What’s your Trick or Vote costume?
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Bonnie.
The League of Education Voters has partnered with The Washington Bus to host Trick or Vote. It’s the largest non-partisan get-out-the-vote canvass…in costume on Halloween.
Next Friday, October 31, hundreds of volunteers, parents and children, will meet on Capitol Hill to do a quick training and get ready to Trick or Vote in youth-heavy neighborhoods around Seattle. The first wave of Trick or Voters will meet at 3:30 PM, and the second group will meet at 5:30 PM.
Our goal is to knock on 8,000 homes in the Seattle area. We want everyone to VOTE and vote all the way down the ballot. Local races have a huge impact on all our lives and they are determined by only a few hundred votes.
Remember, the 2004 gubernatorial election was decided by just 133 votes and last year’s simple majority for school levies was another close one.
Need help on those charter amendments?
Here’s an easy way to vote on all the races and measures on your ballot.
The Progressive Voters Guide lists the endorsements and positions of eighteen organizations who are working to promote education, social justice, the environment, and health care in our state. Check it out!
Let’s set another record
Washingtonians set a new state record this year by exceeding 3,515,000 registered voters.
Secretary of State Sam Reed predicts 83 percent of registered voters could participate in this election. But that still doesn’t break the 85 percent turnout record that’s stood for more than 60 years.
You can help Washington break the record by signing up to Trick or Vote!
Thanks for voting in this election,
Bonnie Beukema
Deputy Director
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PESB Task Force recap
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by admin.
The Professional Educator Standards Board Task Force on Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Well-Qualified Math and Science Teachers met Wednesday morning to continue its work in figuring out how to address Washington’s math and science teacher shortage.
Featured presenters included representatives from Teach For America, The New Teacher Project, school districts and the Center for Teaching Quality.
Ify Offor, vice president of new site development for TFA, presented to the Task Force, followed by Ariela Rozman, CEO of TNTP. This was the only part of the meeting I was able to attend; the presentations were informative along with the following Q-&-A sessions.
The big issues for Task Force members were cost, retention and feasibility. Jennifer Wallace said quite plainly that there are no statutory barriers to TFA coming to Washington. TNTP is hired as a consultant by districts, states and universities, so no barriers exist to its being hired by Washington stakeholders.
Check out the meeting materials here for some interesting reads. Click on the following links to learn more about TFA and TNTP.
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Seattle P-I: No on I-985
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by admin.
Posted by Michael
The Seattle P-I Editorial Board opposes Initiative 985. Here’s an excerpt:
In this economic era, we can understand how people might be so eager to cut their tax bills that they would even want to trim school levies. But would people want to cut money for education and still pay the same taxes?
That prospect — less for schools with no tax cut in return — is one of the frightening aspects of Initiative 985, the impatient person’s poorly considered scheme for addressing traffic congestion by throwing money from all over the state mainly at the problem in the Puget Sound area, probably not achieving much positive and making congestion worse in places. Initiative 985 would divert an estimated $290 million in the next biennium from the state’s general fund, which pays for public schools, health care, law enforcement, higher education and other services, into a new traffic congestion relief account. Yes, it would come out of that general fund, the one already facing a $3.2 billion shortfall.
Click here to read the rest of the editorial.
