Superintendent Of Public Instruction Bergeson Vs. Taber: He Has A New Vision; She Has Lifelong Dedication

Voters won’t have to worry about mistaking the two people who want to run the state’s public education system.

Terry Bergeson and Ron Taber are as different as private and public schools.

Bergeson, 54, is a lifelong educator who ends speeches with phrases like “I’m proud of my profession!”

Taber, a 54-year-old multimillionaire, says schools try to indoctrinate children with liberal agendas like international harmony.

Bergeson, a Democrat, has spent the last few years leading a state group that’s working to implement education reform laws.

Taber, a Republican, wants to repeal those laws, which he calls “radical experiments with our children’s education.”

Bergeson adamantly opposes the state initiatives for charter schools and school vouchers.

Taber applauds both and even wrote the voucher plan, which gives parents public money for tuition at private, non-religious schools.

Both Olympia residents want the superintendent of public instruction job that will be vacated by Judith Billings. Billings decided not to run again for the $86,000-a-year post after being diagnosed with AIDS.

Bergeson, who has worked as both teacher and administrator, has run for the office before, narrowly losing to Billings in 1992.

Taber is a retired multimillionaire who made his fortune running low-income rental apartments. He describes himself as a conservative, atheist-turned-Christian.

Bergeson accused her opponent of trying to buy the race after he spent nearly a half-million dollars of his own money on his campaign.

Rivals also berated Taber when he suggested caning student drug dealers and called Spanish the language of fruit pickers and dishwashers.

If Taber flashes his Rush Limbaugh-brand ties, Bergeson just as enthusiastically flashes her 31 years in education.

She has worked as a teacher in Alaska and Massachusetts, a school counselor in Tacoma, and an administrator in Kitsap County. She’s past president of the Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union.

She also led the state Commission for Student Learning and said she’s running for superintendent to protect the commission’s work on statewide learning standards from someone who won’t support it.

Taber says that alone makes her so firmly entrenched in the “establishment” she’d have trouble making necessary changes in a failing system.

Bergeson shakes her head at his comments. She has a completely different outlook.

“We put men on the moon with education,” she told a group of teachers.

“So it couldn’t have been all bad.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE JOB The state superintendent of public instruction supervises the kindergarten-through-12th-grade education program, overseeing the expenditure of almost $9 billion every two years. The superintendent serves a four-year term and is paid $86,000 a year.