The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is on the 2024 ballot, along with the other statewide offices. The editorial board of The Seattle Times previewed the OSPI race, calling it “a class on competing ideologies.”
Although several candidates have announced their plans to run, the editorial focused on the incumbent, Chris Reykdal, and two of his challengers, Chad Magendanz and Reid Saaris.
The editorial board explained the early attention by saying the “issues are urgent and complex, so it’s imperative to get the conversation started early.”
Although many parents of school-age children are concerned about lower student achievement since the start of the Covid pandemic, Reykdal labels “learning loss” a “misnomer,” despite the overwhelming research documenting the problem. He describes his campaign as a referendum against “extremists” who pursue “personal gain” by promoting lies about public education.
Reid Saaris has focused on education as a career, creating Equal Opportunity Schools, a national nonprofit committed to getting disadvantaged kids into advanced courses. He has also authored a book on equity in education, “The Kid Across the Hall” and taught at Rainier Beach High School.
Chad Magendanz, a former Republican state legislator and past president of the Issaquah School Board, has expressed concern about “partisan political ideology in our classrooms” as a reason for entering the race. Since leaving the Legislature in 2017, Magendanz has been a full- time computer science teacher in Bellevue.
The editorial described the candidates by saying, “An ardent supporter of charter schools, Magendanz is in many ways Reykdal’s polar opposite.
