Story Published:
Jan 11, 2008 at 5:40 PM PST
By
Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) - Terry Bergeson says she'll run for a fourth term as state superintendent of public instruction - a job she thinks no one else would want because "It's a scary job right now."
Bergeson said in a recent interview that she still has work to finish: "This isn't the time to leave."
The former teacher has held the nonpartisan post for 12 years. She has been praised, especially by business leaders, for raising the state's education standards, but has also drawn sharp criticism for her strong and continuing support of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.
One of harshest critics of Bergeson and the WASL has been the state teachers' union, the Washington Education Association, which she once led.
She is a veteran of the Tacoma and Central Kitsap school districts and was a WEA leader before losing a state superintendent's race to incumbent Judith Billings in 1992. Bergeson won her first term in 1996 and has been re-elected twice.
Billings came out of retirement to challenge Bergeson in the 2004 race. Soon after that loss, Billings registered to run again in 2008, but her campaign was "discontinued" in February 2006, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission.
Richard W. Semler, superintendent of the 10,000-student Richland School District in Eastern Washington for nearly 11 years, registered with the state in October to run for state schools' chief, his campaign treasurer Ruby Krissy said Friday. As of Dec. 31, he had raised about $8,000 in cash and in-kind donations.
Bergeson has raised a total of $61,753 in cash and in-kind donations - more than half during the month of December - according to the Public Disclosure Commission.
Bergeson, 64, led the commission that developed education reform in Washington and set the "world-class" standards and learning requirements that eventually led to development of the WASL.
The statewide achievement test has been a subject of contention between her and the WEA. Phone messages to WEA President Mary Lindquist and the WEA office on Friday were not returned.
Bergeson has been planning to kick off her campaign with an official announcement in about a month, her campaign chairwoman Catherine Ushka-Hall said Friday.
"It's going to be an interesting year to be running for state superintendent," Bergeson said during a recent conversation about the WASL, high school graduation and the legislative session opening Monday.
"We're going to get through this," she said of the class of 2008's challenge as the first group required to pass the reading and writing sections of the WASL and meet other new graduation requirements. "The route to help kids is not to let them happily walk across the stage with an empty piece of paper."
Semler, 61, has worked in education for 36 years, beginning as a fifth grade teacher and junior high math teacher after returning from military service in Vietnam. He has worked as a superintendent in Vashon Island and Richland for a total of 17 years and as an assistant superintendent in Issaquah and Wapato for a few years. He is set to retire from his job as Richland superintendent at the end of June.
The WASL was a big part of his decision to run, along the fact that no one else has stepped forward to challenge Bergeson, his wife Ginny Semler said Friday.
"It's been bothering him really a lot for a long time," she said, adding that others have been encouraging him to run. "People have said this job was made just for you. With his great organizational skills and his calm, calm ability to solve problems, he just knew that he had to do that."
The platform posted on his Web site said he would introduce a less expensive and more effective assessment system to replace the WASL. He also criticizes the state education office for "overspending and fuzzy bookkeeping."
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