Re: “Make Seattle family-friendly again with effective school governance” (Could 23, Opinion):
Kudos to Donald P. Nielsen’s name for restructuring Seattle Public Colleges’ ineffectual governance system.
Because the Nineteen Sixties, main coverage quagmires akin to desegregation and college closure ushered in a brand new breed of activist board members, lots of whom knew little about overseeing advanced techniques. Seattle College Board alternatives of superintendents since Forbes Bottomly have been equally uninspired, except for John Stanford.
We have to be lifelike about the way forward for management for Seattle faculties. The SPS board is incapable of righting its personal ship. Asking a brand new superintendent to result in wanted change whereas concurrently coping with a inexperienced and politicized board is folly — as historical past has proven.
Nielsen factors us in the proper route of entertaining modern choices for varsity governance. Such a radical change would require contemporary considering and a coalition of neighborhood leaders outdoors SPS to re-vision governance and education for SPS. Our neighborhood is rife with organizations and consultants able to main such a course of. We’re lengthy overdue shedding early-Twentieth-century governance constructions for the calls for of Twenty first-century education.
Stephen Rowley, Ph.D., Bainbridge Island (former SPS instructor)
