Reply to Ward 4 State Board of Education Special Election

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Saw tonight event. O’Leary was passionate and has a great resume but not a ton of policy ideas.[/quote]

What about the others? [/quote]
Highlights and Impressions from last night. Hopefully video will be released on FB soon.

O'Leary reminds me of everyone's favorite grandfather.  He comes off as a nice, funny older gentleman. However, I heard almost zero policy from him. He often didn't answer/understand the question.  I admire his long tenure at Cardozo - but he might be in over his head.  My wife and I were scratching our heads a couple times based on his answers.  He needs to get more informed.  Multiple times he repeated the answers given by his opponents.  A lot of the audience questions were asked by people wearing his shirts, which came off as "planted" to me.

Henderson isn't inspiring to me.  Her answers were very rehearsed and safe.  Her delivery wasn't strong.  She didn't take clear positions.  She apparently was endorsed by DFER (Democrats For Education Reform) and is accepting big money from corporations and PACs -- which is why she has raised leaps-and-bounds over the other candidates.  I also found putting 100 signs outside the forum very obnoxious.  She refused to answer certain questions - like if she would accept support from WaPo.  All she basically talked about was wanting equitable schools - but so did all of them.

Ryan is definitely the youngest candidate, which might work against him.  Even so he has an impressive career and accolades.  It was mentioned more than once that he is a principal and was Principal of the Year in 2016. I think he is the only person still working in schools.  I thought he was very passionate.  Definitely a bit of a "know-it-all" but that's not a bad thing.  I appreciate that he took clear positions and was honest.  I also was liked that when a question was asked about why parents make school-choices that segregate our schools he was the ONLY PERSON TO SAY IT IS RACISM.  Why was that so hard?  He also talked about trimming the fat in our bloated central office to better fund the schools.  Amen to that.

Elani Lawrence... I am sorry to say I can't remember a lot of what she said.  She is a parent and worked with families that don't speak English.  I remember her talking about increasing technology, but no plan on how to pay for that.  There was an audible murmur when she didn't plainly state she was against guns in schools.  She did say it when pressed harder, but it wasn't immediate.  I was surprised how many times she passed the microphone after giving a short answer.  I don't think she was comfortable up there.  It's probably her brevity that made her forgettable, unfortunately.
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