My friends, family, supporters and everyone out there, we just did an amazing thing together.
Let me explain. Since April, I have spent 50 hours of standing in front of the Co-op and Viking Union at WWU collecting the 1500+ signatures that I received to get on the ballot for a statewide office to head the whole educational system of our great state. After the counting was done and signatures rejected, I made it by 4 signatures. A sweet woman took a sheet of my petitions and got 6 people to sign it and mailed it back to me. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been on the ballot at all.
I spent 150$ on gas and Facebook ads to convince over 91,000 voters, mostly strangers to believe in a better way for our children and teachers and to vote for me and what I believe is best for our students.
I did this while going to graduate school, raising a 2 and 5 year old, being disabled, being a victim of child abuse and poverty myself and starting my life over again after a series of devastating personal life tragedies.
It’s amazing what we can do when we put our hearts and minds into it.
This is still just the beginning of my work in the public world. I will continue to advocate for all children, working to end child abuse in our world, standing up for teachers and administrators, and protecting our planet. I will continue to make more music and art and help educate people about how amazing life can be if you are kind, helpful and supportive of one another.
It has been my pleasure to stand up for you and your children. It has brought me so much joy to meet so many people and talk with them and learn about their educational experiences and their thoughts on how to make things better. I have enjoyed sharing my ideas with others. People resonated with what I had to say and it inspired me so much to continue, despite how tired and sick I was feeling by the end of the campaign.
You all have inspired me to run for this office. I would never have done this it wasn’t for you all. You see, I built a beautiful life for myself. My children are in an amazing school that I built on a farm for them in Ferndale. They were safe. They had all they needed. So did I.
When I saw the suffering around me, the sadness, the struggle, I asked what was being done to make things better. I heard very few replies that gave me hope. I helped start the occupy movement in Bellingham. It gave me hope.
I see very little state and national leadership anywhere regarding our children and schools. Leave our principals and teachers alone and let them do what they know is best. Train teachers and educate parents and provide them with the tools to help all of our children.
There is no other alternative.
We must support our youth and give them the tools to care for themselves and their community.
Give them the tools to earn a living for themselves.
Give them the tools to be the best they can be.
Let them be masters of many trades and skills.
Seekers of truth.
Critical thinkers.
There is no other way.
Love and support each other during these difficult days. When we all care for each other and stop hating and fighting over money and resources, we can truly find peace and begin the hard work of creating a life and world filled with peace. Peace begins with each one of us. Peace is us doing our life’s work. It’s doing what we are best at. Doing what we love. Being the change we want to see in the world.
Peace my brothers and sisters and good night.
James Bauckman
1. High-Stakes Testing: I do not support high stakes testing!
Standards are important. We need to understand where each student is in relation to the standards so teachers know where they need help. We should be testing them in a variety of ways, all year long so as soon as we see an issue, we can address it right away. We should not wait until the summer to look at the results of these high stakes tests because by then, students have graduated and ineffective teachers have already signed contracts for the next year. We need to know which students and teachers are failing right away so we can help them all before its too late to help them.
2. Charter Schools: No Charter schools and Initiative 1240 in our state!
I have worked at two different charter schools in 2 states. They take money out of the public school system to experiment with our students. Specifically, the Initiative 1240 on the WA state ballot is flawed and people should not vote for it. We can already offer alternatives to traditional education in our public schools. There are alternatives all over the state and now that WA state has a waiver from No Child Left Behind, we can be even more innovative in our approach to education.
Only 17% of charter schools have shown improvement over their public school counterparts and 37% actually are doing worse.
We can not take any more risks with our students in WA state.
3. Food in our schools: I support healthy, Washington grown food in our schools as often as it is possible.
The highest nutrient value is found in food that is grown within 25 miles of the consumer. We have struggling farmers around the state who could benefit from selling their locally grown food to our schools. That would put our tax dollars back into our local economy and our children would be getting the best quality food. Companies in our state that make healthy food products and local shipping companies would also have priority over out of state companies when it comes to contracts with food service and sales in my administration.
4. Special education- I support special education programs receiving full funding to implement the Response to Intervention model, or RTI.
I support full implementation of the Pyramid Response to Intervention model in our state with fidelity. What does this mean?
Our current model is to wait until a child has failed completely until we offer special education services to them. Bellingham school district is implementing the RTI model with fidelity and has seen a marked improvement in student achievement. How does it work?
The special education and general education staff work together to help all children. As soon as a need is seen because a student is doing poorly in academics, attendance, behavior, or anything else, the team meets to help the student with research based interventions that have been shown to work with children dealing with similar issues. This is educational best practices at their finest and should be fully funded and implemented in every school. We cannot let any child fail in order to offer them help. This makes no sense whatsoever.
5. Art, music, drama, dance, physical education, & vocational education in every district.
Every district must fully fund these programs so our students have a variety of choices of careers and skills that they can master so that when they graduate they can get a job in which they can support themselves and their family. Not everyone is going to attend a four-year college.
6. Alternative education choices in all districts.
I support Montessori, Waldorf, STEM, IB, dual language, art or music focused, etc. programs and schools in our public school districts so families have a choice what type of curriculum is used to teach the standards.
We can offer any type of curriculum or program in our state. Period. We do not need charter schools to do it. We can implement these programs in any district right now. Parents should contact other parents and get a large group of other parents who support having a specific type of program in the district and submit it to the superintendent. Everyone should then work together to plan for finding the staff, materials and classroom/school space to offer the program to students. I want to see districts with a great deal of diverse programs for families to choose what type of education is best for their children.
7. Schools free from bullying
How can a child be expected to learn if they are being bullied by peers, teachers or other adults? They can not. We need to ensure that all teachers and parents are trained to identify and stop bullying in our schools. We need to educate parents, teachers and educational staff of the most supportive and helpful way to communicate with our children to help them feel safe. We need to inspire our children to be kind and supportive of each other, because each one of us has a gift and purpose in this life and we must nurture each other to help us all reach our full potential.
Closing
If you feel my platform and approach is practical and will help our children achieve their full potential in our schools, then please vote for me in the August 7th Primary, November 6th General election and “Pay It Forward” to friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, and random people you meet on the street. I cannot compete with the money in this election, but I can compete with my mind, ideas and all of your support. The only way I can win is with your support and you sharing my campaign with people you know.
If you help me and convince three people to vote for me and they convince 3 people to vote for me continuously, in 30 days over 10 billion exchanges of this information can take place. And that’s just if you do it. I have been talking to thousands of people around the western part of the state.
Thank you.
James Bauckman
Candidate
Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction 2012
Here is my video response to the article written by Zoe Fraley in the Bellingham Herald.
I am a seeker of truth. I want to understand this world. I want to know how I can help the people around me have peace. I am always searching for peace. I find peace knowing that I continue to do my best and be kind and helpful when I can be.
I am committed to learning and teaching what I learn with others. I am excited about life, despite how difficult it always is for all of us. We have moments of peace and joy, but we are always reminded of all of the suffering.
All of this needless suffering happens so that the greedy can get richer and we can all have stuff.
Why can’t we do it in a way that doesn’t kill us, poison our land, sea and air? Why can’t we do this without oppressing people?
Why? Why? Why? I want to know. Why?
Why must we suffer for others to benefit? It seems to me its because of greed. Simply greed. Some of us must have it all. Many of us want more. Most of us just want something. Anything. A chance.
There are so many sick and depressed souls all around us.
They have nothing. They have to beg for food and shelter and water. How can we not be sickened because of this horror? We are all feeling something inside that needs to be healed.
What can we do to stop it?
Love each other. It’s simple.
We must stop being willing to cause pain to others for your own benefit.
When we do cause pain, we must make amends, make it better, learn and grow.
Its simple. Kindness, love, compassion, empathy, and the offering of help to others.
We must learn to forgive those who have made poor choices when they learn from it. We all must stop repeating our mistakes and improve our lives and the lives of people around them.
I will always work for peace, for all of our freedom and the end of all suffering.
Here is my educational platform in a clear, concise manner.
1. High-Stakes Testing: I do not support high stakes testing!
Standards are important. We need to understand where each student is in relation to the standards so teachers know where they need help. We should be testing them in a variety of ways, all year long so as soon as we see an issue, we can address it right away. We should not wait until the summer to look at the results of these high stakes tests because by then, students have graduated and ineffective teachers have already signed contracts for the next year. We need to know which students and teachers are failing right away so we can help them all before its too late to help them.
2. Charter Schools: No Charter schools and Initiative 1240 in our state!
I have worked at two different charter schools in 2 states. They take money out of the public school system to experiment with our students. Specifically the Initiative 1240 on the WA state ballot is flawed and people should not vote for it. We can already offer alternatives to traditional education in our public schools. There are alternatives all over the state and now that WA state has a waiver from No Child Left Behind, we can be even more innovative in our approach to education. Only 17% of charter schools have shown improvement over their public school counterparts and 37% actually are doing worse. We can not take any more risks with our students in WA state.
3. Food in our schools: I support healthy, organic, locally grown food in our schools as often as it is possible.
The highest nutrient value is found in food that is grown within 25 miles of the consumer. We have struggling farmers around the state who could benefit from selling their locally grown food to our schools. That would put our tax dollars back into our local economy and our children would be getting the best quality food. Companies in our state that make healthy food products and local shipping companies would also have priority over out of state companies when it comes to contracts with food service and sales in my administration.
4. Special education- I support special education programs receiving full funding to implement the Response to Intervention model, or RTI.
I support full implementation of the Pyramid Response to Intervention model in our state with fidelity. What does this mean?
Our current model is to wait until a child has failed completely until we offer special education services to them. Bellingham school district is implementing the RTI model with fidelity and has seen a marked improvement in student achievement. How does it work?
The special education and general education staff work together to help all children. As soon as a need is seen because a student is doing poorly in academics, attendance, behavior, or anything else, the team meets to help the student with research based interventions that have been shown to work with children dealing with similar issues. This is educational best practices at their finest and should be fully funded and implemented nationally in every school. We cannot let any child fail in order to offer them help. This makes no sense whatsoever.
5. Art, music, drama, dance, physical education, & vocational education in every district.
Every district must fully fund these programs so our students have a variety of choices of careers and skills that they can master so that when they graduate they can get a job in which they can support themselves and their family. Not everyone is going to attend a four-year college.
6. Alternative education choices in all districts.
I support Montessori, Waldorf, STEM, STEAM, IB, dual language, art or music focused, Reggio, etc programs, classes and schools in our public school districts so families have a choice what type of curriculum is used to teach the standards.
We can offer any type of curriculum or program in our state. Period. We do not need charter schools to do it. We can implement these programs in any district right now. Parents should contact other parents and get a large group of other parents who support having a specific type of program in the district and submit it to the superintendent. Everyone should then work together to plan for finding the staff, materials and classroom/school space to offer the program to students. I want to see districts with a great deal of diverse choices for families to choose what type of education is best for their children.
7. Schools free from bullying
How can a child be expected to learn if they are being bullied by peers, teachers or other adults? They can not. We need to ensure that all teachers and parents are trained to identify and stop bullying in our schools. We need to educate parents, teachers and educational staff of the most supportive and helpful way to communicate with our children to help them feel safe. We need to inspire our children to be kind and supportive of each other, because each one of us has a gift and purpose in this life and we must nurture each other to help us all reach our full potential.
Closing
If you feel my platform and approach is practical and will help our children achieve their full potential in our schools, then please vote for me in the August 7th Primary, November 6th General election and “Pay It Forward” to friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, and random people you meet on the street. I cannot compete with the money in this election, but I can compete with my mind, ideas and all of your support. The only way I can win is with your support and you sharing my campaign with people you know.
I co-founded a school because I wanted to make a place where every child could learn at their own pace and grow up on a farm. They get to raise some plants and animals and learn how to take care of themselves, others and the environment, with the best staff possible. This place could not have been created without the amazing team of teachers, administrators, parents, volunteers and children. I am a parent, a visionary co-creator and was the first Head of School.
I started a web series about creating a sustainable city because it is, in my opinion, the only way that we are going to make it as a civilization. I wanted to help create a sustainable school, community, and city to use as role models for the rest of the world so they could do it themselves. I interviewed and worked with people about what we could do to make things better and about what wasn’t working. It is called Being the Change, You are the Solution.
I helped start the Bellingham, Washington Occupy movement because I thought it might be a way to save the world. I think that it started some great conversations and a lot of good ideas came from it. I still stay involved by meeting with the Occupy Education Working Group when I am available. If you are interested in the interviews and stories from that experience, they are here. Occupy Bellingham.
Lastly, I grew up in the inner city of Worcester, Massachuetts in great poverty. I went to public schools my whole K-12 education. I endured some horrific abuse by adults in my life. I came out a kind, caring person. My high school biology teacher, made a huge difference in me deciding to put my knowledge and experience into useful and important endeavors. I think public education is a vital service to humanity, if it is done correctly. It needs to be fully funded. It needs to not be wasteful. It needs to be based on research and good data. We need it. Help me make it work for all of our children. In the end,
It will benefit us all.
Imagine a world where every person you hired were well educated and knew how to take care of themselves.
Imagine world where the people in office were well educated about the things they were doing.
Imagine products and services that were made by well educated and caring people and were created by best practices.
This is the future I envision for all humanity. Let’s start here in Washington state and share our success with the nation and world.
I am running for Superintendent of Public Instruction to make major advances in our educational system. I want to completely change the way we educate and assess our students. EVERY child deserves the highest quality education so that they can achieve their full potential. The current paradigm of education serves some students well, but leaves many struggling. Why?
I have travelled around the world and have worked at and observed in a variety of different schools. In these schools, children have been engaged in the curriculum and are achieving mastery. The teachers mostly love their jobs and parents are greatly pleased with the schooling their children are receiving. Most of the schools I have been to are private, but one in particular was a publicly funded school that served diverse students in California. These schools have almost all been Montessori schools and each child in a Montessori school is basically on an IEP or individualized education plan. Each child is working on what is appropriate for them, at that time. If a student is ready for more advanced work, they work on it. If a child is struggling with subtraction, they take the time they need to master it and then move onto the next topic in mathematics. There is a variety of one one one, small group and large group instruction in these schools. Students receive a detailed report of the mastery they have achieved and what they are still working on and have not mastered when its report card time or parent conferences. This data helps parents and children understand where the child is and what they can be working on at home or with a tutor/mentor if they need extra help.
We do not need to change all of our schools to Montessori schools to achieve this. We can have our math time in a classroom with math materials and trained math specialists. Students sit down at a table with materials to help them master what they are working on. Teachers can walk around the classroom helping students individually or in small groups based on skills and abilities, while being grouped in a classroom full of diverse learners. Everyone is just working on what is most appropriate for them at that time. Things like social studies, history, the sciences and other topics can be taught in large groups. The work that is created to show mastery of the topic should be done at the level of the student. If a student is still struggling with writing 5 paragraph essays, the writing teacher can work with those students to master the 5 paragraph essay while learning about biology or the civil rights movement.
The thing is, teachers already know this. Administrators already know this. We need to allow our educators and administrators to do what they know is best practice already. I believe that it is not a failure of the teachers and administrators but a failure in policy and legislation. We mustn’t continually change the curriculum we are using in our schools. We must use the systems we know work to teach students to master the standards we set for our students.
I also believe strongly the we can not blame any person, group, organization or system for the problems in our educational systems. Everyone is responsible for what has happened and for what we do next. We must inspire our students to want to learn for themselves so they can have a diverse skill set and can find meaningful work to support themselves and their family. Parents must work to support, encourage and inspire their children. Parents must stop using punishment and rewards to motivate the behaviors they would like to see. Parents must stop using hurtful language with their children and stop saying things like “you are not good at math” and using derogatory remarks to diminish a student’s self confidence. Teachers must also be careful not to make comments that can make a child feel unsuccessful or unable to achieve. Teachers must also focus on understanding each child in their class, their individual strengths and challenges and motivate children to use their strengths to overcome their difficulties. Administrators must ensure that schools have the money and resources they need to offer all essential programs to support the education of all students within their school/district/state. Legislators must listen to educational professionals who do the work to develop a budget for our educational systems and must fully fund education, always. We are all part of the solution!
We also must keep in mind that not every student is a master of the same things and that not every student will achieve the same level of mastery in all subject areas as other students. This is a very important concept. Yes we should set standards, but we must know that not everyone will achieve them. We need artists, musicians, mechanics, plumbers, and laborers in our society. Let us train our citizens to be the best at whatever they choose as their career. If they will never be a great writer, help them be as good as they can be. Let’s set standards that each child must possess to succeed and support oneself within society and work hard to ensure that every student that can master those skills, will. For those that cannot, let’s provide for them an environment that will allow them to develop those skills that they can develop and help train them for a career that they can do, given their skills and limitations.
Together, we shall overcome. We must unite and work together to solve the problems we face. Education is the most important thing we do with our time and money. Together we can create a new educational paradigm that serves the needs of all students and does not waste precious money, time and resources.
One of the biggest challenges a child faces in their school experience is if they will be accepted by their peers. When children are alienated and bullied because they are different from what the popular students in school consider “normal”, they cannot learn and achieve their full potential. Some of these children are taking their own lives at an alarming rate in order to escape the torture they feel at the hands of their peers. Is bullying new?
When I was in school, bullying was incredibly common. I was bullied and I am sure I picked on someone who was different from me in the past as well. I remember watching older television shows that also showed bullying as the norm. When I was growing up it was just “something that kids do.” 20 years later, the issue has been brought to the forefront by films like “Bully” that was released this week and the NEAs Bully Free Schools program that can be found here: http://www.nea.org/home/NEABullyFreeSchools.html.
Imagine trying to concentrate on learning chemistry or algebra when your peers are drawing rude pictures of you, flicking spitballs, or talking about you negatively to the other students in your class. It is challenging enough to work in such an oppressive environment as a public school classroom without all of the social pressures to be cool and fit in.
Ending bullying behavior is one of the top priorities for me. If we want ALL of our students to be able to achieve their full potential, we must remove all of the obstacles. Bullying is a tremendous obstacle for many children and in order to change these behaviors, there needs to be a coordinated effort from parents, teachers, administration and the students themselves.
We can not accept bullying as something children do any more. There are free resources to teachers and parents that can be found at the NEA link above. We must talk to our children and students about the profoundly negative effects bullying has on our classmates. We must also talk about the huge benefit we have working with people who have different skill sets. The whole world of business, government and NGOs revolves around diverse people with varying skills working together. I believe this collaboration should be a large part of what we are teaching our children in schools to prepare them for their future work and to show them the importance of working with people who are different. That student you are picking on who does their homework every night and who is excellent with computers might solve one of the challenges that we face as a society. It is much better to treat everyone with respect, empathy and compassion and develop relationships with them. You never know when you will be the one who needs some assistance and when you bully others, you lose friends, colleagues and potential employers or supervisors of the future.
Public education must provide the resources for our students to learn how to learn everything they need to know to be successful, American citizens. These resources will include teachers and online learning, public and private schools, vocational and traditional schools, homeschooling and tutors, to name a few. The schoolhouse model is obsolete.
We must teach our students how to master the things they are good at at so they can contribute to their society and provide for themselves and their families. This includes all of the mastery of the Common Core Standards, as set forth by educators, not legislators. Students must be able to make sense of the overwhelming amount of information they have at their fingertips and know what is accurate and true.
Our students must understand how to collaborate with others that have different skills and talents on projects. Each individual provides part of the know-how and physical contributions needed to create thriving communities. All successful businesses and organizations require teamwork and good interpersonal skills.
Problem solving is a vital ability of great importance. Our students need to be able to think critically to succeed in higher education, the world of business, or in public service. We are tasked throughout our days with overcoming obstacles and our young adults must have the tools required to evaluate their situations and make the best decisions.
Public schools should have choices for parents. Montessori, Waldorf and other alternative forms of education should be offered in public schools, not just magnet and charter schools. If parents in a district want an alternative classroom, I think the districts should work together with those families to hire talented, trained, certificated teachers and purchase the materials to create these types of learning environments.
Schools are underfunded. In 1975, public schools became required to teach all children. Since then, we have not received the funding to train all of the teachers, purchase all of the equipment, hire all of the support staff and evaluate and create plans to help these children. If we want to have a successful and thriving country, we must adequately and appropriately educate our youth. Every dollar spent on education saves money on prisons, healthcare, welfare, unemployment, police enforcement, and many more of the ills that plague society. Invest in our students and we will all reap huge rewards from the next generations of Americans.
The future of our state depends on adults who know how to learn, to take care of themselves, know what they are best at and know how to solve problems. These are all realistic, achievable goals. They are practical and only require us to refocus our attention away from high-stakes testing and focus on best practices in child development, character building, critical thinking skills, collaborative learning, and problem solving. Teachers all know how to do this. This is what they were taught how to do, not to teach kids how to fill in bubbles and memorize facts that they will never use again.
Hello fellow citizens of Washington state. Many have asked me why I would want to be the Superintendent of Public Instruction. It’s really simple to me. I look around me and I see the world falling apart. I took a good hard look at my skills, passions and the path I was on and it made sense that helping to support children get the education they deserve and desire was what I should be doing. I took jobs around the world working at different types of schools to learn what best practices looked like. I worked at private Montessori schools and charter Montessori schools in the US. I have worked at a for profit charter school in Massachusetts and a non-profit charter Montessori in California.I have taught at Montessori schools for the wealthy in Boston, Australia, and Sint Maarten. I have taught some the poorest children in inner city Worcester, MA where I was born and raised and went to public schools in the area for my whole life. After experiencing all of this, I knew it was my destiny to build a school based on the best practices I had seen in these diverse school environments.
Keri, the mother of my two children, Charlotte (2) and Lucas (5), and I were almost co-owners of Silver Spruce Montessori School in Grafton, Massachusetts when we got the awful news. We were already living in the school’s upper floor, having staff and parent meetings, and finished signing the papers when we found out that the well and the septic tank were too close and it would cost us over $100,000 extra to purchase the school. We didn’t have the money and it might have shut down the school for a month or so while they did the long connection to the city water and sewer, a mile down the hill. This place was perfect. It was a 10,000 sf colonial farmhouse with herb gardens, goats, and a spectacular view from top of Grafton hill. We loved it, but we had to walk away and take jobs. I worked as Head of School for Blue Hills Montessori School in Canton, Massachusetts while Keri taught preschool at Cambridge Montessori. We had fun living near Harvard and the great cultural mecca of Cambridge, Massachusetts. I created my own independent study masters degree program at Lesley University in Cambridge on Building Sustainable Montessori Schools. Life was good. We were having our first child. I was learning how to run a school properly while getting paid the best salary I ever made and I was learning the skills on how to design a Montessori school that used less energy than it took in.
These were my best days up to that point. I love learning and helping people and was so excited to have a child. I had a very difficult childhood with abuse and poverty, unsatisfactory public schools, and the fact that my father left before I was two and lived in the same city as me, but rarely came to see me. I struggled through it all to get where I was and I felt like nothing could get in my way to build my dream school, a shining example of how schools will be in the future.
Blue Hills Montessori was one of the oldest and finest Montessori schools in the state and we ahd a long waiting list. At this point, the chairman and vice chairman of the board of the school asked me to allow the chairman’s son to skip the line to get into the class. We did not need children of his son’s age at that time and others were on the list before him. He didn’t even have an application in at the time. I said no. I was fired.
Devastated, I tried to figure out what was next. We just bought a house, had a son, and were about ready for one of the largest economic disasters to hit our country.
In May, we received a phone call that changed everything. I was told I could design my dream school and it would be built anywhere on the west coast we decided. I was so excited. We packed our things in 3 weeks and drove across the country to Bellingham, Washington, the city where I have been planning to build my dream school. Keri’s parents lived there and we loved how sustainably minded and locally based the community was.
Keri and I tried to find affordable property around Bellingham, but the prices were still at the peak of the market. All of the ones in the county would not work because the county planners did everything they could to make it impossible for us to build anything. Water and sewer issues continued to be our downfall.
We found the property on Douglas road and everything was coming together. The water and sewer were in the street. We had a 5.6 acre farm to raise animals, plants and give children a chance to develop into their true selves. There is a huge city owned lot to the east with a salmon stream, views of Baker, the islands and the Olympics. In just a few years, we created one of the most amazing schools I have ever seen in my travels around the world. Dream, check.
Many things have happened since then. I now am producing a web series about sustainability and the compassion movement in our city. I am nearly finished with my Master’s in Educational Administration and am a single father of the two most amazing young people I have met, in my fatherly opinion. I am now thinking of the next step on my path.
I feel I understand the horrors and beauty of life on this planet. I understand how hard it is for some people to learn and fit into society. I know first hand that if you apply yourself, take risks and always learn from your mistakes, you can achieve almost anything you dream. I know how to help. I know how to do it myself. I know what the most horrific things humans can do to each other and understand that healing is possible with the right people in you life to help you overcome your obstacles.
I feel it is my civic duty to use the skills and passion I have acquired through my life to help guide educational policy in this state. I want to ensure every child has appropriate access to the educational resources they need to be the best possible human they can be, given their abilities.
We need to acknowledge that not everyone can pass a standardized test or repair an engine. We all have limitations. This is why we need a large variety of different people in our country with a myriad of skills. We need to invest in vocational education and technical careers for students who wish to serve their community but do not have the skills to be successful in higher education. Let’s make the finest plumbers, electricians, contractors and mechanics in the world. Everyone has a part to play in this world. Let’s also not base the future of a person’s life on the scores on a test. Not everyone has the skills and understanding to pass these tests. We need alternative assessments for those not destined for higher education.
My part in all of this is to help create a new educational model for the rest of the country and world to emulate. The teachers need the salary and tools required to teach the diverse classrooms full of children they have. They need support from administrators that have the budget and team required to build the best designed and sustainable schools to meet the needs of our students. Our students need teachers who are trained with all of the current best practices who are understanding and supportive of their individual needs. This is all achievable in our lifetimes if we work together on it.
Every dollar spent on education from our state budget is the best dollar we can spend. An educated populace has careers, they know how to take care of themselves, and are not a burden on the social safety net, which needed when things go wrong. Our social services should just be a tool for when people get hurt or when situations change temporarily. Many Americans are living off of the safety net. This is not sustainable. We need to educate them and give them opportunities to shine and use their talents to earn a living for themselves and their society.
I need your support. Here are some helpful things you can do that cost no money but can help me get elected.
**(When you print this form put Washington State in the Political Subdivision section, James Bauckman in Candidate Name section, and Superintendent of Public Instruction in the Name of Office section)**
You can publicly endorse me on your web sites or talk with your friends and families about voting for James Bauckman for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
You can use the “Pay it Forward” technique to spread the word quickly and far. Here is how it works. Reach out the three people. Connect with them. Let them know that you feel our educational systems are important to the success of our people and our state and that you support James Bauckman. Ask them to spread the word to three people and ask them to spread it to three people without breaking the chain. If we were all to do this, starting today, in a month, everyone in the state would know about our campaign and would hopefully support helping our children get the education they deserve.
I am trying to run a almost zero cost campaign, but small donations from individuals may be needed for printing and legal fees, etc. I need to hire a campaign manager and set yup bank accounts and fill out all the appropriate forms. I will need to collect at least 1500 signatures to get on the ballot.
Thank you for your time and support. I look forward to helping our children achieve their fullest capabilities and improving our educational systems for all learners in Washington state.
James Bauckman For Superintendent of Public Instruction 