{"id":8731,"date":"2011-09-15T16:56:34","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T20:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=8731"},"modified":"2011-09-15T16:56:34","modified_gmt":"2011-09-15T20:56:34","slug":"james-martin-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/voter-guide-2011\/2011\/09\/15\/james-martin-d\/","title":{"rendered":"James Martin (D)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Age: 47
\nOccupation: Chemistry Professor at North Carolina
\nState University
\nWebsite: www.jimmartin4schools.com<\/a><\/p>\n

How long have you lived in Wake County? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

17 years<\/p>\n

Do you have children in the district? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Two children, one at En\u00adloe High and one at Car\u00adnage Middle.<\/p>\n

Why have you decided to run for office? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been civically en\u00adgaged all of my adult life in various capacities. I am very passionate about edu\u00adcation both from the per\u00adspective of a teacher and also from the perspective of recognizing that educa\u00adtion really is the founda\u00adtion for democracy.<\/p>\n

What are the three biggest issues you think the Wake County Public School System faces? In 30 seconds or less, how would you address those issues? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest issue that I see right now is a need for nonpartisan, educa\u00adtion-focused governance. We\u2019ve seen, with the cur\u00adrent school board, partisan ideology trumping an edu\u00adcation focus, and I think it\u2019s very important that we get away from that to be nonpartisan, education-focused. Simply, we need people who know how to govern, which we haven\u2019t had.<\/p>\n

I think we need to better focus on an understanding of evaluating educational quality and achievement. We have allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of de\u00adfining quality based on reading and math end-of-grade test scores. That\u2019s a very narrow and limited perspective of education.<\/p>\n

The third thing that I will highlight is you\u2019ve got to get a much better handle on fiscal matters. We need to make sure that we raise enough money to run our schools. When I talk to parents and PTA members at various schools, they\u2019ll show me rusted out parts of the building that have not been able to be main\u00adtained. We build and for\u00adget instead of build and maintain.<\/p>\n

What do you think are the best and worst decisions the current school board has made? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Best: The best work that this school board has done has been the work to im\u00adprove the discipline poli\u00adcies. We had far too much suspension, far too much one-size-fits-all discipline. I commend the school board for looking into those issues, working to modify the policy. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s gone quite as far as I would like it to.<\/p>\n

Worst: The biggest neg\u00adative in my mind is their decision to govern in a h a p h a z \u00adard fashion rather than f o l l o w \u00ading their own poli\u00adcies. Pol\u00adicy 1005: Responsi\u00adbilities of a Board M e m \u00adber. And I quote, \u201cIt is impor\u00adtant that a board member is nonpartisan in dealing with school matters and that he\/she not subordi\u00adnate the education of chil\u00addren and youth to any par\u00adtisan principle.\u201d Sadly, I do not have a sense that this board has followed that policy.<\/p>\n

What do you think is the most important issue facing your district, and how do you plan to address it? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Issues that we\u2019re facing are much more county\u00adwide than local to a dis\u00adtrict. If there\u2019s one group that needs attention, I be\u00adlieve that it is the middle schools. They have been more overbooked histori\u00adcally than our other.<\/p>\n

What do you think WCPSS should do to address the achievement gap? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The achievement gap is something that we know how to address. We know that it takes early interven\u00adtion. We know that it takes small class size. We know that it takes both hands-on and book learning. We know all of these things. The problem is that we as a society have not been will\u00ading to pay and invest for them. We really across the board need to invest our time and our resources.<\/p>\n

What are your ideas for measuring and improving teacher and student effectiveness in WCPSS? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no simple yard\u00adstick for measuring effec\u00adtiveness. While that objec\u00adtive number may work well for very narrow kinds of assessment, it doesn\u2019t assess creativity. It doesn\u2019t assess independent thinking.<\/p>\n

Do you support merit pay for teachers? Why or why not? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When I hear people talking about merit pay, too often it boils down to, again, student perfor\u00admance on end-of-grade tests. That\u2019s an incredibly poor measure. Teacher pay is pitifully low. If you want to institute merit pay, you need to dramatically increase the base, and then you can have some margin for merit.<\/p>\n

How do you think WCPSS should attract more minority teachers? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To attract minority teachers you\u2019ve got to cre\u00adate a culture that makes sure that they won\u2019t be to\u00adken, that they are respect\u00aded for their credentials, for who they are. Too often we have not recruited minori\u00adties because we have not opened our eyes to see that in fact here is a talent pool that we need to look at.<\/p>\n

How do you feel about the new student assignment plan that\u2019s shaping up? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see a lot of shape yet. I\u2019m not convinced the community is going to be pleased in the long run with a lot of this discussion about a choice plan. There\u2019s still far too much mystery, that wizard behind the curtain who is involved in the selection process in our choice.<\/p>\n

I vote none of the above on almost all of the assign\u00adment plan details that I\u2019ve heard.<\/p>\n

How do charter schools fit in to your concept of a healthy school district? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Charter schools are not something that I spend a lot of time thinking about. My perspective is actually very similar to what I\u2019ve heard Superintendent Tata say, and that is my goal is as he stated was his: To make our public school system so strong that privates and charters are noncompeti\u00adtive. I do recognize that charters can at times deal with a special niche of stu\u00addents whose needs are not being met in more tradi\u00adtional settings.<\/p>\n

How would you address the issue of student discipline? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

From a mechanics per\u00adspective, it would be wise for us to have discipline policies where there was more of a gradation. Let\u2019s say K through 3 has one set of guidelines, maybe 3 through 5, and basical\u00adly have more age-specific discipline policies. May\u00adbe we need to have ser\u00advice to clean up the school grounds. Maybe we need to [have students] do some work in helping prepare for courses. I think if we did a better job at comprehen\u00adsive education, we would have less discipline prob\u00adlems as well.<\/p>\n

What would you do to ensure that WCPSS has the funding to educate its students adequately? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. McLaurin was ab\u00adsolutely correct in offer\u00ading her motion this year that we should have asked the county for constant per capita funding. By ask\u00ading for constant dollars we actually asked for a cut in funding. Just from a logical perspective, if we have peo\u00adple moving to the county, revenue should be coming with that move.<\/p>\n

What was your favorite subject in school? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It probably was a lot of my shop classes through high school, then probably a lot of my science classes when I was in college.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Age: 47 Occupation: Chemistry Professor at North Carolina State University Website: www.jimmartin4schools.com How long have you lived in Wake County? 17 years Do you have children in the district? Two children, one at En\u00adloe High and one at Car\u00adnage Middle. Why have you decided to run for office? I\u2019ve been civically en\u00adgaged all of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[378],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}