JIM DAVIS

OCCUPATION: Publisher, Portland Remembered Calendars; Owner, Running Outfitter’s

OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Television Producer/Director

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Portland State University, Bachelor of Science; Graduate Study

PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: Elected, Multnomah Education Service District School Board; Appointed, OLCC Citizen’s Advisory Group; Elected, Corbett-Terwilliger-Lair Hill Neighborhood Association Land Use Chair

VOTE FOR EXPERIENCE

Jim was elected to the Multnomah ESD School Board just as the first big cuts to education funding began with Measure 5. He’s the only candidate with the PROVEN LEADERSHIP ABILITY AND INDEPENDENCE to do this job in these tough times. This statement tells who Jim Davis is, what he stands for, what he’s done, and what he wants to do. Compare this with his opponents statements.

JIM’S SCHOOL BOARD RECORD

• Jim saved “Outdoor School” when superintendents wanted to kill it.
• Jim developed NEW REVENUE STREAMS, NOT NEW TAXES, to help fund the budget gap.
• Jim was the boards “Budget Hawk”. (Jim knows beef stew can be just as filling as T-Bone steak.)
• Jim insisted that labor negotiations be fair and quick.
• Jim’s voting record supported school employees 100%.

JIM’S AGENDA

• End “Golden Parachute” big money buy-outs of administration bureaucrats.
• Put 94¢ of every education dollar into classrooms and professional maintenance.
• Stop School Closures!!!
• Dismantle costly bureaucratic empires.
• Return control of classrooms to teachers and school buildings to principals.

NO “HAND-PICKED” CANDIDATE

Jim isn’t the “hand-picked” candidate of politicians or the rich and powerful. He has been endorsed by labor but never by The Oregonian or Willamette Week. He’s too independent for one and too middle-class for the other.

JIM SAYS:

“The true measure of how well we are educating our kids can be found at Roosevelt, Jefferson, Madison, and Marshall. When these students enter college or the trades at the same rate as that of Lincoln or Wilson then we may claim to have a world-class school system in Portland.”


(This information furnished by Friends of Jim Davis)
 


JIM HANNA

OCCUPATION: CFO, Hanna Development, Inc.; Commercial Real Estate Broker

OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Business Teacher, PPS; Int’l Trade Consultant

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: MST, Bus. Ed., Portland State; BS, Bus./Finance-Law, Portland State; Benson HS

PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: Oregon Commission On Asian Affairs; U.S. Army

Leadership:
Jim Hanna knows that:
Failed leadership has jeopardized the future of public education in Portland;
Children are our future;
We are blessed with opportunities to help children gain self-understanding and to become responsible contributors to society;
Students want to learn, contribute, be recognized and accepted;
Parents will support schools that meet the needs of their children;
Taxpayers will invest in and support productive, well-managed public schools;

Jim Hanna will: Encourage positive human relations by promoting responsibility, acceptance, recognition, genuine communications and win/win solutions to disagreements; Promote meaningful and sustainable school reform through genuine empowerment of students, teachers, administrators and parents; Promote safe, efficient school environments that promote trust and bonding, allowing students to experience achievement, satisfaction, self-realization and social purpose; Work to develop school policy that enables professional educators to create neighborhood schools where successful learning and teaching can flourish.

Management:
Jim Hanna will: Support local control of school fiscal functions where high school districts would control most planning, budgeting and management functions now provided by the central administration; Support local control of management functions where empowered and representative school Site Councils allow students, faculty/staff, administrators and parents to develop guidelines and policies under which they work: Support limiting central administration functions to providing only the support services desired by the 10 high school districts.

Financial:
Jim Hanna will: Work to create the Portland Schools Sports Foundation, a non-profit to manage the PIL sports program, an intramural sports program, and other desired activities. Foundation activities funded through sponsorships; Work to create the Portland Schools Arts Foundation, a non-profit to mange District visual, performing arts and music programs. Foundation activities funded through sponsorships; Promote school based budgeting practices and efficient use of District resources.

For more: www.jimhannaforpps.org
(503) 246-0765

(This information furnished by Jim Hanna for Portland Schools)
 


JOHN LILJEGREN

OCCUPATION: Executive Director, Member—Board of Directors, Portland Arts And Science Academy; Field Director, Oregon Public Charter School Service Center; Accountability Coordinator, League of Oregon Charter Schools.

OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Westwood Development Corporation, 1986-1999, Leasing Manager and Assistant General Counsel; Private practice of law, 1978-1986.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Law degree, University of California, Berkeley, 1978; Bachelor’s degree, North Park College, 1974

PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: Citizen Budget Review Committee, Portland Public Schools (2000-2001); Chair, board of directors, Clackamas County CASA [Court Appointed Special Advocates for abused and neglected children].

Personal: Two sons attended Portland public schools from kindergarten through high school; 12 years coaching youth sports; Member of boards of directors of two national non-profit organizations that manage 15 retirement centers, two hospitals, and several other benevolent institutions; Has consulted in more than a dozen Oregon school districts on public school start-up issues.

A vote for John Liljegren is a vote to:

Empower the community, and disempower the bureaucracy
A few years ago, hundreds of community members helped the district develop its strategic plan, which was promptly ignored. If elected, I’ll implement it.

Local School Autonomy: Give real authority to the neighborhood schools. Implement the district’s strategic plan that called for more school-level decision-making. Bureaucrats can’t run schools-teachers and parents can!

The school board should
implement the people’s strategic plan!

In addition, if elected, I’ll work to re-open neighborhood schools. When you close a school, you destroy a neighborhood. Yes, budgets are tight. But we shouldn’t be closing neighborhood schools when we could keep them open by letting the people in the community run them.

Accountability Contracts. Every school should operate under an accountability contract with the district to ensure proper oversight and management.

Live within our means. If we give each school the freedom and authority to operate within a board, clear set of expectations, schools will be able to control their cost. We can then cut unnecessary administrative costs.

(This information furnished by John Lilegren)
 


DOUGLAS F. MORGAN

OCCUPATION: Director, Executive Leadership Institute, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University

OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Director and Professor, Public Administration Program, Lewis and Clark College – 1978-1996

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Ph.D., 1971, in Political Science, The University of Chicago. Masters Degree, 1967, in Political Science, The University of Chicago. BA, Claremont McKenna College, magna cum laude, 1965 Major: Government

PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: Chair, Portland Public Utility Review Board, 1994-2001; Member. City – County Consolidation Task Force, 1998-1999; Member. Bureau of Environmental Services, Co-Mingling Task Force, 1998; Member. Water Resource Advisory Committee. Commissioners Mike Lindberg and Eric Sten, City of Portland Water Bureau. 1991- present; Member. City of Portland Task Force on East Side Freeway, 1994; Member. Portland City Council Mid-County Sewer Task Force, 1991-1992.

I am a committed to maintaining Portland’s reputation for possessing the highest quality public school system for any city of its size in the United States.

• I am a 25-year resident whose two children have been the beneficiaries of Portland’s system.
• As the son of sharecroppers, I know the value of high quality public education in serving the poor and disadvantaged on equal terms with the gifted and economically privileged.
• I have extensive experience in serving on public boards, which has provided me with an understanding of the importance of the Board’s policy leadership role in restoring confidence in our public school system.
• My 20 years of practical experience in doing leadership development in the public sector has convinced me that collaborative approaches among teachers, parents, students, administrators and board members is far more productive than confrontation.
• My candidacy is endorsed by a combination of experienced educators and public leaders who share my vision and commitment to Portland’s Public School system.

Barbara Roberts, former Governor
Dean Gisvold, former school board member
and chair
Gretchen M. Kafoury, former state legislator
and city commissioner
Mike Burton, former METRO Director
Ron Cease, former state legislator
Steve Griffitth, former school board member and chair
Nick Fish, Campaign Coordinator

(This information furnished by Douglas F. Morgan)
 


TERRY OLSON

OCCUPATION: Retired teacher, school and 4-H classroom volunteer

OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Teacher: Evergreen Middle School (Hillsboro), department chair, team leader, union representative; High School teacher: Sandy, Cascade Locks, Lakeview; Evaluation Consultant, Scott, Foresman Company.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Stanford University, M.A. Education; Portland State University, B.A. English, Political Science

PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: None

I run for the school board as a teacher with a deep commitment to public education and a broad understanding of educational issues. I strongly support –

Adequate funding for schools – I believe that funding public education is a community responsibility. I firmly support temporary tax increases. I also advocate the reform of our regressive state tax code. We need a fair and progressive system of taxation to provide stable funding for our schools.

Strong neighborhood schools – Schools are vital to the preservation of Portland’s neighborhoods. Closing schools to save money is poor educational policy, especially when research demonstrates a strong link between small schools and student achievement.

Collaborative bargaining – We need to “…break free of the adversarial style and constricted scope that now characterize collective bargaining in public education.” – Bob Chase, former president, National Education Association. Professional negotiations must include issues of school quality and teacher empowerment, as well as pay and benefits.

A broader definition of student achievement – School report cards rely primarily on the scores from two standardized tests. Test scores can provide valuable feedback to teachers. They should not be used to judge teacher or school performance. Research indicates that such “high stakes testing” rarely results in greater student learning.

School reform – At Evergreen, I led a grassroots effort for school restructuring. As a result a traditional junior high became a model middle school, with team teaching and small communities of learning. Evergreen remains a cutting edge example of school reform in Oregon.

Visit my weblog at www.joesschool.blogspot.com

Endorsed By:
MaryAnn Barnekoff, Retired District Administrator Hillsboro
Linda Hannan, Cleveland Volunteer Coordinator
Portland School Parents:
Robert Steiner, MD.; Sam Steiner; Patricia McRae; Timothy Rowan; Sandra Moat; Joe Sandfort

(This information furnished by Terry Olson)
 


RON STULL

OCCUPATION: CEO Integrityy Pipe & Steel Co; Western Regional Sales Manager Tri State Tubular Inc

OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Merrill Lynch; North Pacific Lumber Co; President Board of Directors Oregon Trails Walk to Emmaus

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: BS Financial Management Oregon State University 1984; Dallas (Oregon) High School 1977

PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: None

As a parent of 4 children in the Portland Public School system I find it more important than ever to take an active role in solving many of the issues facing our schools. When we make a commitment to our schools, we are at the same time making a commitment to our children, and today we need to make that commitment to keep our schools open, well financed, fully functioning and led by a team of Teachers and district personnel working together for the education of our children.

If elected as a member of the Portland public School Board my pledge is to work diligently to address the funding issues, not just for the short term but to address the long term financing the district will require. It is also my belief that it is of utmost importance to have our district administration and the teachers working together as a team so we can raise the level of education for all students. Program cuts, classroom size, and contract issues are all areas where cooperation, commitment and communication will be vital to the success of our schools. This can only be accomplished if we have leadership who understands the importance of working together for the common goal of educating our children.

We have a great school system in Portland, and now is the time, more the ever, to work hard with our teachers and parents so that we have a school system we can be proud of. As a parent, as a Board member, and a citizen of Portland my goal is nothing less.


(This information furnished by Ron Stull)