Faize El-Khali
Faize El-Khali was a candidate for an at-large seat on the Dearborn Public Schools school board in Michigan. El-Khali was defeated in the at-large general election on November 8, 2016.
Biography
El-Khali earned his bachelor's degree from Western Michigan University. He holds an M.S. in finance and MBA from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. El-Khali is a key account manager with Bosch, LLC.[1]
Elections
2016
- See also: Dearborn Public Schools elections (2016)
Three of the seven seats on the Dearborn Public Schools school board were up for general election on November 8, 2016. These seats included two seats with six-year terms and one seat with a two-year term. The race for the six-year terms featured incumbent Fadwa Hammoud and challengers Hussein Berry, Khodr Farhat, and Adel Mozip. Hammoud and Berry defeated Farhat and Mozip. Jim Thorpe defeated fellow newcomer Faize El-Khali for the two-year term.[2]
Results
| Dearborn Public Schools, At-Large General Election, 2-year terms, 2016 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Jim Thorpe |
62.72% | 19,314 |
| Faize El-Khali | 36.57% | 11,261 |
| Write-in votes | 0.71% | 220 |
| Total Votes | 30,795 | |
| Source: Wayne County, Michigan, "Elections Division-Results," November 22, 2016 | ||
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.[3]
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.[4]
October 28 filing
Candidates received a total of $79,592.02 and spent a total of $53,784.95 as of October 30, 2016, according to the Wayne County Clerk.[5]
Six-year terms
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fadwa Hammoud (incumbent) | $48,519.02 | $33,418.84 | $15,100.18 |
| Hussein Berry | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Khodr Farhat | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Adel Mozip | $21,101.00 | $13,617.64 | $7,483.36 |
Two-year term
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jim Thorpe | $9,972.00 | $6,748.47 | $3,223.53 |
| Faize El-Khali | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
Campaign themes
2016
Ballotpedia survey responses
Faize El-Khali 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 November 1, 2016:
| “ | Goals (random order):
1) implement and strengthen teacher development within our schools. Giving our teachers the opportunity to develop themselves and do more in their careers. 2) improve student achievement. Helping set individual goals and milestones for a more effective development while helping with the curriculum development and ensuring long term feasibility. 3) efficiency in financial management...balancing the budget, making effective short term decisions while keeping the long term impacts in mind, investing in our teachers because if we don't someone else will, and investing in our children’s future and safety. 4) improve the communication and work on an open door approach where the board members visit all schools and hear from the teachers and students directly.[6][7] |
” |
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 |
| Closing the achievement gap | |
| N/A | |
| N/A | |
| N/A | |
| N/A | |
| N/A | |
| N/A | |
| “ | I chose not to answer because the ranking was not reflecting my intentions. For example, we need to improve achievement, but we need the funds to do so. Therefore, we need to balance or maintaining the district's budget; additionally, most of the list can be done in parallel therefore there is no need to deprioritize an issue. | ” |
| —Faize El-Khali (November 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.) |
|---|
| No. Charter School are not better then public schools. Many successful people and leaders are products of the public school system. Also, when compared, apples to apples, on average charter schools are double the costs of public schools not including the cost of transportation; with charter schools there are no school buses. Also, teachers are not necessarily held at the same standards as public schools where public school teachers are certified annually. |
| 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 defer to school board decisions in most cases. |
| Are standardized tests an accurate metric of student achievement? |
| No. Although standardized tests help show how students respond to the same questions, the tests leave out the human aspect. Children are nervous, sick, scared, and exhausted and the test results don't account for those things. Many high performers don't do well, but are star students year over year. Adult can't stay focused for 4, or 6, or 8 hours of testing; then why should we expect children to do so. |
| What is your stance on the Common Core State Standards Initiative? |
| I like the idea, but it all depends on the execution of the idea. Each, school district should set its own goals and targets and align nationally to ensure that core elements are captured. |
| 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 and offer additional training options. No, we should not approach teachers with negative methods. We need to promote positive learning as it will be reflected to the students. It should start with the hiring process and how we select our teachers; once hired, we should use positive methods like the ones checked by myself. Also, we should have a "development" program for teachers so that if they want to do more than teacher 1st grade such as move to assistant principle, or even collage lecturer - thus we no longer provide jobs for teachers, we provide a career. As mentioned before, teachers are a limited and valuable resource that we are all fighting to keep. |
| Should teachers receive merit pay? |
| No. I would have voted yes, because I want teachers to have the chance to make more money, but really I felt that the performance pay would only make public schools similar to charter schools in the sense that the teachers (management) is focused on the outcome and not the wellbeing of the students. There is a fear of "agency problem". It might lead to teachers turning away certain students in order to have a higher performing classroom. Without merit pay everyone is focused on the students and each one's development. On the same note, we should protect and if possible improve teacher pay. if we don't take care of them then someone else will. Teachers are a limited and valuable resource that we are all fighting to keep. Universities are showing lower education majors (-25% in some schools) because those that WANTED to be teachers are "choosing" to do something else, but if this keeps up then those that CANNOT do anything else will be teachers - not who we want teaching our kids. |
| Should the state give money to private schools through a voucher system or scholarship program? |
| No. |
| How should expulsion be used in the district? |
| This is definitely a case-by-case issue, but also we should not put others at risk while decisions are pending and thus in the interim use online classes/assignments. Also, the school should look at future options such are trade school, home schooling, etc. to ensure a future for the student because we make a lot of mistakes and more while young so we should recognize that and try to help set them up for success and not failure. |
| What's the most important factor for success in the classroom: student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, teachers, parent involvement or school administration? |
| Teachers. Again, I chose not to answer because the ranking was not reflecting my intentions. All, are key components and all will vary in weight depending on the situation. When I read these types of questions I read them as asking "Which can be eliminated?" or "Which is less important?" and my objective on the board is to promote and focus on all of these key components. |
Additional themes
El-Khali provided the following responses for the voter guide compiled by MLive.com:
| “ |
Why are you running for office? What are your top three priorities? What is the most pressing issue for this office? |
” |
| —Faize El-Khali (2016) | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Faize El-Khali Dearborn Public Schools. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 MLive, "Voter Guide," accessed October 27, 2016
- ↑ Wayne County, Michigan, "Elections Division-Election Information," accessed August 30, 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, "Faize El-Khali's responses," November 1, 2016
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
| 2016 Dearborn Public Schools Elections | |
| Wayne County, Michigan | |
| Election date: | November 8, 2016 |
| Candidates: | Six-year term (Two seats): Incumbent, Fadwa Hammoud • Hussein Berry • Khodr Farhat • Adel Mozip Two-year term (One seat): Jim Thorpe • Faize El-Khali |
| Important information: | What was at stake? |
