By Lisa Macfarlane, DFER WA State Director
Last week in Seattle, Robin Lake and Alison Krupnick both expressed the need for civil discourse around the issue of education reform.
Sarajane Siegfriedt, the newly minted Democratic Party nominee for the 46th district open legislative seat in Seattle, gave this response last week when asked about education reform. It provides a clear example of the type of cutting remarks we need to move away from in order to see real improvement in WA’s education system.
“Education reform’ should be in quotes. It is a right-wing corporate business agenda being foisted on parents…”
It is disheartening to hear such unconstructive language from someone who chairs the platform committee of the King County Democrats.
And, she is not the only one with resistance to change. The Chair of our state Democratic Party, Dwight Pelz, recently told the Seattle Times, “Ed reform is like weather. If you hang around long enough, it will change.”
New flash: We reformers are here to stay.
Unfortunately, some of our Democratic Party leaders in WA have missed the memo that improving public education is the civil rights issue of our time. Our Democratic leaders should be embracing education reform as an economic development strategy.
After all, the Democratic Party platform is undergirded by a commitment to a healthy and growing middle class. This is reason enough to put ideology aside and look for ways to improve our schools. Employers of every size have precious few job-ready Washingtonians to choose from. Many have had to resort to importing talent from other states and other countries.