UPDATE:
I did get to listen to yesterday’s debate in my car.
Frankly, there was nothing new. The questions were great, but Inslee and Ferguson lost badly. Neither of them took advantage of their biggest weapons .. the association of McKenna and Dunn with an extremist, radicalized Republican party.
For the most part, the questions I posed below were left as as unanswered as they were. Neither McKenna nor Inslee were willing to take on the painful reality that we can not reform, much less maintain WA higher ed without tax reform or privatization. McKenna, at least made a strong commitment tom increasing funding for higher ed .. a VERY explicit commitment, while Inslee talked vaguely about funding if the economy improves enough. same was true for K-12. McKenna committed to paying the full boat and adding reform while Inslee invoked vague and magical means to meet the needs by seeing that all kids could learn.
As an advocate of charter schools, I was esp. irritated that Inslee read off the tired Washington Education Assn script that charter schools “take money” from pubic schools. This is simply a lie, charter schools ARE public schools. They provide a different model at the same price.
As for Dunn v. Ferguson, Dunn won easily .. portraying himself as the more experienced attorney. Oddly, Dunn’s experience is largely in government while Ferguson should have bragged more about his career in a prestigious private firm. I guess Ferguson, a Dem, could not brag of his capitalist past?
Worse, Ferguson utterly failed to take up the claw hammer to Reagan Dunn on the issue of Obamacare or Mr., Dunn’s other support for the Tea Party Agenda.