Ben Washburn
Ben Washburn was a candidate for an at-large seat on the Detroit Public Schools Community District Board of Education in Michigan. Washburn was defeated in the at-large general election on November 8, 2016.
Biography
Washburn earned his bachelor's degree in history and sociology from the University of Michigan. He later received his J.D. from Wayne State University. Washburn was a member of the Detroit Public Schools Board of Education from 1989 to 2003. He also served as counsel for the Wayne County Board of Commissioners from 1983 to 2009.[1]
Elections
2016
- See also: Detroit Public Schools elections (2016)
Seven seats on the Detroit Public Schools Community District Board of Education were up for general election on November 8, 2016. There was no primary. A total of 63 candidates filed for the election including 10 of the 11 incumbent board members. The top two vote recipients will serve six-year terms, the next three winners will serve four-year terms, and the remaining two winners will serve two-year terms.[2][3] The winning candidates were Angelique Nicole Peterson-Mayberry, LaMar Lemmons, Georgia Lemmons, Sonya Mays, Misha Stallworth, Deborah Hunter-Harvill, and Iris Taylor.
A June 2016 state reorganization bill split Detroit Public Schools into two entities. The existing district will collect taxes to pay down debts, while a new district overseen by the school board was created to oversee school operations. This bill reduced the school board's membership from 11 to seven after the November 2016 election. The state-appointed Detroit Financial Review Commission will oversee the new district's financial dealings.[2]
Results
Funding
School board candidates in Michigan were required to file pre-election campaign finance reports with their county election offices by October 28, 2016. Post-election reports were due by December 8, 2016.[4]
In Michigan, candidates are prohibited from receiving contributions from corporations or labor organizations. Within 10 days of becoming a candidate, candidates must form a candidate committee. Following the creation of the committee, candidates have an additional 10 days to register the committee with the school district filing official by filing a statement of organization. A candidate committee that does not expect to receive or spend more than $1,000 during the election cycle is eligible to receive a reporting waiver, which allows that committee not to file pre-election, post-election, and annual campaign statements.[5]
October 28 filing
Candidates received a total of $164,533.68 and spent a total of $100,234.02 as of October 30, 2016, according to the Wayne County Clerk.[6] Angelique Nicole Peterson-Mayberry led the field with $57,980.00 in contributions and $40,364.82 in expenditures for the reporting period. Her biggest donor through October 28, 2016, was the United Auto Workers Michigan V-PAC, which contributed $27,500.00 to her candidate committee. Sixteen of the 63 candidates filed campaign finance statements by October 30, 2016. The remaining candidates had not filed their reports or qualified for exemption from reporting.
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tawanna Simpson | $1,200.00 | $996.38 | $203.62 |
| Ida Carol Short | $1,409.15 | $975.00 | $434.15 |
| Herman Davis | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Angelique Nicole Peterson-Mayberry | $57,980.00 | $40,346.82 | $17,633.18 |
| Kevin Turman | $5,038.99 | $3,555.84 | $1,483.15 |
| Deborah Hunter-Harvill | $3,950.00 | $4,387.83 | -$577.83 |
| John Telford | $19,000.00 | $5,341.52 | $13,658.51 |
| Markita Meeks | $100.00 | $25.00 | $75.00 |
| Mary Kovari | $14,383.54 | $16,883.54 | $4,315.86 |
| Ben Washburn | $500.00 | $0.00 | $500.00 |
| Iris Taylor | $10,725.00 | $6,311.16 | $4,413.84 |
| Sonya Mays | $20,935.00 | $15,450.49 | $0.00 |
| Charmaine Johnson | $0.00 | $1,939.68 | $0.00 |
| Phillip Caldwell II | $2,915.00 | $2,713.37 | $201.67 |
| Leslie Andrews | $16,114.00 | $0.00 | $6,500.00 |
| Penny Bailer | $10,283.00 | $1,307.39 | $8,975.61 |
Campaign themes
2016
Ballotpedia survey responses
Ben Washburn participated in Ballotpedia's 2016 survey of school board candidates. In response to the question "What do you hope to achieve if elected to the school board?" the candidate stated on September 1, 2016:
| “ | I hope to staunch a 30-year history in which people run for the School Board to pave their stepping stones to other public offices by micromanaging the district to put the squeeze on contractors to finance their next warchest.[7][8] | ” |
Ranking the issues
The candidate was asked to rank the following issues based on how they should be prioritized by the school board, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. Each ranking could only be used once.
| Education policy |
|---|
 |
Click here to learn more about education policy in Michigan. |
| Education on the ballot |
| Issue importance ranking | |
|---|---|
| Candidate's ranking | Issue |
| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | |
| Improving relations with teachers | |
| Closing the achievement gap | |
| Improving education for special needs students | |
| Improving post-secondary readiness | |
| Expanding school choice options | |
| Expanding arts education | |
| “ | Our district has run huge deficits for 12 years in a row, and this has trashed the district. Right-sizing these relationships is our first-most challenge.[8] | ” |
| —Ben Washburn (September 1, 2016) | ||
Positions on the issues
The candidate was asked to answer nine questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. The questions are highlighted in blue and followed by the candidate's responses. Some questions provided multiple choices, which are noted after those questions. The candidate was also provided space to elaborate on their answers to the multiple choice questions.
| Should new charter schools be approved in your district? (Not all school boards are empowered to approve charter schools. In those cases, the candidate was directed to answer the question as if the school board were able to do so.) |
|---|
| Yes. I can only support a kind of charter which is not currently authorized by law in Michigan, one which emphasizes the importance of positive parental involvement in the education of their child. The school would REQUIRE up-front that the parent (or a parent substitute} agrees to a binding contract to come-in to either the class-room or to some other essential support effort and put-in at least 40 hours of effort each year. This says to "Johnny" or "Jill" that school is very important, and that your teachers and classmates must be respected. |
| Which statement best describes the ideal relationship between the state government and the school board? The state should always defer to school board decisions, defer to school board decisions in most cases, be involved in the district routinely or only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement. |
| The state should only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement. |
| Are standardized tests an accurate metric of student achievement? |
| No. Standardized test can only measure some of the measurable dimensions of student learning. Most of the things that make the difference between a person who makes significant contributions to his or her neighborhood and employer are simply not measureable. Far too much public attention is focused upon comparative test scores, which are only a small part of the real big picture. |
| What is your stance on the Common Core State Standards Initiative? |
| I don't consider the Common Core State Standards to be totally off-the-wall. My children went to a school which explicitly did NOT teach to the test. BUT, our kids still always aced the test. Teaching to the test, and frequently test-taking children robs creative teachers of the time they need to make a difference. We need the next generation to be able to stand on their own two feet, to distinguish between the good and the bad on the internet, and to deeply care for all of us. |
| How should the district handle underperforming teachers? Terminate their contract before any damage is done to students, offer additional training options, put them on a probationary period while they seek to improve or set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district? |
| Set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district. Blaming teachers for all that ails education is a sure-fire recipe for making things worse and worse. Mentorships are important, but changing the mind-set of the whole community to respect teachers is even more important. That means that school board members must use at least half of their efforts out at the churches on Sundays and Wednesdays, engaging the older extended families of our students to hold the young parents of our students closer and to be more supportive. |
| Should teachers receive merit pay? |
| No. High achievement is dependent upon intensive collaboration between the teachers in a school, and also between the parents and students in the school. Merit pay suggests that effective education only results from a competition among them. What dedicated teachers need as an incentive pay is for sticking with the same school and the same parents, teachers, and students for year after year. It makes a great difference to "Johnny" or "Jill" when they look forward to the day when they will be in Mr. or Ms. Teacher's class. |
| Should the state give money to private schools through a voucher system or scholarship program? |
| No. Generally, NO, but there might be some exceptional cases, as I think about it. Generally, NO, because this nation has come much together since the Civil War, precisely because of the national values which have been instilled by our public school systems. Because the increasing disparity over the past 30 years between the upper 1% and the rest of us, it is not best for our country to exacerbate this disparity. BUT, it might be for the great common good for a few public funds to be used to educate highly exceptional and gifted students from meagre prospects with the scions of the privileged classes of this country. Maybe they would learn more from their underprivileged classmate than he or she learns from them. |
| How should expulsion be used in the district? |
| Expulsion should not be used except for the most violent and unforgiveable violation of the established student code of conduct. The brains of most adolescents have not yet fully matured, and many respond to commonplace taunt and disses the way that they see on TV. Yes, many parents these days are way too hyper about all of the ugly stuff that they see on the TV news. But ugly news sells ads big time, whereas good news causes folks to just change channels. School Board members have to bring these parents back to everyday reality. |
| What's the most important factor for success in the classroom: student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, teachers, parent involvement or school administration? |
| Parent involvement. Scrap the notion that education is just another consumer service. That tells parents that all they need to do to make things better is to bitch. That just means that Johnny goes to school disrespecting his teachers and classmates. The only way that you get extraordinary results is when parents, teachers and students RESPECT one another, and STICK WITH one another for the long haul. If you always keep your eye on this end result, things will work out well for all involved. |
Additional themes
Washburn answered the following questions from 482Forward:
| “ |
What are the top 3 priorities you hope to accomplish during your tenure?
What do you think the role of the school board is? What is your vision for student well-being and success? What experience do you have that prepares you for this role? |
” |
| —Ben Washburn (2016), [9] | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Ben Washburn Detroit Public Schools. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ LinkedIn, "Ben Washburn," accessed September 21, 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wayne County, Michigan, "Elections Division-Election Information," accessed August 30, 2016 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "list" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ The Detroit Free Press, "72 people seek seven Detroit school board seats," July 26, 2016
- ↑ Michigan Bureau of Elections, "2016 and 2017 Campaign Finance Filing Schedule," January 12, 2016
- ↑ Genesee County, "Filing Requirements under Michigan's Campaign Finance Act," February 7, 2014
- ↑ Wayne County Clerk, "Wayne County Campaign Finance Information System," accessed October 30, 2016
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2016, "Ben Washburn's responses," September 1, 2016
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 482Forward, "DPS Board Answers: Ben Washburn," accessed September 26, 2016
