In September, Real Change, Seattle's homeless newspaper (www.realchange.org), published my article called "Seattle Public Schools: Condition Critical". The article featured interviews with five different people involved in the Seattle education system. Unfortunately, due to space restraints, the interview with school board director Dick Lilly had to be dramatically cut.

It's important for people to know the views of a school board director--especially one not currently running for re-election. ETS! is publishing the rest of the interview for everyone to see.--Chris Laroche

ETS!: Teacher morale is very low: half of all new teachers leave the profession after five years.

DL: That's a national phenomenon and Seattle is not unique nationally, but those statistics have existed for the past 10 years. In fact during the 90s they were probably higher, as there were many job opportunities outside of education. I would suspect that that rate has actually decreased slightly over the last 2-3 years as the job market is keeping people in. In fact, had we had these particular budget cuts in 1999, we would not have had to lay off anybody, because people leaving the profession would've taken care of those openings. As it was, the reason we had to lay off was because more people wanted to stay than 5 years ago.

That's not to say that the turn over in the teaching profession isn't alarming. It's terrible. It has a lot to do with pay. Teaching is generally low paid and we're a high paying state. Before the current national budget crisis -which is wide spread because of the economy, not management- there was a lot of teacher movement, many going to California and other states because of bonuses.

Another part of the turnover has to do with schools themselves, especially large ones. They are old-fashioned, rule-bound, bureaucratic institutions. They are not the best working environments. It's not the type of environment you can find elsewhere, where work groups are organized in a more collaborative approach. A lot of schools are organized in a very hierarchal way. It's not very satisfying. That's why I advocate small schools, where the organization is small enough so it can be managed, with collaborative input to that management, and a team approach to focus the group on a single vision. A large high school doesn't do that, it's a crippled organization. To some degree those are places where job satisfaction isn't always high.

ETS!: Is it sound to use high stakes testing to determine whether students graduate?

DL: By the time that actually takes affect there will be so many retests and alternatives that it's probably going to be irrelevant.

On the other hand, don't you think that for someone to graduate they need to display that they actually know something?

ETS!: Yes, But that's not necessarily shown on a test.

DL: It may not be shown entirely, but doing well on a test doesn't mean they haven't learned anything.

ETS!: It measures their test taking abilities.

DL: No, it may measure that they actually have some knowledge. ETS!: Einstein wouldn't have passed the WASL.

DL: Well, Einstein didn't take the WASL, so I think thatbs a little bit of an exaggerated contention.

ETS!: Why does Seattle have one of the highest rates of private school attendance in the country?

DL: That's somewhat of an illusory statistic: Seattle also has, among the largest school districts, one of the most economically mixed populations. What happens is that if we have a city with a lot of middle and upper-middle class people, many of whom chose to go to private schools, it would then appear that we have a very high percentage of our students going to private schools. If, however, you look at a school district like Los Angeles or Detroit, where the actual student population is much poorer, where the income levels of the people in the school district is not as broad, it's much different.

We have a microcosm of it: in the neighborhoods of middle and upper-middle people, many of them choose to go to private schools. North of the canal we only capture about 65 percent of the kids who live there. In SE Seattle we capture about 90 percent of the kids out there. Imagine there are school districts whose whole population resembles SE Seattle, you'd look at them and say "Wow! You're capturing 90 percent of their kids!" Well, they are because a larger total percentage of their kids are poor. The comparison from city to city can't be made because the population you're drawing from is vastly different. In other words, most cities with which that statistic compares us, middle and upper-middle class people live in the suburbs and not in the city. In Seattle, they live in the city, so it's a false comparison.

That doesn't mean we wouldn't like to capture more kids. We have very good grade schools. And lots of them.

ETS!: Tell me about the Coca-cola contract which was just renewed.

DL: I voted against it.

ETS!: Is the district in a position to pass up that sort of money?

DL: What do you think? Do you know what that money was spent for?

ETS!: I don't recall exactly, something like after school activities?

DL: That's close, some after school activities are funded by that. Do you know who controls that money?

ETS!: No.

DL: You should.

ETS!: Tell me.

DL: The money in question is controlled by student associations, and it goes for things like yearbook, cheer squad, etc. these are not fundamental activities. If the money was going for reading coaches in elementary schools, I might have been less likely to vote against it. It'd be more fun to compromise my principals if the money was going to help kids read, but it's not. The other thing is that my fellow board members amended the thing, saying you can't sell coke until the last bell rings. That took so much money out of it that really, what's the point?

ETS!: So if it were for more fundamental resources you would support it?

DL: I said I might have, I'm just giving an example that it didn't offer itself with any particular values to keep it, as the money could be replaced because it's advertising per se, it's to build brand loyalty. That fact is a violation of our own advertising policies. I disagree with my fellow board members that it's not. I don't think you could vote for it and be consistent with our own policies.