WEMU offered the opportunity for any candidate appearing on a ballot in Washtenaw County in the 2018 general election to submit a campaign message directly to our audience. Suzanne Perkinsis is running for the Ann Arbor School Board as a nonpartisan. What follows are the audio and remarks the candidate wanted to share with you.
I am Dr. Suzanne Perkins and I’m a proud graduate of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. I am also the parent of two proud graduates of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. I have a UM PhD in educational psychology, am an education neuroscientist and former special education teacher of students with serious emotional disorders. I taught for eight years in Massachusetts in homes for kids who had been taken away from their families. My research focuses on how poverty and child maltreatment affect brain development. I am an active member of the democratic party, have been a member of the AFT and a lifetime progressive.
I decided to run for school board because I want science to be the basis for education policy decisions. Because the role of the school board is to decide policy, we need to do so in an informed and thoughtful matter. During the 15 years that I have been an AAPS parent, we have let the superintendent choose the policy for the schools without little input from the community. Problems such as the long-term achievement gap between black-and-white and rich and poor are not being addressed adequately. It’s time to look to research for what has worked elsewhere so we can decrease the achievement gap. We need to put in place a strategic plan which does not use EduSpeak but instead relies on data to determine whether we have solved the problem and, if not, how to proceed so that we can solve it.
Achievement and discipline gaps are ongoing problems facing primarily those children who are low income or have special needs. They wind up in the disciplinary system, which is detrimental to them and to our community. In the 15 years my children have been in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, those problems have persisted while we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by the cuts that Lansing has been making to education across the board. We’ve been distracted by the number of mandated tests we have had to give. We’ve been distracted by trying to follow state mandates on teacher accountability.
Strategic plans that use terms like “actualizing potential” and “meaningful learning through effective instruction” have been thrust upon us and proven to be ineffective. Instead we need to take a serious look at why the best educated city in the country has not been able to close the achievement gap nor keep low-income and/or special-needs kids out of the school to prison pipeline. We need to stand up to Lansing, raise awareness of and denounce its plan to kill off education with drastic cuts and instead come together as parents, teachers, staff, and kids to be the city with highest achievement in the state and with the most equitable success rates.
I want to change policies so that they match research and are effective in helping all kids to get the most out of their education. Please vote for me, Dr. Suzanne Perkins, on November 6th.