Three candidates square off for Madison School Board primary

UPDATE: Sarah Manski and TJ Mertz won the Feb. 19 primary. On Feb. 21 Manski withdrew from the race, but her name will remain on the ballot for the April 2 general election.

Voters will select two out of three candidates in the Madison School Board primary election on Tuesday, Feb. 19. A few key issues stand out in the race including the achievement gap, the role of charter schools, and how to manage budget cuts.

The primary will determine which two candidates for Seat 5 will continue to the general election on April 2. The three candidates are Sarah Manski, TJ Mertz and Ananda Mirilli. The races for Seats 3 and 4 will be decided in the general election, because only two candidates are running in each.

The candidates bring different backgrounds to the race. Manski teaches at Madison College and founded the website PosiPair.com. Mertz, an instructor at Edgewood College, was a member of the district’s equity task force in addition to other education advocacy organizations. Mirilli works as restorative justice program manager at the YWCA in Madison and was on the board at Nuestro Mundo Community School.

The candidates differ in their proposed solutions to the racial achievement gap.

• Manski argues for building public and private partnerships in order to invest more time and resources in helping all students achieve their full potential.
• In a questionnaire for Progressive Dane, which endorsed him, Mertz calls for analyzing and changing district policies, practices and school cultures that exacerbate inequalities. He added he supports devoting more resources and services to students with greater needs and barriers to education.
• The Isthmus reported that Mirilli advocates for finding alternatives to suspensions and behavior referrals as a way to keep kids in the classroom, where learning takes place.

In the debate over the role of charter schools, the candidates agree that if a new charter school were to be proposed, it must be an instrumentality, meaning it would be public and under the district’s control.

• Manski argues that in addition to being an instrumentality, new charter schools would also have to use a curriculum whose model could be implemented in other district schools.
• Mertz answered on a Madison Teachers, Inc. questionnaire that he would not advocate for the expansion of charter schools but might vote for a proposal based on whether the school would fulfill a district need and could be adapted to fit other schools. He would also analyze the impacts, financial and otherwise, on district schools.
• Mirilli also supports instrumentality charter schools, meaning those overseen by the district. She is a former board member at Nuestro Mundo Community School, a free public charter school in the district.

Finally, Mertz and Manski have slightly different plans for dealing with potential budget cuts. 

• Manski would advocate cutting the salaries of the school board members, working with state legislators to increase funding and asking for a referendum to add resources and prevent cuts from affecting classrooms.
• On the MTI questionnaire, Mertz argued for a referendum before allowing cuts to affect schools, programs and services. He also said in an interview with the League of Women Voters that reforming the budget process is one of his top priorities.

After Tuesday’s election, the two remaining candidates will move on to the April 2 general election.