Arthur Hu for Northshore School District Board District 1
(Bothell/Kenmore/Woodinville WA)
You are here: http://www.arthurhu.com/electhu.htm
Endorsements
I lost the primary, so for the final, these are my endorsements:
Julia Lacey (not Buske)
Todd Banks (not Swanson)
Both candidates understand that the big problem with the current board is that they just don’t listen, and they seem to work for the district administration rather than being the advocates for citizens and parents, as their real job is to be OUR elected representatives to make sure our interests and needs are being met.
Thanks, Arthur Hu 8/21/2009
Short Campaign Statement:
My immigrant Asian parents sent 7 children to MIT and Stanford from Renton. I ran for Superintendent of Instruction and LWSD school board, and told OSPI of problems to fix CBA and WASL assessments and math standards before they decided to dump WASL math. “Where is the math?” when books ask for areas of circles while carefully leaving how to find the answer (pi-r-squared) OUT OF THE BOOK? The school board should stand up for parents, not dismiss their pleas. They’ve stood by as on even more tests, homework and graduation projects are piled on kids. I’m a high-tech MIT-grad engineer and columnist on education and diversity. I perform in the Everett Symphony, and church worship. I’ve taught programming in colleges, and helped out youth in scouts and orchestra. Please help make our schools accountable to parents and students. See www.arthurhu.com/elect.htm (141 words)
And The Longer Story:
I'm a parent of 3 boys in junior high and high school in the district. I graduated from Lindbergh High School in Renton in 1976 and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981 with a Masters and Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
My parents came to America from China who raised a family that was written up in the local paper as the family where everybody played violin and sent 7 children to MIT and Stanford. I know something about academic achievement and growing up with average Americans. Many Asians came to America because they wanted to get away from schools that only demand ever more "learning" out of students as if we are measuring factory output. Alfie Kohn believes schools should do whatever it takes to makes the students happy and successful, not endlessly focus on creating even more tests and raising test scores and piling on more homework and graduation requirements. Education should not create more ways to create and label more of our children as failures as "higher order thinking" which stumps parents has replaced mastering elementary facts and methods any 4th grader can do. Education should be a joyful and cherished experience for all, not an arms race. Every child regardless of of achievement and ability deserves to be called a success, even as we celebrate when some excel beyond the norm.
Education for my kids has been dominated by "education reform" which turns seemingly seeks to reverse everything from when we grew up in success. Before the WASL pronounced 70 percent of student were "below standard" in 1997, California's CLAS test didn't allow even one student to get an "A" in math in 1992. My 1st grader was asked his first night to write 10 words in alphabetical order and use each in a sentence. Then he showed me his 1 mile running time. (They don’t run for a mile there anymore) His TERC math book made us spend hours writing cutting, pasting, and counting, but it didn't teach how to borrow or add fractions. This MIT educated parent was the first to complain the 4th grade WASL math problems were too hard for parents, let alone kids.
When we moved to Bothell, Core Plus told my kids all about Nike and Reebok, but not how to solve topics I never heard of at MIT. Connected Math homework asks 6th graders to compute the area of a circle. Yet the one thing they need to remember, pi r squared is NOT IN THE BOOK. When I complained and other parents complained? , the schools told me that this is just the new, improved (?) way that math is being taught. No wonder parents are asking "Where's The Math?"
I challenge the notion that when parents complain, they just don't understand. The real communications problem is that the board should represent the parents and students, not “Big Education”. Somebody needs to tell in no uncertain terms the community has had it with awful textbooks and showing disturbing offensive movies, and decisions where the only real public input is after decision has been made and they realize a mistake has been made. The district needs to be held accountable for dismal performance.
Did you ever feel like Dilbert's boss is running the schools? Are schools supposed to put parents and students through misery to make them look good? No, it is the parents and students who are the customers. We expect excellent service for our tax dollars, and I intend to make the school board hold the schools accountable.
Contact:
Address: 3521 214th pl se Bothell, WA 98021
Phone: 425-286-6657
website: www.arthurhu.com/elect.htm
Campaign Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=101864513126&ref=mf
Press Coverage:
View Videos of PTSA Forum here (taken by me)
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/activism_non_profit/watch/v18859176PPPe7rGy
Watch
Pt
1/2 Northshore PTSA School Board Candidate Forum July 2009 in Activism
& Non-Profit | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/activism_non_profit/watch/v18859175ZjDSE68D
Watch
Pt
2/2 Northshore PTSA School Board Candidate Forum July 2009 in Activism
& Non-Profit | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Woodinville Weekly School Board Forum Coverage
School board candidates speak at forum
by Don Mann - Staff Writer
Seven Northshore School
Board candidates — including two incumbents — spoke and answered questions
Tuesday in the Ricketts Board Room at the district office at a candidates’
forum sponsored by the Northshore Council PTSA. Sue Buske (incumbent), Arthur Hu, Julia Lacey and Jeff Wirrick are running for Director District No. 1 and will face
off in the August 18 primary. Sandy Hayes is running unopposed for Director
District No. 4 and Todd Banks and Cathy Swanson (incumbent) will vie for
Director District No. 5 in the November 3 general election. Each candidate was
given two minutes for an opening statement and pre-selected questions were
administered by moderator Becky Birch. Candidates were given one minute to
respond to questions.
Arthur Hu
: I grew up in Renton which you can argue is a notch up or a notch down from Bothell. My father came on a boat from China but he raised seven kids, he worked at Boeing, and we had seven kids that went to M.I.T or Stanford, and that’s a tough act to follow as I’m looking for what it takes to get into those schools these days. The three boys played music, a little tennis and I played in the Everett Symphony. I worked at high tech companies and (am) still doing it at my age...I wrote columns for my college paper and Asian Week and from that I got into education reform-0-WASL, the whole fuzzy math, whole language mess. I was the one that pointed out that the (math) textbook that they were gonna revise didn’t even tell students how to solve anything. It was not in there. I ran for Public Instruction in 2001.
Most people know me as conservative but I’m against more testing, more graduation requirements, more science, more math. My kids don’t need more anything; they just need a quality education. I believe the job of the school board is not to stand here and tell the community what the administration wants to do; it’s our job to listen to the community and hold the school district accountable and we’re standing up for the parents. I do admire Dawn McCravy If you like her style, you might like the way I’ll be doing things.
NSEA, NESPA, NEOPA School Board Candidate Questionnaires
Click on the name of the candidate below to see how they responded to our
questionnaire:
District 1
Sue
Buske
Arthur
Hu
Julia
Lacey (recommended by NSEA, NESPA, NEOPA)
Jeff
Wirrick
Arthur Hu
Northshore School District No. 417, director district no. 1
Opponents: Julia Lacey, Jeff Wirrick, and Sue Buske
Arthur Hu wants to restructure the Northshore education board by going back to a more traditional style of teaching. He says he does not believe in unnecessary graduate requirements, such as the senior project. Hu wants to decrease the types of homework that the students and parents do not understand, and bring back the traditional ways of teaching. Hu is an engineer and graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
What I posted on the Stranger comments:
Arthur Hu here on the Northshore board
- Sue Buske is the incumbent, pretty supports any and everything the school districts and teachers do, I didn't like her response to why she's gone along with the awfulf math program "she trusts the teachers and administration"
- Julie Lacey has endorsement of democrats and district teacher union / employee groups though she is the challenger, she's running on "transparency" and listening more to the public
- Arthur Hu is an Asian American activist / columnist, ran for OSPI in 2000 against WASL / Bergeson, opposed "fuzzy" reform math since 1990s, and ran for school board in Lake Washington. His complaints were the nails on the coffin for 7th grade Connected Mathematics Project re-adoption (every unit routinely omits the very formula such as pi r squared or line up the decimals that the kids is supposed to learn after the unit) He believes the job of the board is to hold the district accountable to the citizens, not simply sell the public on what the administration wants to do.
- Wyrick is a nice guy, family values conservative, but doesn't identify with any party.
Click for full article: Bothell Reporter
Northshore School District: Trio challenges Buske for school-district seat
School-board
candidate Arthur Hu makes a point while District 4 board candidate Sandy Hayes
listens at a recent forum.
TOM CORRIGAN, Bothell-Kenmore Reporter
By TOM CORRIGAN
Bothell Reporter Staff writer
Aug 07 2009, 9:42 AM · UPDATED
There are three expiring seats on the Northshore School District board of directors. However, one race is already decided and voters will have to wait until the November general election to decide another.
…Also answering questions was District 5 incumbent Cathy Swanson and her challenger, Todd Banks.
Among those taking part in the forum, Hu easily was the most animated. He talked several times of his displeasure with state-mandated Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) tests, speaking against outcome-based eduction in general. Hu said children should not be held to some seemingly arbitrary standard.
….It’s not all about the money,” Wirrick said. “It’s about what you are teaching and how you are teaching it.”
Hu’s comment was similar.
“It’s not about more money, more money,” he stated, adding that with the overall economy in mind, now is not the time for the schools to be seeking huge spending increases.