Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Tuesday, November 7, 2006
State board of ed shocker — Haverkos wins
(Susan Haverkos)
The big education news story in the Miami Valley on election night is the upset victory of a little known ex-PTA president, Susan Haverkos, over two considerably more well known and better funded opponents — incumbent Tom Gunlock and Oakwood school board member (and radio commentator) Jim Uphoff.
Haverkos said she spent about $3,500 on her campaign, about a third of what Gunlock and Uphoff each spent. Her numbers were really remarkable. She won her home county, Butler, by a 2-to-1 margin and also was the top vote getter in Miami and Darke counties — both pretty far from her stomping grounds. She even gave Gunlock a run for his money in Montgomery County, where the Cenerville resident should have made big gains.
Haverkos is an accountant in a home business. She and her husband have been in business for themselves since 1986 and mostly oversaw heating and air conditioning work for hotels — until Sept. 11, 2001. Anticipating the travel industry’s decline, they branched out into buying telecommunications equipment from failed dot.coms and reselling it, which is what they do now.
They have one child, a daughter, who attends private school. Haverkos said she got involved in her daughter’s public school partly to learn more about gifted programs, even leading the PTA, before pulling out in frustration as the curriculum narrowed to make time for more proficiency testing prep.
Haverkos’ only endorsements came from two conservative groups emphasizing family values — Family First and Citizens USA. She describes herself this way: “I’m very conservative and family values. But I also very much respect all parents, conservative, liberal or in between. They should have more input in public schools.”
She offered that she believes there is a sensible middle ground on the question of teaching intelligent design in schools, a highly controversial issue in Ohio which has divided the state board of education.
“We need to be able to question science always,” she said. “Just look, we don’t have Pluto anymore.”
Haverkos said the debate over intelligent design is too polarized.
“The people who fight so hard to keep Darwinism in the science curriculum, most of that is the very extreme people trying to keep everyone from questioning anything about the theory,” she said. “When you stop questioning science it becomes an ideology.”
The real question, she said, is what to tell kids about the origins of life.
“Did we come out of bubbling ooze or did we come out of something else? That question, to say its been solved, is a stretch,” she said. “For my daughter, I want her to learn there are all these views out there. I don’t want her to learn only my view. Preparing her to be an adult you have to prepare her to come up with her own conclusions based on hearing all those sources.”
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Take your child to vote day
There’s two things I hope you’ll do today. The first thing is I hope you vote. The second is I hope you’ll take your children with you to the polls, let them watch while you vote and talk to them about who you’re voting for and why.
That’s my plan this morning. Think of it as a one-on-one civics lesson. It’s really our best hope for intelligent, engaged citizens in the future, that they learn from adults around them that political participation is an important duty, a thoughtful exercise and that it actually can be exciting and fun.
The first election I really remember getting fired up about was 1980. I really liked John Anderson, the Republican who ran for president as an independent against Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. I was just hitting my teens then. Once I decided he was my favorite, I actually rode my bike downtown to his local headquarters and volunteered, passing out bumper stickers and literature in town.
I think I liked Anderson because he wasn’t Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan. He was sensibly middle of the road and, perhaps because he was an independent with virtually no chance of winning, he spoke his mind while the two party candidates stuck to a careful script.
My parents tried to explain that while they liked Anderson’s ideas but were afraid to waste their votes on a candidate with no chance in a close election. My dad showed me a political cartoon of a guy flipping a coin. The caption said, “Heads I vote for Reagan. Tails I vote for Carter. If the coin lands on its side, I’ll vote Anderson.” I didn’t think it was funny.
I was so naive that I was really disappointed as I watched the returns come in on T.V. that night and Anderson was getting trounced. I began rooting for him to at least get one electoral vote. He didn’t.
Still, I learned a lot from that experience and most of all, it sparked my interest in politics, news and world events. Perhaps it was even a first step toward a career in journalism. But it all started with parents who engaged me in their political discussions and encouraged me to think for myself about the issues.
(Image credit: University of Tennessee libraries)
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