Morning Fizz
In Big Change, Inslee Backs Teacher Evaluations as "Significant" Part of Hiring and Firing Decisions
Caffeinated News & Gossip. Your daily Morning Fizz
Jay Inslee at education fundraiser at downtown Sheraton this morning.
1. At a "Conversation on Education" sponsored by the Alliance for Education this morning (AFE is a nonprofit that raises money for Seattle Public Schools), the two gubernatorial candidates, former Democratic US Rep Jay Inlsee and Republican Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna, agreed that the teacher evaluations bill that passed this session , one the teachers' union had criticized, needed to go even further.
In a big change from last summer , when Inslee told me he opposed a bill last session that linked evaluations to "reduction in workforce" (RIF) decisions, Inslee told the crowd this morning that "to ensure teacher quality ... when we make staffing decisions, we [should] make that evaluation system a significant part of the decision in hiring and firing and [reduction in force] decisions."
Education reform issues such as teachers' evaluations have caused an internal rift in the Democratic Party, something McKenna has exacerbated by making Democratic President Obama's education reform agenda his own while Inslee has faced criticism for moving more cautiously.
Education has been a hot issue in the gubernatorial campaign this year. (The national teachers' union is Inslee's biggest lifetime funder at the congressional level—and the local chapter, the Washington Education Association, has endorsed Inslee. The teachers' union has fought many of the reforms that McKenna has pushed for, such as prioritizing teacher evaluations over seniority in personnel decisions.)
At this morning's forum, moderated by KCTS anchor Enrique Cerna, McKenna said the next step was to "move beyond" the bill to "pay our great teachers more" based on the evaluations. "Performance in the evaluation system needs to be linked to compensation and not be based on seniority," McKenna told Fizz afterward.
McKenna at this morning's education fundraiser
Fizz asked Inslee why he had changed his position on ed reform. "If it's a change," he said, "it's a change in the right direction." He elaborated, saying now that he'd seen the results of the evaluation pilot projects passed in 2009, he was more comfortable moving forward with evaluations.
McKenna came out in support of the idea in his campaign kickoff speech last June .
2. Evidently in response to our story earlier this week that Democratic US Congressional candidate Darcy Burner had published a batch of unflattering tweets about President Obama last year (she called him a Republican), one of Burner's Democratic rivals, Laura Ruderman, published a Facebook update yesterday:
"I'm standing with President Obama. That's why I have been personally contributing to him and just made another donation because I want to support him for standing with us."
According to Federal Election Commission records, Darcy Burner gave Obama $1,280 in 2008. Ruderman says she did contribute in '08, but it was less than $200---not enough to show up at the FEC. And She gave $216 yesterday in conjunction with her Facebook post, she says.
Neither candidate shows up in FEC records yet, though, as having contributed to Obama in 2012.
3. City council member Mike O'Brien, who has pledged to raise the first $10,000 for his reelection campaign in individual $10 donations, is about a third of the way toward his goal, campaign spokesman Josh Fogt says.
Fogt reports that the campaign has raised about 310 individual contributions of $10 or, in a few cases, less, and hopes to raise the full $10,000---a goal PubliCola called "challenging"---by April. You can read the entire list of $10-or-less contributors at the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission's web site.
Jay Inslee at education fundraiser at downtown Sheraton this morning.
1. At a "Conversation on Education" sponsored by the Alliance for Education this morning (AFE is a nonprofit that raises money for Seattle Public Schools), the two gubernatorial candidates, former Democratic US Rep Jay Inlsee and Republican Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna, agreed that the teacher evaluations bill that passed this session , one the teachers' union had criticized, needed to go even further.
In a big change from last summer , when Inslee told me he opposed a bill last session that linked evaluations to "reduction in workforce" (RIF) decisions, Inslee told the crowd this morning that "to ensure teacher quality ... when we make staffing decisions, we [should] make that evaluation system a significant part of the decision in hiring and firing and [reduction in force] decisions."
Education reform issues such as teachers' evaluations have caused an internal rift in the Democratic Party, something McKenna has exacerbated by making Democratic President Obama's education reform agenda his own while Inslee has faced criticism for moving more cautiously.
Education has been a hot issue in the gubernatorial campaign this year. (The national teachers' union is Inslee's biggest lifetime funder at the congressional level—and the local chapter, the Washington Education Association, has endorsed Inslee. The teachers' union has fought many of the reforms that McKenna has pushed for, such as prioritizing teacher evaluations over seniority in personnel decisions.)
At this morning's forum, moderated by KCTS anchor Enrique Cerna, McKenna said the next step was to "move beyond" the bill to "pay our great teachers more" based on the evaluations. "Performance in the evaluation system needs to be linked to compensation and not be based on seniority," McKenna told Fizz afterward.
McKenna at this morning's education fundraiser
Fizz asked Inslee why he had changed his position on ed reform. "If it's a change," he said, "it's a change in the right direction." He elaborated, saying now that he'd seen the results of the evaluation pilot projects passed in 2009, he was more comfortable moving forward with evaluations.
McKenna came out in support of the idea in his campaign kickoff speech last June .
2. Evidently in response to our story earlier this week that Democratic US Congressional candidate Darcy Burner had published a batch of unflattering tweets about President Obama last year (she called him a Republican), one of Burner's Democratic rivals, Laura Ruderman, published a Facebook update yesterday:
"I'm standing with President Obama. That's why I have been personally contributing to him and just made another donation because I want to support him for standing with us."
According to Federal Election Commission records, Darcy Burner gave Obama $1,280 in 2008. Ruderman says she did contribute in '08, but it was less than $200---not enough to show up at the FEC. And She gave $216 yesterday in conjunction with her Facebook post, she says.
Neither candidate shows up in FEC records yet, though, as having contributed to Obama in 2012.
3. City council member Mike O'Brien, who has pledged to raise the first $10,000 for his reelection campaign in individual $10 donations, is about a third of the way toward his goal, campaign spokesman Josh Fogt says.
Fogt reports that the campaign has raised about 310 individual contributions of $10 or, in a few cases, less, and hopes to raise the full $10,000---a goal PubliCola called "challenging"---by April. You can read the entire list of $10-or-less contributors at the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission's web site.
