Lawmaker Continues Attack On Schools Benson Contends District Not Doing Enough For Poor Students

Rep. Brad Benson continued his campaign attacks on Spokane School District 81 this week, airing a radio ad that implies the schools are shortchanging poor students and are wasteful in comparison to private institutions.

The two-term Republican is seeking re-election in the 6th District.

“When (Superintendent) Gary Livingston says the best predictor of a child’s success is the income level of the parents, it hurts me deeply,” Benson says in the ad. “What if my teachers hadn’t seen my potential because I was poor?”

The ad also said that the district spends $7,000 per student annually, “twice the cost of most private schools in the area.”

Benson, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, has made spending on public schools an issue in his campaign against Democrat Bernie Nelson.

In an interview last month, Benson said the teachers union has too much sway over administrators. He said the Spokane district should be cut into five smaller districts, and Mead into two, to dilute the influence.

He said some school administrators and the union were “robbing the taxpayers without getting anything in return.”

He declined to talk about the ad Friday, other than to say: “My concern has always been with public schools that poor kids are underserved.”

Livingston said Friday that Benson’s ad took his quote out of context.

While schools with high poverty rates usually score lower on student tests, the district was spending extra money in the schools to reverse the trend, Livingston said.

Three district “Title I” schools, where half the students qualify for food subsidies, were named among the best in the nation for their innovation, he said.

And Benson’s math on the $7,000-per-student includes the district’s costs to run the KSPS studio and after-school day care, both of which generate revenue. The district spends $5,600 per student on instruction, according to the district, including costly, state-mandated services provided to disabled children, Livingston said.

“As a legislator, he should know what we’re required to do,” the superintendent said. Private schools, Livingston said, usually don’t provide transportation, free after-school sports or alternative programs.

“I don’t understand why he’s doing this now,” Livingston said. “We wouldn’t be passing levies with 80 percent approval if people didn’t feel like they weren’t getting their buck’s worth.”

Nelson called Benson’s criticisms of District 81 a “vendetta. I think the man’s lost all sense of objectivity.”

Benson said in the ad that he was “proud” of the schools his children attend in the Mead district, and that “some public schools are doing very well.”