Bergeson vows to fight for teachers, students

Superintendent of state schools seeks re-election to third term

After 42 years in education, Terry Bergeson says she is ready for one more fight for kids and teachers.

The state superintendent of public instruction is running for re-election to her post, saying families need somebody with her stamina and passion to get things done right.

"Public education is our future, she said. "You have to have somebody with the knowledge of how education works."

Since her post is nonpartisan, Bergeson took the opportunity to remind voters of the importance of education as a unifying factor.

"On the surface we say things differently when it comes to education," she said referring to both parties, "but on a deeper level we all love children and we want them to make it."

A career educator with more than three decades of experience in Washington state, Bergeson has mixed emotions about the present and future of education.

On one hand, she said that in the last 10 years the school of this state have used technology better than ever before. Bergeson went as far as to call the state's assessment of learning as well as the standards of teaching "state-of-the-art."

"The Washington Assessment of Student Learning is a very highly rated assessment," she said. "It measures the thinking skills kids need in the world."

This is a world, she said, that has become more challenging, and for which kids need to be able to have the tools to go out and solve problems. In this area, and in the area of reading, Bergeson said she was proud of the progress shown by the state.

On the other hand, Bergeson was critical of the No Child Left Behind act and the program of the same name launched by the current Bush administration.

Bergeson said that the program has been a mixed deal. While she said she was excited that as a country, education had been chosen as a goal, Bergeson said that the No Child Left Behind Act had, in fact, left too many children behind.

Calling the act unfair, Bergeson said that in places like Yakima Valley, filled with children coming form other countries and with little English-reading abilities, the unfairness of the act is at its highest.

"They are required to test in English, and if our students can't pass, the schools are labeled as failing," she said. "School districts are not treated in a way that is logical and fair."

This treatment, she said, ends up hurting the children that the schools are supposed to be helping. Therefore, a change is imperative, a change which she said she knows will not take place until after the elections are over.

"Inner-city schools are being hit with tremendous poverty," she said. "Yakima, Mabton, so many other places and so many kids need the extra help."

Helping those children is among the tasks she said she has still left to complete after two terms. This help goes beyond the classroom, she said.

"There are children struggling with racism, poverty (as well as) academics," she said. We have to have a school system that reaches those children. I believe they can learn."

Teachers are an important part of this equation, as well, she said, putting under the microscope the relationship between the state and the teachers.

"What is happening across the state can happen in places like Moses Lake," she said. "There is not a lot of wealth and (schools) have to depend on funding from the state."

The communities have been very supportive, but with the exception of upper-middle income places like Bellevue or Mercer Island, it is not easy to get money from the citizens on levies.

"When they don't receive a salary increase and the voters are asked to do it and the levies don't pass, teachers feel angry and disrespected," she said.

Making situations worse for teachers, she said, is the fact that while the levies are not passing, health care costs keep rising, alongside the parents' expectations and demands for accountability. Therefore, teachers have to work harder, spend more and receive the same paycheck.

Such struggles lead to local fights between unions and the state, resulting in strikes like the one seen in Marysville last year.

"Marysville was a big fight," she said. "You get people on the school board who are insensitive to all of this, and you really have a fight."

Finding a way to get legislators and the governor to keep their promises of helping children and teachers is one of the reasons why the job of state superintendent is so important, Bergeson said, as well as one of the reasons why she is the right person for it.

"I am a fighter for kids and teachers," she said. "I am a good negotiator and I know politics. I will work 24/7 for the kids and the teachers I admire so much."