicki Phillips will not engage the North Portland community directly about the proposed 7-12 Jeff, chosing to work through an "overseer".

It is time for radical change on the PPS board. Ryan is too much an establishment guy.

"I don't understand the enthusiasm for a 21 year old PSU student. Running the PPS is a large and complicated task. The district is facing very, very serious issues in the next five years that threaten the long term economic viability of the city and regaion."

What you don't understand is that the current board simply rubber stamps the proposals of PPS staff. We need independent thought. We need radical change. We need to refine funding so each child has equal access to a quality neighborhood school.

I prefer McGee as well, simply on the grounds that having one member out of the entire board who understands what its like to be a student, could be helpful. Charles is a great guy, and while he lacks experience, he's very organized and intelligent. Unfortunately, I do not expect he will win. I could be wrong, and portland could surprise me, but Dan Ryan got the Oregonian endorsement, and in a low salience race that's very important. Also, Steve Buel had signs up everywhere. So at least from my perspective, its a race between Buel and Ryan, and I'm predicting Ryan.

The PPS School Board already has had a student representative for the past four or five years. It is true that she does not have the power to cast an official vote, however every vote is recorded as "with the support of the student representative" or "without the support of the student representative." It's a start for student involvement at least.

And I've got big reservations about McGee. His lack of experience certainly is troubling. Many young students, myself included, have visions of being a member of a governmental body, providing that "fresh perspective" and truly making a difference. The problem is, we just don't yet have that experience from which to make educated decisions and back up our views. Sucks for us, but that's just the way things work.

I think Michael Moore was elected to a school board when he was 18 or 19, but I don't remember those circumstances.

There's one thing about McGee that I am surprised never hit the media. Two years ago, a student at Lincoln began to complain that the book Huckleberry Finn was racist. McGee then worked with this student to create a district-wide anti-Huck Finn coalition. It was pretty clear to me that this group had not done any thoughtful analysis of the book at all, and I lost a lot of respect for all involved. Now, I'll be honest and say that I didn't interact with McGee personally, but everything I saw on the news just angered me.

I groaned loudly when I realized the student who couldn't see past the vernacular in that book was now running for school board.

Looks like Ryan won anyway:

http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/dbcs/elections/2005-05/results.shtml

Hey Gronke! I'm usually more of a lurker on these sorts of blogs. A couple months ago I was surprised to see your comments. Well, not really surprised...but you know what I mean. Small city or whatever.

<h2>I thought I did tell you where I'm headed. I ended up choosing Oberlin.</h2>