Rainbows and ponies

For a hyper political blogger, Trish Spencer’s nascent campaign for Mayor has already begun paying dividends and she hasn’t even populated her website with content yet!

First she launches out of the gate with amateur hour typically reserved for the very young and very politically naive by declaring that her main reason for running was because she was “disconcerted” by the land exchange that funneled much needed money into the school district to fix the failing pools at both high schools but also that:

Our children and families need a mayor who really supports public education.

Let me let that sink in for a bit.

Can you pay my bills

Yesterday the judge in the David Kapler case against the City of Alameda issued a temporary ruling in the motion filed by the City for Attorney’s fees:

Today there is a hearing that should finalize this temporary ruling unless something huge comes out of the woodwork.

That’s a wrap-up

For some reason, I didn’t feel nearly as invested in this election as I did two years ago.   It felt like there was so much more at stake two years ago, this year it just seemed like any which way the election went, it wouldn’t be THAT bad if any of the candidates won this time around.   This year the City Council race was kind of “meh” and even though the outcome was pretty much as my gut anticipated — although I expected Jane Sullwold to do much much better than what actually happened — Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft ran a nearly pitch perfect campaign.    She had collected nearly all the important endorsements, but she also had a good ground game and it showed in the outcome.

Tony Daysog ran a lean campaign but in the end the combination of name recognition and the door-to-door campaign put him over candidates that had a lot more money.   Name recognition was probably the biggest asset in Tony Daysog’s corner.   If Beverly Johnson had stayed in the race, it’s pretty much a gimme that she would have won, probably beating out Tony Daysog, but perhaps not Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft.

In the end I think Stewart Chen lost the campaign for himself because with the amount of money raised and the type of endorsements he had, he should have easily won over Tony Daysog.   I think the endorsement scuffle might have lost him some key votes and in the end, it doesn’t appear that the addition of the AEA endorsement was much help on election day.

Check the record

Let me just tell you, getting this video to this state took forever, between ripping the DVDs (two of them!) and getting them processed, spliced down and uploaded, I thought I wouldn’t get it done before Election Day.  Yes, I finally have video of the December 2009 vote for the anti-bullying curriculum.

Here’s the thing, at the beginning of this election, Trish Spencer embraced the fact that she:

support[s] the education of anti-bullying for all (differently-abled/special needs, ethnicities, gender, LGBTQ, race, religion) to ensure a safe learning environment.

But at every turn when she had an opportunity to vote for Lesson 9, she was determined to vote against it.   I’ll point out that in public critiques of Trish Spencer’s record, no one has called Trish Spencer “anti-gay,” but it’s interesting that she and her supporters attribute clarifying and pointing out Trish Spencer’s record on voting against Lesson 9 as calling her “anti-gay.”   Before a detailed record of her votes and the minutes became public, Trish Spencer conveniently omitted that she voted “no” on continuing using Lesson 9 until the complete curriculum was established.

Reading the tea leaves

Much like the “Bronco Bamma” girl, I’m really quite “done” with this whole election.  Between the national and local elections, next Tuesday can’t come fast enough.   While I’m not quite at the point of shedding tears quite yet, my stomach lining can’t take any more of the stress.  But I just wanted to point out that, if you haven’t had quite enough about election stuff and you still haven’t quite done enough research yet, I’ve been keeping my election roundup page quite updated.

And in the grand tradition of trying to read the tea leaves, my election Brain Heart Gut predictions.   I can’t recall if I did this for 2010, but my 2008 guesses were right on City Council wise, but I was way off on my School Board predictions.  So for those new to the Brain, Heart, Gut game, you make predictions based on who you logically think will win (Brain), who you want to win (Heart), and who you believe will win (Gut):

Who I’m voting for: School Board

Of all the things that I never imagine would spark a number of comments, I didn’t realize that funding for animals and an expanded Oakland Zoo would elicit such a response.   I wish V Smoothe’s blog was still around because she had these great posts about the Oakland Zoo and the Knowland Park expansion.   I’ll leave folks with this video from a guy who works (worked?) at the Oakland Zoo, who sums up the importance of the Zoo better than anyone else can:

His comments stuck with me the first time that V Smoothe published a post about this topic a few years ago and they are still relevant today.

But now, School Board…

“Airbrushing history”

Last week, Reverend Laura Rose wrote an excellent letter to the editor regarding School Boardmember Trish Spencer and the LGBT curriculum that was under much scrutiny a few years ago:

Dear Editor,
Remember where we have come from! That is an important mantra for different classes of people who have endured the pain of exclusion and discrimination. This should also be a mantra for all of us in Alameda who worked hard to ensure that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender students and families would be given equal visibility in our AUSD K-5 curriculum as one of the six protected classes under California law. As we consider the records of those running for School Board, it is critical that we remember that there was one school board member, Trish Herrera Spencer, who steadfastly aligned herself with those were strongly opposed to the inclusion of lessons that would give equal visibility to LGBT families and students. Recently, Ms. Spencer has made public statements that she was a supporter of the LGBT curriculum. But those of us who spent hours and hours attending Board of Education meetings listening to Ms. Spencer presenting objection after objection know this is not the case. I am aware that the teacher’s association has endorsed Ms. Spencer, and although I am supportive of the teacher’s union and A.U.S.D. teachers, Ms. Spencer will not have my vote.
Sincerely,
Laura Rose

I’m republishing it here because the link on Alameda Journal keeps removing the letter for some reason.

Presently, Trish Spencer and her supporters are going on the defensive and trying to explain her “no” votes on the anti-bullying curriculum.

Say it ain’t so

So…

There have been rumors circulating about endorsements for the School Board and City Council.  I’ve heard a lot of variations from different sources about what actually went down, but the best I can piece it out is this way.

I’ll start first by saying, I know that the initial reaction will be to point fingers at the two easiest targets in this tale, but I’ve been contemplating how everything shakes out and honestly, for me, the biggest issue here is one of integrity on the parts of the candidates who weighed the political math and determined it was worthwhile to either pull an endorsement or not endorse at all in order to reap the rewards of a more “valuable” endorsement.

Ban aid

A little bit of another break from the questionnaires, more tomorrow.

Yesterday kicked off Banned Books week which essentially is a celebration and recognition of books that have been frequently challenged, by whatever reason.   The Alameda Free Library is hosting a reading marathon of these books, so you can check that out at the Main Library, where the readings will happen whenever the Main Library is open.  The West End Branch will have limited readings on Monday, October 1 from 3-5 pm and at Bay Farm Island Branch on Thursday, October 4 from 11am-2pm.

You asked, they answered: Trish Spencer, School Board candidate

1. Turnover of principals at Wood, Lincoln, Encinal and other schools has been high. How important do you think stable leadership is for I schools?

The most recent research provides:

http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/The-Principal-Perspective-at-a-glance/The-principal-perspective-full-report.html

Principal turnover adversely impacts schools. Although gains in student achievement temporarily slow whenever there is a new principal, the impact is felt more at the most challenging schools. In these schools, the new principal is more likely to have less experience and be less effective than a new principal at a less challenging school, often resulting in a longer, more pronounced slowdown of achievement gains. The reason for the staffing difference is that many principals gain their initial experience at challenging schools, then transfer to easier-to-manage schools as those positions open up. A study of one large urban district found that principals’ second or third schools typically enrolled 89 percent fewer poor and minority students than their first position (Beteille, Kalogrides and Loeb 2011, Miller 2009