11 Candidates Fight Over Future Of State Schools Some Push For Voucher System, Return To Corporal Punishment

The state schools superintendent’s office has never before been so popular.

“It blows me away that 11 people want this job,” said Judith Billings, who is leaving Washington’s top education post in January.

A hissing, spitting group of candidates covets the $86,000-a-year position. At stake is where the state’s public schools will head during the next four years.

Will an ultraconservative rancher and landlord oversee schools? The woman who once headed the state teachers union? A Republican King County Council member?

The three top candidates couldn’t offer voters more variety in the Sept. 17 primary, and they’ve been attracting attention.

A multimillionaire accused of trying to buy the non-partisan job keeps stirring the pot by talking of caning students and calling Spanish the language of fruit pickers and dishwashers, prompting rivals to ask him to please just quit the race.

Competitors call him “dangerous” and “nuts,” then work to sell themselves: One touts her 30 years in education, while the King County councilman claims he’s the outsider parents can trust.

Some candidates favor a system allowing parents to send their children to private schools using public money. Others bash that plan as the beginning of the end of the nation.

Some candidates want to bring back corporal punishment, now illegal in Washington’s public schools.

Those opinions and attitudes tip voters to how aspiring superintendents would wield their influence, even though the winner will lack the power to introduce or veto legislation.

“Largely, it’s an advocacy position,” said Billings, who is leaving after being diagnosed with AIDS.

Of the overflowing pool of candidates, only three appear to have the organizations and money to run a statewide campaign.

The one with the most cash and flash is Ron Taber, who cruises the campaign trail in a shiny 26-foot truck, his name emblazoned on the side. His business cards are red. Mention his bright Rush Limbaugh-brand tie and get Taber’s matching political views.

Taber suggested weekly caning for juvenile drug dealers who won’t reveal their suppliers. He also made headlines when tenants in his lowincome apartments complained about cockroaches.

And Taber drew Billings’ ire when, criticizing bilingual education, he called Spanish the language of dishwashers, fruit pickers and doormen while describing English as the language of doctors, dentists and lawyers.

“I have not heard an utterance from him that would indicate to me his focus is the benefit of children,” said Billings.

Taber, who owns a 20-acre ranch near Olympia, has beefed up his campaign with more than $380,000 of his own money - money he says he earned mostly from cattle and low-income rentals.

That’s far more money than that raised by other candidates, who worry Taber will be able to buy the race with heavy advertising.

Taber, 54, bills himself as the candidate for conservatives. He is sponsoring an initiative on the November general election ballot that calls for tax-paid vouchers parents could use to pay their children’s tuitions at private schools.

Under Initiative 173, Taber says, public schools that can’t meet parents’ standards would be forced to improve. Otherwise, families would abandon public education for private schools, he said.

“This creates the missing ingredient in education - competition,” Taber told a group of Spokane Kiwanians last month.

Taber predicted about 375,000 children eventually would settle for private schools - a flight critics say would gut public education.

The Kiwanians drank coffee and listened quietly as Taber spoke, then a few nodded approval when the candidate called for bringing back corporal punishment.

“We had a system that worked quite well: It was ‘bend over and take your spanking,”’ he said.

As far as caning kids who sell drugs, Taber said in a later interview, “If you can’t take a stick to a drug dealer, who can you take a stick to?”

He chided rival candidate and fellow Republican Chris Vance, who called the caning idea “so nuts.”

“I’ve never heard so many concerns about criminals from a so-called Republican,” Taber said.

Vance, 34, a Kent resident who serves on the King County Council, describes his own views on education as moderate and Taber’s as radical.

Vance is against the voucher initiative, for instance, largely because he says it doesn’t hold schools accountable for high standards.

“If we don’t make local school districts accountable for student performance, we haven’t changed anything,” he said.

He is for bringing back corporal punishment, too, but he’s against caning. He wants school districts to have the option of spanking with parental consent.

Vance, a former state representative, says his three years on the House Education Committee gave him a good understanding of the state’s education system.

Yet, he would be able to reform the system because he’s not indentured to it, he said.

He also said he thinks teacher strikes should be illegal. And if elected, he wants to use his power to audit schools closely.

“Fat” schools, beware, Vance said. “I’ll hold a press conference on their front lawn and shame them and tell parents, ‘Your school district is wasting money.”’

He said candidates such as Terry Bergeson, a top contender with three decades in education, don’t have that objectivity.

Bergeson, a 53-year-old Democrat, narrowly lost to incumbent Billings in 1992. She is backed by the Washington Association of School Principals and the Washington Education Association (WEA).

Education has been Bergeson’s life. A teacher-turned-administrator, she is former president of the WEA, the state’s largest teachers union.

Until June, she directed the state Commission on Student Learning, which is writing statewide learning standards and redesigning the state’s testing system.

Bergeson said she is appalled that other candidates are turning her education background against her.

“I think that’s crazy,” she said. “I have the trust of the people in education to lead the reform.”

To ignite Bergeson, just mention Taber’s voucher initiative.

“The vouchers will dismantle public education,” she said, warning that the public school system would crumble financially.

“We have to make public schools work. For many children, it’s the only time in life they’ll come together with people from different economic, racial and family backgrounds.”

Bergeson said she wants to revamp the state superintendent’s office, which she describes as a fragmented agency with low morale.

Her plans include getting more parents and people who aren’t educators involved, she said.

Other candidates for state schools superintendent have a wide range of backgrounds.

Raul de la Rosa, of Olympia, is a former migrant worker who heads the state’s instructional services division. He opposes the 60 percent “supermajority” required for passage of school levies, saying a simple majority should decide.

Gloria Guzman Johannessen, a Tri-Cities resident, was the first administrator of the state bilingual education program. She also has served as a field representative for the state teachers union.

Dan Leahy, of Olympia, teaches in the master’s of public administration program at Evergreen State College. Leahy vows to get parents and the public more involved in education.

Nancy Hidden-Dodson, a Hansville resident, is a psychologist in the North Kitsap School District. She calls the voucher initiative “a nightmare” and thinks schools are underfunded.

Jerome “Jed” Brown is an education consultant from Poulsbo who runs a consulting firm that works with parents and teachers having trouble with school districts. He advocates back-to-basics education.

Earl LaBerge, a Gig Harbor resident, is a former Catholic priest who has taught in both private and public schools. He says his top priority is the teaching of civic virtue and good citizenship.

Richard Fuller is a Pullman custodian.

Mae Lovern is a schoolteacher from Tacoma.

, DataTimes MEMO: See individual profiles of the top three candidates by name of candidate.

This sidebar appeared with the story: JOB DESCRIPTION Office of the state superintendent of public instruction: Responsibilities: Supervises the state’s kindergarten-through-12th-grade education program. This includes administering almost $9 billion every two years. Term: four years, no term limits. Pay: $86,600 a year Candidates: 11.