The Madison West High School PTSO held a school board candidate forum Monday night. Topics included:

• Madison High School Comparison
• A candidate’s ability to listen, interact and work successfully with other board members
• Past and future referenda support
• Candidate views on the $333M+ budget for our 24,000 students
• Extensive conversations on the part of Marj and Johnny to lobby the state and federal governments for more money. Maya wondered how successful that strategy might be given that our own State Senator Fred Risser failed to sign on to the Pope-Roberts/Breske resolution and that there are many school districts much poorer than Madison who will likely obtain benefits first, if new state tax funds are available. Maya also mentioned her experience at the state level via the concealed carry battles.
• The challenge of supporting all students, including those with special needs. Several candidates noted that there is white flight from the MMSD (enrollment has been flat for years, while local population continues to grow)
• Mandatory classroom grouping (heterogeneous) was also discussed

I applaud the West PTSO for holding this event. I also liked the way that they handled questions: all were moderated, which prevents a candidate supporter from sandbagging the opposition. I attended a forum last year where supporters posed questions before local parents had the opportunity.
Video and mp3 audio clips are available below. Make sure you have the latest version of Quicktime as the video clips use a new, more efficient compression technique.

Opening Statements: Video mp3 audio
Question 1: For Seat 3 Candidate Beth Moss (vs. Rick Thomas) regarding Madison’s High Schools: Video mp3 audio
Question 2: What did you do to pass the last referendum and what will you do for the next? Video mp3 audio
Question 3: What values do you bring to the ($333M+ budget) decision making process? Video mp3 audio
Question 4: The MMSD’s demographics are changing with more students with special needs while many families feel that they have less resources available for their “normal” students. How would you balance the needs of these various constituencies so that the families without special needs students don’t leave the Madison Metropolitan School District? Video mp3 audio
Question 5: for Marj Passman (opposed by Maya Cole); Answering a recent Isthmus question about “How do you play with others”, you said that you saw your role as convincing fellow board members as to the correctness of your views. You didn’t say anything about listening to others. What role does listening play in your new board member job description? Video mp3 audio
Question 6: Given the statistics in Sunday’s paper that only about 30% of Madison households have kids, how does that affect your approach to “selling” another referendum? Video mp3 audio
Question 7 – All Candidates
Please explain your views on additional charter schools given the success of Nuestro Mundo here in Madison and several offerings in Appleton just to name a few?
Question 8 – All Candidates
How can the school district provide for second languages to be taught to all students starting in Kindergarten and continuing through all grades?
Question 9 – All Candidates
The Board will be hiring a new superintendent. Please discuss what you believe is the top 3 criteria for a superintendent. You are free to ignore my request to address communication between Board and Administration/Superintendent, Boards communication with public, Superintendent and Public.
Question 10 – All Candidates
What role should School Board, Parents and Educator play in changing state law which adversely affect our schools?
Question 11 – Rick and Maya
What accountability mechanisms do you envision?
Question 12 – All Candidates
What is your position on the health insurance issue for teachers, that is the WPS option versus HMO’s?
Candidate responses to these questions can be found here.