Education Week on the Seattle Public Schools

Complete article here, but the beginning gives you most of the story:

Seattle has joined the growing list of urban districts where policymakers are eyeing changes in school governance.

A bill pending in the Washington state legislature, introduced late last month by three lawmakers from the city, would permit citizens to petition to hold a local referendum on switching from the elected board to an appointed panel. While the measure would apply to all of the state’s 296 school districts, it’s aimed squarely at Seattle, where critics say the school board has failed to address critical issues, including closing schools that are underenrolled.

“I’m doing this because I’ve heard from my constituents just incredible frustration with the Seattle school district,” state Senator Ed Murray, a Democrat and the bill’s lead author, said last week.

The Bill is SB 5535 (press release here, text of the bill here), which Murray is sponsoring along with Ken Jacobson and Jeanne Kohl-Welles, both of Seattle.

Seattle did manage to pass both their bond issues last month, which really surprised me—given all the bad PR about their schools, and the new prevalence of vote-by-mail here in Washington, I was pretty sure that at least one would go down. Perhaps the residents are saving their venom for the school board recall effort, or maybe things are leveling out.

Good luck to their next superintendent (who won’t be Spokane’s Brian Benzel—he just took a job with Whitworth); that person will need all the luck and well-wishes they can muster.