-After months of fundraising and preparation, Spokane Republican Kevin Parker "officially kicked off" his campaign for Democratic state Rep. Don Barlow's seat with a celebration Tuesday in Spokane. Among his supporters: former U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt. Parker says the event raised $10,000 more for his campaign.

As the clock ticks down to the now-in-August primary, Parker's in an interesting Round 1 race against fellow Republican Mel Lindauer. Parker's campaigning as a high-energy businessman; Lindauer as someone who can work with the statehouse's large Democratic majority.

-Speaking of Nethercutt, he also has endorsed Diana Wilhite, one of several Republicans running for the Spokane-Valley-area seat of retiring Rep. Lynn Schindler, R-Otis Orchards.

-One of the two Democrats facing off to challenge Rep. Larry Crouse, R-Spokane, this fall will kick off her election campaign on her birthday. Linda Thompson, executive director of the Greater Spokane Substance Abuse Council for 15 years, is holding a campaign kickoff on May 29th. (She'll be 55.) The other Democrat in the race: Judi Owens, who filed all the way back in September.

-State lands commissioner Doug Sutherland, a Republican, picked up some bipartisan support this week. He netted endorsements from four former state House Speakers (Bill Polk (R), Wayne Ehlers (D), Clyde Ballard (R) and Brian Ebersole (D)) and three former Senate majority leaders (Dan McDonald (R), Ted Bottiger (D) and Bill Finkbeiner (D, then an R). Sutherland's trying to position himself as a moderate, get-things-done candidate against likely November opponent Peter Goldmark, a Democratic Okanogan rancher who's raised more than Sutherland so far.

-In Tacoma, Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg is ramping up his campaign against Attorney General Rob McKenna with a "second formal kick off" event Thursday. Ladenburg, a longtime prosecutor and Democrat, says that McKenna's been long on promises and short on action. McKenna, not surprisingly, feels otherwise. At this point, Ladenburg's still far behind McKenna's fundraising.

And as a gift to those of you who read this far, here's Brian Bissell's report from Politicker on a weird nominating fight in a Seattle race for a legislative seat. The short form: both candidates are saying they won, with one saying that the whole mulitiple-recount affair is starting to feel "like a vote in Zimbabwe."

NOTE: This post has been updated.

Staci Lehman, who works for the Spokane Regional Transportation Council, was out on Tuesday snapping some photos of a soon-to-be-moved highway weigh station on Interstate 90 near the Washington/Idaho state line.

"We were just doing a Powerpoint on some of the projects that are funded in our master transportation plan," said co-worker Jeff Selle.

Lehman, driving her own car, pulled into the "pretty much deserted" spot, took a couple of photos, and continued on her way.

About 10 minutes later, she says, her privately-owned cell phone rang. On the phone: a state trooper wanting to know why she had been taking those pictures.

She blogged about the experience on the SRTC's transportation blog:

I don't know if this will make you feel better or scare the hell out of you. I'm on the fence about it.

(For those wondering, here's an attorney's concise, authoritative summary of photographers' rights.)

The SRTC post was linked to by one of most-read blogs in America, an...

Also in my in-box this morning is a poll about polls -- I know, I know -- that says, in essence, that nobody cares.

The survey by Findlaw.com found that:

Four out of 10 American adults say they pay little or no attention to political opinion polls...The survey also showed that female, older and more educated people tend to pay closer attention to political polls.

and that

Overall, the FindLaw.com survey results indicate that while most Americans generally believe that political polls are at least a somewhat accurate measure of the views of the electorate, a large percentage of Americans do not pay attention to the results of political polls and the vast majority of Americans say the polls have little or no influence on how they vote.

A May 12 phone poll of 500 likely voters in Washington suggests that "the re-election prospects for Washington Governor Christine Gregiore (D) have improved significantly over the past two months" according to pollster Rasmussen Reports.

The poll shows Gregoire leading Republican challenger Dino Rossi 11 percentage points, 52 percent to 41 percent.

As the polling firm notes, that's a significant change from March, when Rossi drew 46 percent support to Gregoire's 47 percent.

From Rasmussen's summary:

Gregoire is now viewed favorably by 55% of the state’s voters while Rossi is viewed favorably by 49%. For Gregoire, that represents a two-point gain from the previous survey while Rossi’s figure is down two points.

Those figures include 24% with a Very Favorable opinion of Gregoire and 22% with a Very Unfavorable opinion of her. Twenty-six percent (26%) have a Very Favorable opinion of Rossi while 25% have a Very Unfavorable view.

When it comes to the way she has performed her role as Governor, 44% of Washington voters give Gregoire a good or excellent rating. That’s down a couple of points since March. Twenty-six percent (26%) now say she is doing a poor job.

Also from this morning's paper:

OLYMPIA _ No stranger to the state Supreme Court, Spokane attorney Steve Eugster on Thursday found himself in an unaccustomed place: on the sidelines.

Surrounded by about 10 supporters, the former Spokane city councilman watched as lawyers argued whether he should be suspended from practicing law. The state bar association wants to suspend Eugster while it finalizes its disbarment case against him for allegedly betraying an elderly client.

The court issued no immediate ruling. But judging by the reactions of several justices, Eugster's full-court press to avoid suspension – including dozens of letters to the court from friends and attorneys – may work. Several justices seemed inclined to let Eugster continue work under another lawyer's supervision. He said he has only three clients.

Justice Jim Johnson cited Eugster's 38-year career with no prior discipline. Beside him, Justice Susan Owens visibly scoffed when bar association attorney John Burke mentioned an anonymous 2004 Spokane attorney poll. (It gave Eugster low marks for legal ability, temperament and integrity.) And Justice Charles Johnson seemed sympathetic to Eugster's version of his dilemma: what to do when a client seems mentally impaired.

Seen by some as dogged defender of the public interest and by others as a litigious gadfly, Eugster faces possible disbarment over his treatment of Marion Stead, an 87-year-old Colville widow who hired him in 2004.

She was upset and suspicious of how her only child, Roger Samuels, was handling her financial affairs. But Eugster said she also badly wanted to see her son and wanted to include Samuels' daughter in her will.

As ordained minister Virgil Montgomery describes it, the trip that landed him before the state's highest court began with a few errands.

On a shopping trip to Spokane, the 60-year-old Newport man and a 63-year-old friend bought some matches for his woodstove. And some cough medicine. And some acetone to remove old floor tiles in his old trailer. And a bottle of hydrogen peroxide to treat a dog's cuts.

By the end of that day in 2004, their borrowed Geo Storm contained a new pair of reading glasses from the Dollar Store and five of the nine ingredients to manufacture methamphetamine. And police had been trailing them since that first cold-medicine purchase at a Spokane Valley Target store.

Montgomery and his friend were arrested, tried and convicted of intent to make meth. But on Thursday, Montgomery got a pleasant surprise from the state Supreme Court. In a unanimous ruling, the justices threw out his conviction and ordered a new trial.

The court didn't say Montgomery was innocent. On the contrary, Justice Tom Chambers wrote that his "conviction was supported by substantial evidence." But...

From this morning's paper:

OLYMPIA – It’s been a busy couple of months for some local political candidates, judging by their fundraising reports. Consider:

•Two Spokane Republicans, businessman Kevin Parker and optometric physician Mel Lindauer, are locked in an expensive faceoff to determine who will challenge 6th District Democratic state Rep. Don Barlow, D-Spokane;

•Democratic challenger John Driscoll has raised nearly as much as the lawmaker he’s trying to oust, Spokane Republican state Rep. John Ahern;

•Spokane attorney and judge Debra Stephens, despite only a few months on the job as Washington’s newest Supreme Court justice, has raised more than $65,000 for her re-election campaign this year. That’s far more than anyone else running for the high court.

“I feel like we’re on pace with where we want to be,” said Parker, who’s trailing Lindauer slightly in fundraising. Both, however, are well ahead of Rep. Barlow, who like most state officials was barred by law from raising money during the recent legislative session.

Further afield, Okanogan County rancher Peter Goldmark has outraised his opponent, state lands commissioner Doug Sutherland. And Shelly Short, a late but well-known entry into the race for an open 7th district legislative seat representing the state’s rural northeast, has already outraised opponents who’ve been campaigning for months.

Here’s a look at the money flowing into some local and statewide races. (Numbers are rounded.)

Rep. Mary Skinner, R-Yakima, said today that she will not run for re-election this fall.

"After long and careful consideration and much prayer, I have decided not to seek an eighth term in office as state representative and will retire in January," she said in a press release.

Skinner, who recently battled colon cancer, said that the disease is in remission and that she remains healthy.

"I do feel fine and I want people to know that my retirement has absolutely nothing to do with my health," she said. "However, when you have faced cancer, you begin to view life in a different perspective." She said she's gained a deeper appreciation of life, friends and family, and that after 14 years in the statehouse, "it is time to return to them."

Skinner, a former teacher, is a lifelong resident of Yakima.

From today's paper:

OLYMPIA - A task force trying to pare down the long list of things that government officials are allowed to keep confidential ran into a buzz saw Tuesday, as agricultural lobbyists railed against a proposal to disclose more farm-related data.

And that was before one member of the group accused the others of breaking the open-meetings law and threatened to quit.

Washington's "Sunshine Committee," made up of attorneys, lawmakers, journalists and others, has struggled since January to agree on changes to recommend to the Legislature. The group is supposed to be combing through the hundreds of exemptions to the state's Public Disclosure Law. But even the things that once seemed like easy pickings -- like a much-mocked protection for the growing records of American ginseng farmers -- are stirring up fierce resistance from industry lobbyists and privacy advocates.

"You're taking a meat axe to something, with no compelling reason to do it," protested Jim Halstrom, who works for the state horticultural association. He and other farm groups objected to the group suggesting that agricultural data provided to state and local government agencies be disclosed, so long as it's not financial, competitive or proprietary information.

"You're subjecting my farmers' information to scrutiny by the public" without showing there's a problem, Halstrom said. He called the proposal "ludicrous" and said the committee is just "a cynical political exercise pandering to a public perception that there should be openness in government."

Committee members have argued that there are obvious health and safety reasons for more openness about things like farm chemicals. And member Ramsey Ramerman, an attorney, was clearly frustrated by the pushback.

"We have not gotten any guidance from the agricultural community except `Don't touch it,'" he said of the proposed change in the law.

...The group also bogged down frequently Tuesday over questions from one member about how it's doing its work.

State Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, blasted her fellow committee members for not getting out more information to farm groups. She was also angry that when the committee met in April and not enough members showed up for a quorum, those present went ahead and discussed exemptions anyway.

"If you don't have a quorum, sir, you don't meet," she told Tom Carr, the Seattle city attorney who chairs the panel. "I'm just saying, I don't want to be a part of anything that's going to be working in secret."

The two repeatedly struggled to talk over each other.

"You just jump right in there because you're an ardent liberal Democrat and like to come after me," Roach said at one point. "I'm fodder, right, for you?"

Carr said there was no ill intent. Those who showed up for the meeting, he said, knew they couldn't make any decisions without a quorum. But they figured they might as well make good use of the time and prepare for the next meeting.

"Please don't insult the work of the subcommittee. These people work hard," he protested.

Here are some samples of the back-and-forth between Roach and Carr. NOTE: Turn down the volume on your computer before opening these.

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(Audio feed courtesy of and copyright TVW.

From today's paper:

SEATAC _ The opening-day convention crowd was a lively, thousand-strong mass of people. The ballroom swelled with cheers for door prizes, then faded to back-of-the-room chatting.

In front of this crowd, Richard Semler rose. With little introduction, he painted a stark picture from his boyhood: the day his mom told him that she and his dad were divorcing.

“That conversation destroyed my life at that age,” he said. “We were dirt poor.” At night, he said, the family would go to the grocery store and gawk at food they couldn’t afford.

The crowd fell dead silent as he continued.

“And the school? I hated school,” he said. “I hated studies. I hated my life…And if it were not for three teachers at Shadle Park High School at 13, 14, 15 years old, I would not be here today.”

Welcome to the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, an emotional five-way battle for what the candidates say is the most important thing of all: our children’s futures.

The race pits a controversial 12-year incumbent, Terry Bergeson, against Semler and a third strong candidate: former lawmaker and union leader Randy Dorn. The battleground issues: student testing, teacher accountability and school funding.

“This is about kids,” said Dorn, painting a picture of an educational system hamstrung by testing pressures, ineffective leadership and straining budgets.

Here’s a look at the three major candidates so far, as well as two longshot ones.

(Photo info: Rich Semler, right, speaks to the Washington State Parent-Teachers Association convention in Seatac May 2. At left is candidate Don Hansler; center is incumbent Terry Bergeson. Photo by Richard Roesler/The Spokesman-Review.)

State Rep. Don Barlow, D-Spokane, says he's doing well after recent heart surgery at Sacred Heart hospital in Spokane.

"I'm feeling much better than I or anyone else expected at this stage," he said in a press release.

Barlow had the surgery to repair a congenital defect in a heart valve. He said he's known about the condition since he was a boy "and it was finally time for a tune-up."

Barlow, elected two years ago, is running for re-election this year. He said he'll take things easy for the rest of this month, but will be back in action in June. He's staying in touch with his legislative duties by phone and e-mail, and said he's eager to hear from folks while he's on the mend.

He's at barlow.don@leg.wa.gov.

The state Democratic Party is seeking donations to hire a plane to fly around Seattle skies on Tuesday, trailing a banner reading "JOHN MCCAIN: 100 YEARS IN IRAQ."

Tan Lam, a Vietnamese refugee who came to America in 1982 with a fourth-grade education and went on to get a master's from Dartmouth, is running for the 33rd District (Des Moines, Normandy Park, Burien, SeaTac, Kent) seat held by Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Burien, a former Senate staffer who chairs the House ecology and parks commission.

Catching up...

-- Dinner with John McCain in Bellevue can be yours next week, for $33,100 a plate.

-- The Everett Herald's Jerry Cornfield takes a closer look at the widespread budget woes of school districts.

-- And finally this: An impasse between a Texas-based educational foundation and the union-backed state compensation rules for Washington teachers has cost schools -- including Spokane's -- more than $13 million in math and science help for thousands of students.

It looks like The Vancouver Columbian's Howard Buck broke that story Saturday:

A $13.2 million, five-year grant from the National Math and Science Initiative, designed to add new Advanced Placement teachers, courses and exams for thousands of Washington high school students, has been scrubbed.

The reasons?

The state’s rule against merit pay for teachers, and top-down inflexibility, said discouraged Southwest Washington program leaders who broke the news Friday.

...Despite weeks of talks, no way was found around teachers union collective bargaining rules to meet the rigid guidelines of the grant organization.

Among the casualties: state Rep. Bill Fromhold, D-Vancouver, who said months ago that he'd step down from the Legislature this year in order to run the grant. As Buck wrote, "the job has evaporated." More:

Rich Wood, spokesman for the Washington Education Association, said many nonprofits have granted money to school districts without this outcome.

“Some outside group can’t impose a new system of pay on teachers,” Wood said. “That’s just not the way that schools work in our state.”

The Seattle Times had a similar story on Monday.

In an op-ed in Spokane's alternative weekly, The Inlander, state Sen. Chris Marr blast Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi's recently announced transportation plan as a bad idea that would "gut" the state's main checking account largely to pay for western Washington roads.

Speaking of equity, for a plan that bills itself as a "statewide" proposal, it decidedly focuses on Puget Sound projects. Excluding a purported $2.2 billion investment in the North-South freeway, it spends only $129 million — less than 1 percent of diverted tax revenues — on seven small Eastern Washington projects. And watch out for Rossi's attempt to make "congestion relief" the top transportation priority — trumping safety, maintenance and economic vitality. This is code for moving expensive Puget Sound projects to the front of the line, at the expense of freight mobility, farm-to-market roads and modest investments in Eastern Washington projects with far greater bang for the buck than floating mega-bridges and waterfront tunnels.

The full column is here.

The state's Parent-Teachers Association held its annual convention in Seatac last week, drawing more than 1,000 people from across the state. Here are some highlights from a panel discussion on a topic that's sure to dominate the five-way race for state superintendent of public instruction this summer: the controversial Washington Assessment of Student Learning test.

The WASL is now a "high-stakes" test, meaning that the Class of 2008 is supposed to pass parts of it – or otherwise show they know the material – to get a high school diploma. But the test remains a lightning rod, with many educators saying it now overshadows other important aspects of education.

"It's unfortunate that the test has become the poster child of all the things that maybe aren't working in this system," said state assistant superintendent Joe Willhoft. Regardless of the test, he said, schools need more resources and tools to improve instruction.

"It's as if we have taken our temperature and noticed we had a fever, and now we're trying to blame the thermometer," said communications consultant David Fisher. He argued that the debate over the test shouldn't eclipse the need for high standards and accountability.

But despite a "menu" of alternative assessments for kids who cannot pass the WASL, "Students do not experience it as a menu," said Yelm high school teacher Lester Krupp. "They experience it as increasing confusion and pressure…It just adds to the likelihood they'll be overwhelmed."

Spokane Education Association president Maureen Ramos cited Spokane's success bringing up test scores at schools with even very-low-income students. How? By changing the curriculum, training teachers, and forging a coordinated plan to improve.

Yes, Ramos said, schools need an accountability system. But it's a mistake, she feels, to pin so much on the WASL. Kids are exhausted, she said, and the pressure leaves some in tears. It's unfair to children struggling to learn English, she said, and the high-pressure testing often doesn't reflect what a child really knows.

"The WASL has overrun its premise," she said.

From this morning's paper:

OLYMPIA _ For decades, Washington has encouraged its teachers to get graduate degrees. The theory was that more education makes a better teacher.

A five-year teacher with a master’s degree, for example, earns 19 percent more than a five-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree. A doctoral degree bumps the salary up roughly 14 percent more.

More than 60 percent of Washington teachers have graduate degrees, well above the national average.

But do advanced degrees result in students getting higher test scores?

In most cases, the answer is no, the state Legislature’s research arm reported Tuesday, citing its analysis of more than a dozen studies.

“Teachers with a graduate degree do not improve student test scores more than teachers with a B.A.,” Steve Aos, assistant director of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, told an education task force in Olympia.

The exception, he said, seems to be math and science. Some studies suggest that advanced degrees in those subjects improve learning.

What really seems to make a big difference across the board, he said, is experience, particularly early in a teacher’s career. On average, there’s a spike in student achievement in a teacher’s first six years on the job. And the improvements in test scores continue – although not as dramatically – for at least 20 years. The data comes from 15 studies analyzed by the institute.

Such findings could influence lawmakers as they try to overhaul basic education funding, one of the state’s thorniest budget topics. The state’s Basic Education Finance Joint Task Force has until December to accomplish two goals: One, find a way to steer more money into education, and two, make the state’s arcane school-funding system simpler and fairer.

“This is an opportunity we won’t get again in our lifetime,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson told the other task force members Tuesday.

Although reportedly trailing Gov. Chris Gregoire in fundraising last month, Republican challenger Dino Rossi recently celebrated a milestone: racking up as many individual campaign contributions as he got during his entire 2004 campaign.

To thank the 30,746th donor this year, Rossi led a sort of Prize Patrol trip to the door of an Auburn woman named Rhonda. (The prize: some balloons and Rossi's 2005 book.)

Along the way, Rossi tells the video camera: "Sixty two percent of our contributors now are people that are new to the campaign, people that did not participate last time," he said.

The soundtrack? The Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda," which abruptly cuts out just before the final words of "Help me Rhonda, yeah, get her out of my heart."

Gov. Chris Gregoire, meanwhile, got the endorsement today of the Washington State Labor Council. At the group's annual convention, more than 350 union delegates voted -- unanimously -- to back her. They represent more than 400,000 Washington union members.

Here's Rossi's video clip:

The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs today issued a preliminary report on crime last year. The upshot: statewide, major crimes dropped 8 percent compared to 2006. The number of major crimes per person is down slightly more (10 percent).

Violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault) dropped 2 pcent, with murder down nearly 6 percent. Also dropping: property crime (down 9 percent), particularly car theft (down 18 percent).

What's going up? Hate crimes, apparently, or at least the reporting of them as such. Nearly 200 incidents of hate- or bias-motivated crimes were reported last year, totalling more than 250 offenses. That's a 15 percent increase.

Locally the overall picture is a bit bleaker. Violent crime was up 10 percent in the city of Spokane last year, for example, although it dropped slightly in nearby Spokane Valley. And in areas covered by Spokane County Sheriff's deputies, it was up a striking 30 percent.

Violent crime was up slightly in Stevens County, down in Pend Oreille County, and down sharply in Ferry County, although it's important to note that small differences can skew the percentages wildly in small jurisdictions. The number of reported rapes in Pend Oreille County, for example, dropped a startling 50 percent -- meaning 2 in 2006 and 1 last year. Other interesting data: Property crime was up in Whitman County.

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee will be in Spokane May 20 to headline a $40-a-head "Friends of the Family Banquet" at the Spokane Convention Center.

The governor's office is holding four "roundtables" with small businesses this year, intended as listening posts at which small business owners can tell Olympia what's working and what's not.

As Faith Lumsden, head of the governor's Office of Regulatory Assistance, said in an announcement about the meetings, "Please tell us what it takes to make Washington an easy and affordable place to do business."

For people in Spokane, Yakima and the Tri-Cities, it apparently takes a big carbon footprint. The only Eastern Washington meeting (May 29, 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.) is in Wenatchee.

UPDATE: A reader notes that last year's meetings included Spokane and the Tri-Cities: "So maybe it was just Wenatchee's turn?"

Thanks for the note.

Thanks to I-872 several years ago and a recent ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, Washingtonians are about to vote in a new pick-no-party primary this summer. The top two vote-getters for an office -- regardless of party -- will face off on the November ballot.

The ballot (or polling place) will be marked with a note saying:

"Washington has a new primary. You do not have to pick a party. In each race, you may vote for any candidate listed..."

Each candidate will get a chance to list a "party preference" and the ballot, like this:

-Chris Gregoire (Prefers Democratic Party)

But as I've written before, candidates are free to put whatever they want in between "prefers" and "party," so long as it's 16 characters or less and isn't obscene.

"If the name of the political party provided by the candidate would be considered obscene, the filing officer may petition the superior court" to have it edited, the rules say, or replaced with "states no party preference."

From tomorrow's paper:

That was the upshot of a ruling Thursday by the state's highest court, which upheld the conviction of a Ferry County man who allegedly had his friends stalk his ex-girlfriend.

The ruling overturned an appeals court, which had concluded that the crime of stalking cannot be accomplished through a third person.

Wrong, said Justice Pro Tem Bobbe Bridge, writing for the court's 6-3 majority.

(Click here for the dissenting opinion.)

The case involved Andre Paul Becklin, a 58-year-old retired logger, miner and driller who lives in Republic.

Starting in 1992, Becklin had what the court described as a "tumultuous" relationship with his girlfriend at the time, Mary Alison McGee. The two frequently got into fights, particularly after McGee ended the relationship. During a dispute over custody of their son, now 10, Becklin tried to force his way into McGee's home. She got a protection order in 2003. He couldn't contact her – even through a third party -- or come within 100 feet of her.

Despite that, McGee testified at trial that Becklin's friends repeatedly drove Becklin's cars by her home. One reportedly trailed her home from court. Two of his friends said they filled out written reports for him, detailing where they'd seen McGee around town.

McGee went to police, who arrested Becklin for violating the protection order and stalking her.

In tomorrow's paper:

In a ruling that could affect some other sex-offender cases, a sharply divided Washington Supreme Court on Thursday said that a Vancouver man was wrongly committed as a sexually violent predator.

Several dissenters on the court agreed that there was a technical mistake in the case, but said it didn't merit freeing the man.

The court challenge came from Sheldon Martin, a kidnapper and sex offender arrested in 1992 in Portland, Ore. and sentenced to a year in prison. He was also sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for a Vancouver, Wash. burglary and indecent exposure. Only the Oregon crimes fall under Washington's sexually violent predator law, which allows the state to continue to hold dangerous predators even after they've served their sentences.

Court opinion: click here.

Dissent: click here.

As rumored for more than a week (hat tip to the TNT's Joe Turner), former Democratic lawmaker and current union executive director Randy Dorn says he's running for Superintendent of Public Instruction.

That makes it a race between three strong candidates: incumbent Terry Bergeson, seeking another term; Richland superintendent Rich Semler, and now Dorn.

Bergeson is a former Washington Education Association president who's locked horns with the union over her support for the controversial Washington Assessment of Student Learning test. So much so, in fact, that the union has (as it did four years ago) endorsed a Bergeson opponent: Semler.

Dorn is executive director of the Public School Employees of Washington, a smaller union that represents the rank-and-file workers in schools: bus drivers, food workers, aides, and so forth. Dorn says the WEA also encouraged him to run.

Even though there are many months between now and Election Day, it already seems pretty obvious that the race will revolve around two glaring issues: teacher (and some parent) unhappiness with the WASL test and how to come up with more money for schools.

Dorn said he thinks the WASL woes are fixable. There needs to be some sort of testing, he said, but it should be faster, better-quality and something that provides feedback that teachers can use to hone their instruction of individual students.

The bigger issue, he said, is stable funding for a 21st-century education. As things stand now, Dorn said, things like school security, technology and tutoring for struggling students aren't considered part of the state's basic funding formula.

In what I'm guessing is the first of many such events, Semler and Bergeson (and nice guy but longshot perennial candidate Don Hansler) are slated to be at a candidates' forum tomorrow at the annual state PTA conference in SeaTac.

Here's an interesting analysis of the race so far from blogger Ryan at the I Thought a Think blog.