Education reform defines race for state schools chief

On the campaign trail, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson likes to quote a sixth-grader she met at Stevens Middle School in Pasco. Proud of the progress he and his classmates had made in reading, he told her: "We were low and now we're high."

It's a story she uses to show that the goals she's championed for the past eight years can be achieved, and that schools today are on a tough but worthwhile climb to a higher level of learning.

Her opponent, former state Superintendent Judith Billings, instead tells a story about a fourth-grader who called when Billings was on a radio talk show to say she's scared to take the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). To Billings, that helps underscore her view that schools are not on an upward climb but way off course, lost in a fog of high-stakes testing.

Bergeson is running for a third term as the state's top schools official, to continue work she started over a decade ago when the Legislature passed the 1993 Education Reform Bill, which mandated new learning standards, a new state test and new accountability for students and schools. There probably isn't another person in the state who has been more involved with that law than Bergeson has.

Billings is attempting to return to the job she left at the end of 1996, after being diagnosed with AIDS and fearing her health would deteriorate. She was involved in the beginning of the education-reform effort, and decided to run again in part because she has misgivings about the path it's taken.

The race is widely seen as a referendum on the WASL, if not on education reform itself. In particular, the two candidates disagree on whether high-school students should have to pass the exam to get a diploma.

Bergeson thinks they should, so long as they get a number of chances to do so, and so long as there are alternatives for those who don't do well on paper-and-pencil tests. Billings thinks the WASL should not be a graduation requirement. (This year's freshmen will be the first class to face that requirement.)

That decision isn't in the hands of the state superintendent — it requires a vote of the Legislature. But whoever is elected will have influence over how education reform and the WASL proceed from here.

Similar backgrounds

In many ways, the backgrounds of the two candidate are similar. Both started their careers as classroom teachers and worked in Washington and other states. Bergeson came to Washington in 1969 and was a counselor in the Tacoma School District, where she created a drop-out prevention program.

Billings worked in the Franklin Pierce School District, then in Puyallup, where she helped start an alternative high school now known as E.B. Walker High.

Bergeson went on to serve as vice president, then president of the Washington Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, from 1981-89. She then moved to a top administrative position in the Central Kitsap School District.

Billings left Puyallup for a staff job at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, where she managed programs for low-achieving students. She earned a law degree, and spent a year working on the staff of the House Education Committee in Washington, D.C.

She was in D.C., she said, when colleagues back home sent her postcards asking her to run for the state superintendent's post against former legislator Denny Heck. She entered the race late but won anyway, without a lot of money or endorsements.

As superintendent, Billings was viewed as a collaborative leader, although critics say she didn't work as well as Bergeson has with legislators. In her first year in office, she came under fire for ordering an $11,000 rosewood desk set, which she then canceled. Some criticize her for changing her mind about charter schools — she co-chaired the 2000 campaign to permit such independent public schools in Washington state but now opposes them. And some think she's not as prepared to lead an agency that has changed a lot in the past eight years.

"It has truly moved from a kind of superintendent of public instruction that you report to, to a superintendent that helps in the leadership of how we teach, what we teach," said Brian Barker, former executive director of the state principals association.

But supporters credit Billings with steady leadership in tough budget times and for bringing disparate groups together.

"She listens well, and she brought in a staff that she basically allowed to do their jobs," said Ken Kanikeberg, who has worked at OSPI under both women, and now is director of administration at the Public School Employees of Washington.

Seeking change

When Billings sought a second term, Bergeson, then at Central Kitsap, decided to run against her. Bergeson didn't think OSPI was doing enough to help schools and districts improve teaching and learning. Billings won that 1992 race, but not by a lot.

Bergeson didn't go away, however. When a job opened up in 1993 at the Commission on Student Learning, which was responsible for carrying out the education-reform law, she wanted to be its executive director. But she also knew that Billings, a member of the commission, might not want her there. So she invited Billings to lunch. Billings told her to go ahead and apply.

"I just said to her, 'That's fine with me. We have a big job ahead of us, and we need all the help we can get.' " Billings recalled.

In 1996, at the end of her second term, Billings decided not to run again because of her AIDS diagnosis. With medication, however, she has remained in good health. She's spent much of the past eight years working on HIV/AIDS awareness issues, serving on state and national boards, although she's also continued to do some work in K-12 education.

In the meantime, Bergeson ran for superintendent again, defeated six other candidates, and took office in 1997. She's praised for the passion and commitment she brings to the job.

"Judi was calm and steady," says Dwayne Slate, former associate executive director of the Washington State School Directors' Association. "Terry, on the other hand, is just a pied piper who inspires everybody to do better.

"She understands the complexity and the nuances of education policy so well that I swear everybody in this town admires her."

Bergeson has been criticized for being too intense and too focused on developing the WASL, without spending enough effort to get the resources that she agrees are necessary to go forward.

"I think she's lost sight of the values that she articulated so well 12 years ago," said David Marshak, an associate professor of education at Seattle University. "She was a spokesperson for balance, and for not becoming consumed with testing, and for not driving the untested subjects out of the curriculum."

About more than a test

Both candidates say the race is about more than a test. Yet their views on the WASL's value and how it should be used are what most sharply divide them.

Bergeson says the WASL is a good test that's been reviewed by some of the nation's top testing experts.

And if we have a standard, she said, "we need to have a measure of that standard."

She strongly disagrees with Billings' view that students should move at their own rate, and that it's OK for students to graduate without strong skills in key subjects.

"I wish the world were that forgiving, but it's not," she said.

The WASL, to her, is a kind of altimeter, telling students how high they've climbed. If they're not climbing, she says, it doesn't help to blame the instrument.

Billings, however, says the original idea of education reform didn't include the idea that there would be a single test all students would have to pass to graduate — a view others dispute.

"The law is clear, we followed the law. What resulted may be a surprise to Judi, but it shouldn't," said Chuck Collins, who was the second chairman of the Commission on Student Learning.

Billings also says it's not fair to let one test determine something as important as whether students get a diploma. She doesn't think all students should have to graduate with the same set of skills.

Education, she says, should recognize and honor the diversity of students, and help them "be the best they can be."

"Thank goodness we are not all successful in the same way," she said at a recent debate sponsored by CityClub in downtown Seattle. If we were, she said, we wouldn't have doctors and lawyers and carpenters and cosmetologists.

She's proposing a plan in which students would be required to earn a certain number of points to get a diploma. The WASL would earn some points, but so would grades, behavior and citizenship, extracurricular activities, community service, attendance and projects.

Not all those activities would be worth the same amount, she said, and the details would have to be worked out.

But the WASL alone wouldn't determine graduation, she said.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com