Randy Dorn was never a member of Mothers Against the WASL

Jerry Cornfield is confused.

Randy Dorn pledged to toss out the WASL if elected to run Washington's public schools.

He won the job of superintendent of public instruction. He's ready to make good on his promise.

Wednesday he'll reveal details of an extreme makeover of the exam, beginning with a new name because, as he says, "WASL" is kryptonite.

Questions will be fewer in number, shorter in length and able to be answered and scored on a computer in his blueprint.

His goal is to have students spend less time taking it, teachers spend less time giving it and the state spend less money on it....

Which raises the political question: If it looks like the WASL, sounds like the WASL, reads like the WASL and counts like the WASL, isn't it the WASL?

How about we head over to Randy Dorn's campaign website, then, to see what Dorn actually promised.

We don't need to spend years figuring this out. Drawing on successful tests developed in other states, in my first year in office I will work with the state school board to replace the WASL with a testing system that is diagnostic, tied to technology, more fair, more understandable, and which takes less time so that testing doesn't dominate curriculum and the school calendar. We will then phase this new test in so there is no gap in accountability for current students.

It seems that Mr. Cornfield has projected certain anti-WASL sentiments on to Mr. Dorn. To be fair, though, I know a lot of people who knowingly glossed over Dorn's make-the-WASL-smarter stance, voting for anybody but Bergeson.

Bergeson's last "state of education" address

"Mend it, don't end it."

I wonder if Bergeson is actually a little glad to be done. Her successor, after all, has to do all the hard work of fixing her mistakes, as well as repairing the funding system she inherited and did little to change.

But I hear a committee is looking into it.

the post-Bergeson future of the WASL

Dick Lilly, on the future of the WASL:

The door is now open to change the type of test from one that is based on a particular educational philosophy (the ultimate problem with the WASL and most tests of its ilk) to one that is content-based. At root, what’s wrong with the WASL is that it is designed in response to the dominant educational philosophy of the past 40 or so years — the “student-centered,” “discovery” learning that de-emphasizes content knowledge in favor of critical thinking. That's a short-hand description and a lot can be said about this approach, but what it amounts to is the contention that you can make profound decisions while looking at a spreadsheet in which every cell is blank.

To get away from this style of testing, Dorn should switch immediately at the high school level to the SAT subject tests (formerly the SAT IIs). These are good if not excellent content tests, as are the advanced placement (AP) tests. Such tests would provide a stunningly clear picture of what our high school graduates know.

Randy Dorn defeats Bergeson

The Seattle Times--and Bergeson's camp--think it's too close to call.

In the race for the state schools chief, Terry Bergeson was disappointed to be trailing challenger Randy Dorn but was not ready to give up.

Given the number of ballots yet to be counted, "Friday is about the earliest we could make a reasonable decision," said Alex Hays, her campaign consultant.

I'm going out on a thick mathematical limb to say that Randy Dorn will be your next Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Here's why.

The counties where Bergeson holds a lead have about 135,000 outstanding votes. Bergeson, overall, trails Dorn by about 35,000. So, she'd either have to win a ridiculously high majority in the counties she's already winning (over 66%) and hold steady elsewhere, or win a solid majority in those counties, and majorly turn around the trends in all the others. That would include King, which is slightly Dornish at 50.4% (293,000 votes left), and Snohomish, which is strong for Dorn at 54.5% (with 100,000 votes left). Snohomish alone wipes out any potential advantage from the smaller counties where Bergeson leads.

Looking at the overall picture, she needs about 53% of the remaining ballots--706,000 in all--to win, and barely. It's just not going to happen.

Mark my words: Dorn is it.

Update 5:30 Wouldn't you know it, Bergeson has conceded a day earlier than her staff predicted. Could it have been due to the astute mathematical analysis found on this blog?

No.

Anyhow, adios, WASL. What will replace thee?

Bergeson trailing; Gregoire lead seems solid

This is a bit of a surprise to me: even though not-Bergeson won the primary, I was never sure that not-Bergesons would line up for Randy Dorn. Turns out they have.

However, with the most populous county still tabulating results, and with a slight lead for Bergeson in that county, she may still eke out a win.

In the other widely-watched race, Christine Gregoire seems to have locked up a victory over Dino Rossi. Snohomish and King counties, the bulk of the outstanding votes, are solid Gregoire.

the state of Washington education in two sentences

OSPI's Jennifer Priddy:

“I have other bad news to share with you,” she said. “I don’t think it’s disputed that the state is underfunding basic education.”

1. Lots of bad news.
2. An underfunded system.

Are those going to be the final grades of the Bergeson era?

lesser of two WASLs

The News-Tribune's Peter Callaghan explains why Randy Dorn isn't quite the candidate WASL foes hoped for. Which is no surprise, really; if Semler hadn't dropped out, Dorn wouldn't even be in the race. He was hardly anyone's first choice.

video voter's guide: Bergeson vs. Dorn

Watch Bergeson defend her record and tell of her plan to, among other things, reform education at the national level. Watch Dorn go into attack mode, especially when it comes to the WASL.

It takes 11 minutes of your time.

the predictive value of the 2008 Washington State primary

Somewhat silly predictions aside, it's time to look at the results of the primary. A few observations.

1. Voter turnout was way below average in King County--around 20%, compared to 27%+ statewide--which may have artificially inflated Rossi's overall performance. Rossi's camp is probably praying this trend continues into the general election, since King County went 60% for Gregoire this time around.

2. As David Goldstein notes, there's no comparing this primary with the previous primary in 2004, in which voters had to choose a party, not any old candidate. The best comparison is between this primary and the general election of 2004. Provisionally, I agree with him that this is a "straw poll" for Gregoire, and that her win is a genuine win. In other words, since voters were free to choose any candidate, just as they can in the general election, the predictive power of the "top two" primary is considerably stronger than some, like David Postman of the Seattle Times, have claimed, even if Gregoire still isn't a sure thing.

3. Considering #1 above, and the natural incumbent advantage, and the fact that Gregoire's people are probably concerned that their candidate didn't top 50%, I'd predict that this primary motivates and mobilizes Democrats. Watch for a flurry of spending and campaigning, even more than last time, to secure Gregoire's lead.

4. Terry Bergeson has to feel great that she outpolled Randy Dorn. She has to be nervous, though, that "anybody but Bergeson" was the clear winner. If even David Blomstrom could siphon 4% of the vote, the electorate is clearly displeased by the current administration. Whether Dorn can rally all the opposition, though, remains to be seen. Blomstrom's probably going to call me a media whore no matter what, but I wasn't horribly impressed by Dorn's approach and his sketchy past--and partly due to Blomstrom's own efforts to raise tough questions about Dorn's past. Dorn seemed like the least worst option. I miss Rich Semler.

Dorn Outpolling Bergeson?

Buried in this Politicker Washington story about the tight Gregoire/Rossi race was this rather startling tidbit about the OSPI contest:

The same poll asked voters about the superintendent of public instruction race. Respondents chose Randy Dorn 43 percent of the time, compared with incumbent Terry Bergeson at 32 percent. 16 percent were undecided and 9 percent chose other.

Given that Dorn's campaign started late, and that Bergeson is a 12 year incumbent, for him to be up 11 points in any poll seems like a small miracle.

I didn't think Dorn had it in him; the winds of change may be blowing harder than anyone could have anticipated.

David Goldstein on the OSPI Race

Blog neighbor David Goldstein of Horse's Ass covered the contest between Randy Dorn and Terry Bergeson during the most recent Podcasting Liberally show. The OSPI piece is about 46 minutes in; apparently at a 37th legislative district meeting this week Representative Sharon Tomiko-Santos spoke to recommend the district endorse Dorn; she then laced into Bergeson, with the good Doctor sitting right there in the room with her.

I had a nice conversation this week via email with a friend who works closely with the legislature, and he brought up something that I've been thinking about as the OSPI race has evolved: the level of disrespect directed from legislators to Terry is troubling. She's made her mistakes, sure, but the level of vitriol really seems pretty awful between elected officials. I don't know what to read into the whole thing, but it feels like there's something there.

The Parts Become the Whole

This morning, on the last day of school, one of the parapros comes into my room and drops off a flyer about Randy Dorn. She'd volunteered at the State Democratic Convention here in Spokane, where Dorn was endorsed by the state Democratic party; she mentioned too that she was angry at Bergeson because of some maneuver she'd tried to keep Dorn from getting said endorsement.

Just now I read a blog post from the News Tribune covering the convention, and they mention a fight over whether the party should even be making recommendations in non-partisan races.

Then add in this from David Postman of the Seattle Times:

I ran into Randy Dorn, the former Democratic lawmaker running for superintendent of public instruction, and he said the party's executive committee endorsed him today. He says that will make it easier for him to win an endorsement from the Washington Education Association.

And finally consider this piece, which comes from an email that I received:

Despite a last minute attempt by Terry Bergeson to avoid the
embarrassment of not getting the party's endorsement for the first time in her political career, the State Democratic Party also declared it was time for a change at OSPI.

From the looks of it Terry worked hard to get the endorsement for herself, and when that didn't happen she did all she could to keep it from going to Dorn. She's a pro when it comes to this game of politics, and the effort that she's expending makes me believe that she thinks she might be in some jeopardy.

It could be a more interesting summer than I thought.