White Plains CitizeNetReporter - The School Board Candidates Debate: Short on Public Participation

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By Steven Rabinowitz. May 26, 2003:Since I haven't seen anything at all reported on this forum (The School Board Candidates Forum May 20), I will take the liberty of doing some observations myself.

First of all, I would say the Forum was better organized than last year, which was rather sad given the major issues we were facing then. There was more time for discussion, and I didn't hear any questions that were way off-base. The setting was certainly pleasant enough.

The discussion really focused on the individual qualifications of the candidates. The issues discussed dealt largely with standardized testing, State report cards on the schools, and the achievement gap for minority students.

On the basic issues I heard no substantial disagreement among the candidates. Everyone wants to improve test scores without sacrificing quality of education, bridge the achievement gap and seek continuous quality improvement over education. Everyone of course believes in fiscal prudence (I once remarked that I've never met a candidate that favored waste) without denying our children what they need for a quality education.

There were only two statements that I heard that personally I had a problem with, but neither of those was critical. One was Ms. (Donna) McLaughlin who said "I believe in the [standardized] tests' which struck me as an over-statement--I think that the tests are a reality, they can and should be used as a tool for measuring outcomes, but I don't know many people in public education who would say they 'believe' in them (except for the folks at State Education Department and the testing companies whose livelihoods depend on them, of course).

The other was from Ms. McLaughlin and Ms. (Michelle) Trataros, who who both expressed some regrets about the 'process' in dealing with the change in administration last year, but gave no clear idea about what exactly they regretted about it. I still believe they both don't get it on this issue.

Poor Turnout.

The bigger concern I had was not the presentations (all the candidates did reasonable jobs in presenting and answering questions) but the poor turn-out. I counted about 40, of which a number were District functionaries and Board members. Some of the problems with the relatively low turn-out may have been the change of date due to the change of the date of the election, although I did not see much publicity for the event. I also wonder if some folks stayed away because of the problems with the quality of last year's questions (remember the 'artificial turf vs. natural grass' discussion?) and the lack of time for substantive discussion. I didn't see that as a problem this time.

Low Minority Turn-out.

It was also pointed out correctly that there were as many people of color on the stage as in the audience, which is quite unfortunate. One person pointed out that the venue of the Women's Club was neither easily accessible or welcoming to many of the African-American or Hispanic families in the district, and I think that is true.

I say this with no disrespect to the League of Women Voters nor the Women's Club, they put in a good effort on this forum, but maybe there is a need for other venues for candidates to be available to the public and discuss the issues. We have discussed this in WAVE in the past and we need to talk about it more in the future.

Aftermath

After the forum a couple of folks expressed to me that they were disappointed that the discussion did not deal very much with hard data or details, but focused more on general statements of principles. I agree that it would be preferable to have more 'meat' (with apologies to those vegans on this list) but I'm not sure how to achieve it. One answer might be to have a more 'expert' panel on education issues asking more detailed questions, but this would tend to take away from the public questions, unless there was more than one forum for the candidates.

Anyway, if anyone else who was there would like to share their thoughts, or comment on my observations, please do so. The Forum will be on Channel 77 this week, 5/30 through Sunday, 6/1 at 7:30 and 10 p.m., along with the presentation on the Budget by Tim Connors and Dick Lasselle. If you weren't there, please watch and let me know what you think.

Note: Mr. Rabinowitz is Chair of White Plains Alliance for Vision in Education, an organization endorsing Peter Bassano, Terence McGuire and Michael Seymour for Board of Education. Other candidates in the race are Donna McLaughlin, and Michelle Tratoros. There are four seats to be filled in the School Board Election and Budget Vote June 3.


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