Last week, we highlighted three races with education implications (click here). Here's what happened. In Florida, former state superintendent and university president Betty Castor was narrowly defeated by former Cabinet Secretary Mel Martinez. (So was current South Carolina state superintendent Inez Tenenbaum.) In Washington state, moderately pro-reform superintendent Terry Bergeson held onto her job in a race that turned on the state's graduation exam. But R-55, that state's referendum on whether to allow a few charter schools to launch, went down in flames, 58 to 42 percent. That's the third time voters have rejected charter schools in Washington, and the third win for the state teachers' union, which put hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of volunteers into this fight. No doubt about it, this disappointment will embolden charter opponents nationwide. Perhaps it will also have a catalytic effect on charter supporters!
"Charter schools, education tax defeated," by Jake Ellison and Gregory Roberts, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 3, 2004
"Bergeson gets a vote of confidence," by Heather Woodward, The Olympian, November 3, 2004