Letter to Seattle School Director Peter Maier

Peter –

During the battle for strong math, I developed a network of parent e-mail addresses and Twitter accounts that spans every single school in the Seattle School District.

My e-mail list includes parents from every elementary school, middle school, and high school in the city.

We are expanding this huge network to include members of local chambers of commerce, Rotary, and other business-oriented groups (all of whom are pleading for the district to produce students who are better prepared for the technologically challenging future) and we are expanding to church groups as well.

The growth of this parent e-mail/Twitter network has become organic and is soaring.

When you come up for re-election the same parents who were concerned enough to write e-mails to plead for Prentice-Hall or something other than fuzzy “Discovery” math, will be doing the same thing – only hugely magnified in scope – to put the word out that you should be defeated for School Board, City Council, or whatever other office you may ever want to hold.

You can spend all the money you want on yard signs or radio ads, you can spend all the weekends and week nights you want door-belling or addressing small community groups. I’ll put the multiplier effect of our network of very involved parents up against you and we will see what happens.

You failed to listen to your constituents on math.

You instead voted the party line of the School District bureaucrats.

School District bureaucrats might vote for you, but parents and business people won’t.

In the same way that Willie Horton became the unwelcomed running mate of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in the 1988 Presidential election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton) our huge – and ever growing -- network of parents and others who care about educating the next generation will make sure your vote for fuzzy “Discovery” math will become your running mate in whatever elections you might enter in the future.

-- Grant Fjermedal

To underscore the poor choice you made in supporting District bureaucrats instead of your constituents, please see this article from yesterday’s Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2009212594_opina13ramsey.html