Weaver- schools and education

[Anonymous]

I am trying to learn about Weaver's education platform and am not finding much except that we need excellent teachers in poor performing schools. I have been decided in this election but have had my curiosity piqued by my friends who support Weaver. However, they do not have kids and could not expound on his education ideas. As a parent of 4 kids in DCPS this is a key issue for me. Thank you.

[jsteele]

I am an avowed Weaver supporter. If you have specific questions, it would be easier to address them given the broadness of the topic. But, I can tell you that Weaver's daughters (or at least the older one) attend a charter school and that he plans to move them to his in-bounds DCPS. As such, the state of the schools is something that affects him personally and something with which he has first-hand experience. The phrase that he often uses is that the worst schools need the best teachers. This has sometimes been interrupted to mean that he wants the best schools to have the worst teachers, but that is a misunderstanding of his position. Rather, in his experience, the worst schools have tended to end up with the leftovers of teachers or teachers not particularly qualified for the job. He frequently cites the experience of a friend of his who is a teaching fellow (Teach for America) in a poor school. That individual is extremely qualified in two fields, yet is teaching in a third in which he has no particular strength. He believes that staffing poor schools with less than the best teachers perpetuates the problems those schools face and supports programs designed to attract more qualified teachers to poor-performing schools. His emphasis is on closing the achievement gap.

He supports Kaya Henderson, as all of the candidates do.

He is one of the few candidates -- perhaps the only one -- to address the issue of school modernization in any detail. Of course everyone supports modernizing schools. But, only Weaver has bothered to point out that we may not always be getting the most for our money. He compares the cost of two DCPS renovations (I don't remember the specific examples off the top of my head) to the cost of renovations by private schools. The DCPS renovations were several times more costly. He thinks these projects should be more fiscally responsible. One of the ironies of this campaign is that Weaver is frequently written off as a tax happy "unbending liberal" (as the Post called him) when he is the only candidate who has questioned how money has been spent on school renovations.

If you would like, I might be able to find an upcoming Meet and Greet that you can attend. When I hosted one, Weaver spent nearly four hours taking questions from our guests. I'm sure he would be glad to address any question you have and, knowing him, it would be done in great detail.

[jsteele]

As luck would have it, the Greater Greater Washington blog has an article today about the candidate's education positions. The full questionnaire and the candidates' responses are here:

http://odd.greatergreaterwashington.org/files/2011/educationresponses.pdf

So, you can read Weaver's responses verbatim.

The GGW article is here:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/10136/will-the-real-education-candidate-please-stand-up/

I will note that the article says the following:

"Bryan Weaver had some of the most specific and realistic ideas for improving education, especially for disadvantaged students and on funding disparities between DCPS schools and charters."

[Anonymous]

If you are looking for an education champion you should really look in to Sekou Biddle. He has unparalleled experience in education and his leadership qualities are impeccable.

Weaver is a great guy but Sekou Biddle is the councilmember we need now more then ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking for an education champion you should really look in to Sekou Biddle. He has unparalleled experience in education and his leadership qualities are impeccable.

Weaver is a great guy but Sekou Biddle is the councilmember we need now more then ever.

I also think Sekou is a fine fellow, with a great background in education. But the petition challenges were not a good idea, and were poorly executed. And the mix-up over his position on Coolidge/Roosevelt was a mistake compounded by a fumbled explanation at the Ward 4 Dems.

The ability to think fast on one's feet and to look self-assured when attacked are skills that come naturally to some and are learned by others. As yet, I don't think Sekou has mastered them. It does not mean that he is not a sterling human being, but it means he is unlikely to prevail in this campaign. In order to help him with the readers of this site, I don't think glowing generalities will suffice.

I like Sekou, but will probably not vote for him, so I think I speak as part of your intended audience, not as a heckler.