Voting for Seattle school board candidates in the 2009 election feels a bit like drafting players for the Sonics in the 2007 NBA lottery.

There’s a sense that this board won’t be around much longer. President Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, has urged city governments to take over their local school boards, and one of this year’s mayoral candidates, Mike McGinn, has even made trusteeship part of his campaign stump speech, saying he will take over if Seattle schools don’t improve dramatically.

This is Seattle, so don’t expect anything to happen immediately. Still:The school board is entering an era of instability and unknowns. (A dramatic education reform bill just passed the state legislature this year as well, which means even more change.)

The pending turmoil is one reason we think it’s important to keep eight-year board veteran Mary Bass.

Bass, the board member who represents Capitol Hill and the Central Area, has a track record of diligence (she spotted the 2002 $34 million budget fiasco/”miscalculation” in her freshman year and stood up to then-schools superintendent Joseph Olchefske) and innovation (she’s enacted reforms to make board members and the superintendent more accessible to parents).

Moreover, in an overwhelmingly white city where the white north end is on the winning side of the achievement gap, Bass’ (sometimes maddening and elliptical) identity politics monolgues are necessary. There’s a reason key south end schools were spared (like Rainier Beach) during the closure nightmares.

Her opponent, Kay Smith-Blum, is energetic and well-informed. And she has a fat resume: As the CEO of the Butch Blum clothing boutique, she’s a successful businesswoman; and she's proven herself as a longtime PTSA leader, establishing successful funding campaigns for Seattle schools.

However, with the radical changes and challenges on the way, this is no time to shelve someone with Bass’ institutional and budget smarts.

PubliCola picks Mary Bass.

The main race in the 7th District (Southeast Seattle) is between longtime parent activist and sometimes-strident blogger Charlie Mas and longtime public school counselor Betty Patu.

Patu’s experience as an intervention coordinator for failing 9th graders across the school district qualifies her in an invaluable way to take on the pressing problem of the district's dropout rate, which is nearly 30 percent. At the programming level, Patu will now be able to bring her on-the-ground experience to make real changes that are relevant to students—practical experience that Mas lacks.


PubliCola picks Betty Patu.