Searching for Differences at the Hopkins School Board Candidate Forum

Voters watching Wednesday’s School Board candidate forum learned a lot about how the candidates would approach their jobs if elected. There was just one problem: Those approaches sounded awfully similar to one another.

This doesn’t necessarily leave voters without a choice. The candidates bring a diverse group of backgrounds and experience to the table that will surely shape how they’d address issues before the board—and they emphasized those at key parts of the forum.

Here’s a look at how some of the issues shook out at the forum.

Teacher accountability

This issue had the potential to reveal divisions between the candidates—just listen to Kris Newcomer’s emphasis on pay-for-performance and comparisons to the business world .

Yet the forum question on the topic was more specific: What percentage of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on standardized test scores? This resulted in much less variation between the candidates. All declined to specify an exact number, and all agreed that the evaluation should take into account other criteria, such as principal or master teacher evaluations.

Best practices

Process, not specificity, also dominated discussion on topics such as technology and the achievement gap. The candidates typically focused on identifying “best practices” that enhance learning, monitoring those to ensure they actually enhance learning and ensuring consistency between the schools.

‘It is what it is.’

Steven Adams said the above in response to a student who asked why there are so many students in a Spanish classroom, adding, “You’ve got so many dollars to work with.”

The other candidates answered with some variation of that. Because of flat state funding, Newcomer said, “Really, we don’t have a lot of options.” Wendy Donovan noted that it costs $500,000 to reduce class size across by one student. 

At other points during the forum, people used Adams’ exact phrase: “It is what it is.”

There’s a good reason the candidates agree on this. State money accounts for about two-thirds of the school district’s general fund revenue. That leaves a huge portion of the revenue stream outside their control.

Compare that to the city of Hopkins. Money from other governments accounts for less than one-20th of the city’s general budget, while property taxes fund nearly 85 percent of the budget.

It’s perhaps no surprise then that School Board candidates focused much more on directing money to the right areas than on the appropriate level of spending—a topic that occupied a fair amount of the City Council forum.

Adams’ answer to a question on class size offers the best example of the dilemma. When asked what the appropriate number of students per teacher in third grade should be, all of the candidates except Adams declined to give a specific number. Adams had a number in mind.

“I’ll pick a number,” he said. “The ideal number is one. But we can’t afford that. So you go as close to that as possible.”

Poor funding?

Still, there was at least a whiff of a difference in perceptions of funding needs. When asked what areas need more financial support, Donovan and Tina Soumaré agreed there never is enough money for all the district’s needs. Soumaré noted that early childhood and family education programs are especially in need, in addition to arts programming and elementary school foreign languages.

Adams, though, said he was not aware of any area that is hurting for funding. Although he’d like more immersion programs, Adams said he couldn’t point to any one program that suffering from a shortfall.

Irma McIntosh Coleman and Newcomer didn’t name any programs either but they focused on the process for allocating money to the best areas not whether any specific program needed more money. Newcomer said the district should start with the proposition that education is not static and then think about which programs to bring in and which to retire. Coleman said the district should use research, data and best practices to guide its decision-making.

Biggest dashed hope for a good headline

So with little room to maneuver on spending and everyone agreeing that they do, in fact, care for students, there was one other potential area for controversy: What is your view of intelligent design?

Intelligent design is the belief that an intelligent designer created certain features of the universe instead of natural selection. A judge ruled in the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that the theory is not scientific and can’t be taught in public school science classrooms because of the separation of church and state.

All the Hopkins candidates were quick to echo the judge’s decision—although they noted, rightly, that intelligent design could be discussed in the district’s world religions or current events classes.

Kudos on getting the right answer.

to watch video interviews with the candidates or read up on their backgrounds by .