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Saturday, August 26, 2017

Some things you should know about Karen Woltman

At some point I’ll try to write more about the candidate field in the school board election. But before early voting gets any further, I want people to know some things about Karen Woltman that they may not be aware of.

I am very pleased that Karen is running for the board. Karen first came to my attention through her blog, Education in Iowa, which she’s been writing since 2010. It has been an excellent resource for information and intelligent commentary on education policy issues, and in particular on education-related Iowa legislation. Her extensive writing on educational issues will give you a great sense of who she is; her campaign website identifies several posts in particular that are relevant to school board membership. She has consistently maintained a thoughtful, conscientious, and well-documented commentary on state and local education issues. Moreover, she demonstrates that it’s possible to advocate and to be persistent while also maintaining a measured, reasonable discourse—always focusing on issues and reasoned arguments, not personalities.

Karen also played a remarkable role in one particular educational issue. Karen was a member of the State Assessment Task Force in 2014-15. When the task force recommended that the state require all school districts to use the very expensive and time-consuming Smarter Balanced Assessments, Karen was the sole dissenter. She was concerned about whether the cost of the tests would reduce funding for educational programming, asking whether the tests would cause cuts to music, art, and world languages of the kind we’ve already seen here in our district. She also asked hard questions about whether Iowa school districts had the tech readiness to implement the tests—noting that several states had experienced serious problems with implementation.

Karen’s willingness to dissent from the committee’s otherwise unanimous recommendation is a great indicator of her independence and ability to resist institutional pressure and groupthink. Moreover, her dissent was persuasive enough that it helped derail the state’s movement toward adopting the Smarter Balanced tests. The legislature did not accept the committee’s recommendation, and it looks increasingly likely that the state will end up adopting a less expensive testing regimen instead. The word “single-handedly” is probably never appropriate in politics, but in my view Karen’s dissent was quite possibly the single most influential factor in changing the course of those events.

Karen’s not against standardized testing; in fact, she’s very concerned about addressing the district’s achievement gaps in reading, math, and science proficiency. But she knows that everything has a cost and that the usefulness of any testing has to be weighed against what’s being sacrificed to pay for it—and that ultimately teaching has to have primacy over testing. (Her involvement on this issue makes an interesting counterpoint to the candidacy of Janet Godwin, who is the chief operating officer of ACT.)

In her school board campaign, Karen is arguing for prioritizing issues of curriculum, instruction, and school climate. “Facilities are important, but whether our children are learning, and whether they feel safe and supported at school, is more important than the size of their gymnasiums,” she writes. “Our children need a school board that can work on improving facilities and, at the same time, work on improving the programs that take place in those facilities.” You can read more about her priorities and positions here and here.

Karen is not as widely known as some candidates, and lately some have taken advantage of that fact to try to portray her negatively and in my view unfairly. This has taken the oh-so-progressive form of defining her an as extension of her husband. (Karen is a lifelong active Democrat married to a Republican.) People have also criticized her choice to home-school her younger children through the district’s home-school assistance program. (Her oldest child is a student at North Central Junior High.) In fact, Karen’s decision to home-school her younger children is driven by her longstanding interest in educational practice and not by any extremism, parochialism, or desire to withdraw from society. She has been more active in public education than most of us, to its benefit. Again, if you want an accurate understanding of who she is, all you have to do is look at her seven years of public writing about education issues.

Karen also has a law degree and if elected would be the only board member with that background. I believe it is a very useful qualification and one that has served me well on the board.

Please elect this sensible, smart, capable person. If you’re interested, you can help Karen become better known by hosting a yard sign; contact her campaign at KLWoltman@gmail.com.

16 comments:

Chris said...

It’s worth noting that in October 2015 our school board voted unanimously to oppose the adoption of the Smarter Balanced Assessments, for many of the reasons that Karen had previously articulated in her dissent.

Anonymous said...

I am really excited about this candidate. She clearly has a passion for public education given all she has done; with strong democratic values since she has served on the democratic central committee too if I recall correctly.

Chris said...

Anon -- Thanks. Yes, she has served on the Democratic county committee, and has helped run her precinct's Democratic caucus.

Chris said...

Another point: Karen’s dissent from the Smarter Balanced recommendation required her to push back against a process that appeared to have been designed to reach a predetermined outcome. I wrote about that process here. Afterward, when the legislature sent the Department of Education back to the drawing board, the Department’s director recognized that he needed to take steps to ensure that “people don’t point at the department (and say), ‘You were in the bag for vendor X from the beginning.’” Karen’s ability to maintain her independence throughout that process is very much to her credit.

Anonymous said...

I'm hearing really good things about Karen: super smart, respectful, calm, and full of integrity. This district DESPERATELY needs that.

Anonymous said...

She also helped Amy Nielsen get elected. Hopefully Amy will endorse her too!

amy said...

If her many comments here hadn't already sold me, I'd be sold. I'm glad she's running.

Anonymous said...

Its okay to give money to political candidates but when your spouse give $$ to Steve King, how about NO!!!!!!!!! Also giving to republican state lawmakers who vote against teachers and public education, thats not okay. It means zero that the $ is in her husbands name. Most likely a joint account and if she has no say in 10s of thousands going from the family account to republican politicians thats messed up right there. Also your kids to public elementary schools if you want to serve on our school board. And yeah, this is all political. She even says school boards are political on her mom blog.

Anonymous said...

Should have said

Also SEND your kids to public elementary schools if you want to serve on our school board.

Anonymous said...

She does send her kids to public school. Full time after 6th grade and about 40% worth before that with the Home School Assistance Program. You won't find a more ardent defender of public education than Karen.
You also won't find a more informed candidate than her on school finance, board governance, state level education issues including curriculum considerations; and the issues in this district since she attends so many board meetings. In short, Karen is hands down the best candidate!

The fact that she is happily married to a Republican indicates to me that she is able to remain reasonable amid disagreement on major issues. That is something we also desperately need on our board.

Anonymous said...

Julie Eisle--is that the only thing that you have to complain about this great candidate? I'm not sure if you're aware but we're not in the 1950's anymore and women can and do think differently than their husbands. My husband and I share a household bank account that we both contribute money to but we maintain our own individual accounts and spend the money independently out of our OWN accounts. Contributions to candidates comes out of my OWN account. I get that Bobby and Steve King are awful people but as mentioned above, Karen has supported and worked with democrat candidates and the democrat party. I have relatives that have supported some shitty candidates but I'm not guilty by association because of who they support. You've done nothing but try and run this women's name through mud. Have you ever even spoken to her?

amy said...

Utterly bizarre. Why is Julie like this? Remind me again what she's actually for?

I dealt with HSAP when I was looking into homeschooling my daughter. It's very much part of the district. That's the point of it. Sometimes a child has an issue or needs something that the classroom can't provide and the parent can, but you don't want to go sailing off away from the general track of the curriculum or whatever standards the other kids are working to, plus you need to stick with state requirements. I found HSAP staff to be a bit scattered but otherwise very helpful and good teachers themselves.

Also, mildly insane comment there about how Karen and her husband spend their money. I couldn't live with a Steve King supporter myself, but that's her business, not mine. I also hear that married people are allowed to be individuals.


Anonymous said...

First, how do we know that post was from Julie Eisle? Whoever wrote that comment is beyond delusional and seriously may need some help. Hopefully that is just some troll posting to stir the pot and an actual human doesn't believe that because that is some backwards thinking. Who cares who Karen's husband voted for - her husband is not on the ballot. She has her own brain, right? I will be voting for Karen. I don't know Karen personally but I hope she gets elected.

Anonymous said...

Is there a conflict of interest with Janet Godwin serving on the board? Does iccsd have contracts with ACT in place?

Anonymous said...

I asked the Iowa State School Board regarding Janet Goodwin's employment with ACT, and they said it was an interesting question. They recommended I hire a lawyer to figure it out, the state statues on conflict of interest are very legalistic. Also, at the state level, you should know they think our district is completely dysfunctional.

No, I am not hiring a lawyer on this today, but if Janet freaking manages to get on the school board, I may have to. No way am I cool with letting the fox to guard our hen house.

Anonymous said...

The University of Iowa, who employs Chris Liebig, also has contracts with the ICCSD.