Strategic Dodgeball

I am in the eighth grade. When my class plays dodgeball ["The Death of Dodgeball," Fall 2000], two teams are made discretely. Then each captain calls out his or her team. When the game starts, nearly all the people play. When someone is weak and can't throw very well, they get in close or slip around behind him (when we play, there are about 15 feet where both teams can go). For example, when I have the ball I charge, get in close, throw or tag, and move out. By the way, I am not that strong (in throws, anyway), and I have no hand-eye coordination. I can't run very well, but I can still play dodgeball and get people out and play a good game. Oh, and even overweight people can do good in dodgeball if they can shoot baskets well.

Lance Magmer
Manistee Middle School
Manistee, Michigan

Washington's Charter Wars

Your article ["Stuck on the Starting Blocks," Spring 2001] relies mostly on Jim Spady's version of reality about the "charter school wars" in Washington. Jim is certainly entitled to his viewpoint, but I'm surprised that you would present it as if it were the only perspective or the full story. One could argue plausibly that Washington would have charter schools by now if it were not for the character of Jim and Fawn Spady's activities to promote them. The Spadys antagonized many possible supporters with their self-righteousness and politics of personal attack. In their rhetoric either you were with them or you were corrupt or selfish. In 1996, Jim debated Rosemary McAuliffe in one of my graduate classes, and he devoted perhaps a third of his time to personal attacks on her character and integrity. A good number of my students who were attracted to the idea of charter schools were appalled by Jim's behavior.

The Spadys moved quickly from identifying themselves as liberal Democrats to accepting support from Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp and the editorial page editors of the Wall Street Journal — and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from several right-wing donors recruited by same. Much of the funding for the 1996 initiative campaign came from these donors. The Spadys' willingness to identify themselves with these right-wing champions and donors, most of whom were hostile to public schools, led to many folks questioning both the Spadys' real motivations and the desirability of charter schools.

The 1996 charter initiative was much more like a voucher initiative than what was identified as charter in most other states. This initiative had the result of miseducating many Washington voters about what charter schools could be. In 1996 Jim told me that he wrote the initiative himself.

I could go on, but you probably get the idea of my critique from this. I find your article to be simplistic, incomplete, and uninformed about the complexity of events and personalities involved in these issues. I'm surprised to find an article of this character published by the NWREL.

For the sake of establishing my motivations, I voted against the 1996 Initiative because I viewed it as a "backdoor" voucher system. I supported the 2000 initiative until I learned about Paul Allen's involvement. Given his funding and his previous activities in buying elections, I needed regretfully to vote against it.

David Marshak
Associate Professor
School of Education
Seattle University