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Robert E. Buxbaum (Berkley School District, At-large, Michigan, candidate 2024)
From Ballotpedia
Robert E. Buxbaum ran for election to the Berkley School District, At-large in Michigan. He was on the ballot in the general election on November 5, 2024.[source]
Buxbaum completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Robert E. Buxbaum provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on October 29, 2024:
- Birth date: July 21, 1955
- Birth place: New York City, New York
- High school: Brooklyn Technical HS
- Bachelor's: The Cooper Union to Science and Art, 1976
- PhD: Princeton University, 1982
- Gender: Male
- Profession: Engineer
- Prior offices held:
- precinct delegate, the lowest spot on the greasy poll. (2015-2014)
- Incumbent officeholder: No
- Campaign slogan: Creativity is built on knowledge.
- Campaign website
Elections
General election
General election for Berkley School District, At-large (2 seats)
Robert E. Buxbaum, Jon Heger, and Keith Allen Logsdon ran in the general election for Berkley School District, At-large on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | ||
 | Robert E. Buxbaum (Nonpartisan)  | |
| Jon Heger (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Keith Allen Logsdon (Nonpartisan) | ||
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Buxbaum in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Robert E. Buxbaum completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Buxbaum's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum was a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University, and at Wayne State. He is president of REB Research & Consulting, an engineering, manufacturing and consulting company, lives in Oak Park, MI, with his wife, a first grade teacher and his youngest daughter, an epidemiologist. His mother and two sisters were teachers, as is his older daughter.
I got an excellent education in a school system with excellent teachers, but few facilities. Berkley does the opposite: borrowing $88 million last year alone for buildings and sports equipment (by a raise in taxes, $22,000 per student, debt we will have to pay back, on top of a previous borrowing of $45M). We do this while paying teachers poorly, and providing little in practical educational opportunity. High school math proficiency of only 44%, poor for a rich district. I think academic spending should be the priority, and favor, and would particularly favor a good shop, and shop class, along with a decent chemical lab. That's far better than more fancy sports fields and teaching kids to write by use of AI - Chat GBT.
- I don't favor phones in class, nor teaching kids with AI. AI is a crutch, in my opinion, and phones are a distraction. I'd work with the superintendent, moving more to old-school excellence: writing, math, heroic poetry, and patriotic history, shop class, drawing, music, dance, social studies, chemistry, physics, school trips, and science fairs. I think that the current, "no child left behind" has become "no child can get ahead. Advanced students should be rewarded by being given more, harder work. Why should all the attention go to sports and slower students?
- I think the drivers-ed courses, and other similar educational opportunities, should be made available to all students on the district including parochial school students. We pay taxes, but are currently boxed out of making use of the system's educational services.
- LGBQT+ pride month is a given in our system. It seems inappropriate for K-6, but I'm not sure. I will follow the community on this, but have no sense that our schools have polled the community. Also, I would like to add reading pride month and math pride month, also perhaps veterans pride month. Why is all the pride for things that no one worked to achieve.
Good solid education that puts students in line with the western tradition with a smattering of other traditions too, and with an understanding that a student isn't a failure if he or she comes to earn a living by manual or craft labor.
Peter Cooper. He was one of the few industrialists who accomplished a lot, and died beloved by his workers and family, honored by the school he built, and in the businesses he started. The New York Times thought he was crazy and ignorant, but you can't please everyone.
I'm a strong fan of Peter Cooper, the founder of Cooper Union, my undergraduate school. He also was a founder of the Republican Party in 1856, bringing Abraham Lincoln to NY. He also ran for president as a Greenback in 1876. His autobiography is a nice start, as he peppers it with his opinions.
Try to work well with others: Our bosses (that's the community who elected us, and those in the state house), and with our underlings (mostly that's the superintendent, but also students, teachers, etc.), and finally with each other -- the other individuals on the board. We're an intermediary, and I imagine I'll be a good one, based on my own judgement, experience, and understanding of the community.
I'm humble, reasonably honest, and willing to listen.
Attend meetings and be a good intermediary and steward.
See Peter Cooper, above.
I remember the Kennedy -Nixon election. I was 5. Some while after that, the Kennedy shooting, and the early days of the Vietnam War.
I worked in a delicatessen for about 6 months, Deli Stop in NY, and before that as a counselor one summer at a sleep away camp. After that, in a drugstore, Block Drugs. Following that, at a small electronics company, Dahill Electronics.
I'm now reading some Terry Pratchett. He's funny. I've re-read "Canticle for Liebowitz."
I'll have to think on this one.
Stevie Wonder, "I just called to say I love you."
Raising a healthy happy family is never easy. Fortunately, I have a good wife, and the kids themselves have helped out too.
Attend meetings and be a good intermediary and steward.
I imagine that I represent the majority of the Berkley School District citizens. The vote will give me some feedback on this.
Mostly, I'd like to see us focus on the one thing the school system was created to do: provide a good education for everyone in the district. It's nice to provide sports and entertainment, or to push our own politics, but that isn't our job, and I don't think we do it particularly well. I also don't like that we deliberately cut out parochial students in the community. At least let them get drivers ed.
I'm available to chat, ideally over coffee, and I'm available by email or phone too. It's a small community, and my sense is that this should work.
Teaching is lighting a fire, they say, not filling a hole. In practice, a teacher has to do both. Creativity is built on knowledge, IMHO. I'd like to see our math and reading proficiency fraction rise, and would like to see our enrollment rise too. It's been falling. How to do this, exactly, I don't know.
More shop, more labs, less sports -focus.
We've been borrowing money at a mighty rate. At this point, I'd like to see it spent well.
I've noticed that the security in the school is poor. It could use improvement, IMHO, but it's not an area of my expertise.
I've got many, mostly dad jokes. E.g. Parallel lines are a romantic tragedy: they're so much alike, yet you know they'll never meet.
I don't think it's my job to correct the district or state policies. I'd like to focus on providing the best education possible within those policies.
I'll keep that secret, just in case I lose.
I'd like to keep the cell phones out, and the AI out, to the extent possible, and want to do a decent job with shop and other hands on. Reading, handwriting, mechanical drawing...
No one handled the pandemic all that well. We were all blindsided. The real problem now is dealing with the fallout -- trying to make up for the social damage done.
I'm available to chat, ideally over coffee, and I'm available by email or phone too. It's a small community, and my sense is that this should work.
I'd leave that to the superintendent.
I'm very much in favor. It's an area where I think the Berkley school system could use improvement.
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See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
