State schools superintendent: Bergeson seems up to challenges

Randy Dorn says the buzzword of campaigns this year is "change," and that's the best reason for replacing Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson. But the thing about change is that it should be accompanied by a solid plan to make it meaningful, and we're not finding that in Dorn's challenge of the incumbent.

We recommend staying with Bergeson in her bid for re-election to a fourth term. After nearly 12 years on the job, there are still many challenges ahead in public education and she's earned the right to continue taking them on. The job pays $121,618 per year.

In the next four years, we'd like to see her take more positive action in attracting top-notch teachers, weed out those who aren't, and demonstrate stronger leadership for the high-tech demands of modern, meaningful education. And we certainly want a very aggressive program to continue addressing this area's dropout problem.

There has been progress, albeit not nearly enough, but we feel Bergeson is up to the challenge on all those fronts.

Both Bergeson and Dorn are former educators with union credentials. Bergeson once headed the Washington Education Association, but has angered her former union leaders with her handling of the SPI's office over the years. The WEA now backs Dorn. (The fact that the well-heeled WEA also endorsed her opponent four years ago, former state Superintendent Judith Billings, is perhaps good reason for Bergeson not to want the union's support.)

Dorn is currently executive director of the Public School Employees of Washington, which bills itself as "a labor union dedicated exclusively to representing classified educational support professionals in K-12 public schools and universities."

While we've been critical of Bergeson on occasion for lack of aggressive leadership, she is still a better overall candidate than one who pushes a couple of issues. Dorn says he would seek to improve school funding -- not an unusual stand for anyone in public education these days. He would also scrap the controversial Washington Assessment of Student Learning testing program -- a curious development for someone who, as chairman of the state House Education Committee in 1993, was one of the prime legislative sponsors of reform legislation that led to the WASL.

Fifteen years later, the testing program is still being tweaked. Lawmakers have approved delaying implementation of the math and science portions of the test as requirements for graduation from high school. But reading and writing scores continue to improve locally and around the state.

It's important to remember that Bergeson is the administrator of the test, not the architect of the program itself. That's the purview of the Legislature. She believes that while it needs work, we've come too far and have too much time and money invested to start over now.

The WASL has been a bumpy experience for the state and we appreciate that Bergeson candidly takes responsibility for the delay of the much-maligned math portion of the test as a graduation requirement.

In a joint interview with our editorial board, she accepted responsibility for the math delay "because we didn't make the gains I thought we would make" when scores were reviewed two years ago. Many factors were involved -- such as the test itself and a mix of 32 different math programs that were aligned against the new standards -- but now things are balanced and "I hope the math wars are over."

So do we. In the meantime, we'll stick with Bergeson for another four years because the case has not been made for change in this instance.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.

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