I have been a volunteer at my daughter's schools since she was in Kindergarten. I helped build the school playground at Opstad Elementary School and I have served as the Legislative Chairperson for our Opstad Elementary School PTA. My daughter and I were also involved in YMCA Adventure Club. Sierra is an avid soccer player in the Snoqualmie Valley Soccer League. Last year, her team went to the State Championship Tournament.
Education & Teaching Background
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Science Education from Washington State University and a Master’s Degree in Education and Child Development from the University of Washington. After graduating from WSU, I served as a VISTA volunteer developing an alternative educational program for at-risk youth in Rapid City, South Dakota.
I then spent over 20 years teaching, mainly at Bellevue College, where I taught courses in problem solving and conflict resolution. I am also a ski instructor, climbing instructor and climb leader. I have successfully and safely led over 100 teams of climbers to the summit of Mount Rainier. I therefore know how to lead teams confronted with difficult circumstances and keep them moving towards a goal in the face of adversity. I am also a former Rescue Leader with King County Search and Rescue. Because of my search and rescue work and my courses at Bellevue College, I have appeared on the Front page of the Seattle Times, and other local papers on several occasions. These articles focused on my courses or rescue activities as having “saved lives” of people caught in wilderness emergencies.
I am also a successful small business owner. I started an outdoor store called Wilderness Sports, in Bellevue, with only $12,000 in 1985. This store grossed over a half million dollars a year within 5 years. I eventually sold this business and used the proceeds to build my home in North Bend. More recently, I was an Educational Researcher at the University of Washington under a grant from the National Science Foundation.
I have also taught courses in Web Design and Development at Seattle Central Community College and I do consulting work on website design and development. I am currently the Director of the College in the Clouds, which is a non-profit educational organization devoted to providing the public with free information and low cost courses on building websites using free open source web building tools.
I am also a leader of the Washington Public Bank Coalition, together with my partner, Elizabeth Hanson – and thousands of other concerned citizens across Washington State. Like me, Elizabeth has a Master’s Degree in Education and has been a Community College instructor for more than 20 years. Elizabeth runs our Public Bank website and has a Facebook blog called Occupy the Money System with over 10,000 followers.
David Spring, M. Ed., and Elizabeth Hanson, M. Ed.,
Leaders of the Washington Public Bank Coalition
Creation of a Public Bank would save our tax payers billions of dollars in interest payments now going to Wall Street banks. It would also cut the cost of building public schools and roads by almost 50% by lowering the interest rate – and it would create tens of thousands of jobs. In the 2012 legislature, our bill to create an Investment Trust (House Bill 2434) got 44 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and 12 co-sponsors in the Washington State Senate. For more information on the benefits of a public bank, visit our website: washingtonpublicbankcoalition.org
Above is a picture of my daughter Sierra meeting Ellen Brown, the national leader of the Public Bank Movement, at a Conference on Public Banking at the University of Washington, in October, 2011.
Community Service
I have served as a volunteer on King County and Washington State planning commissions. In the 1990’s, I served for two years on the King County Middle Fork Commission which planned the future of the Snoqualmie Middle Fork Valley.
In 2007, I was also appointed by Governor Gregoire to serve on the Washington State Child Support Work Group where I served for over a year and produced a series of studies on the cost of child rearing. Portions of my studies and recommendations were incorporated in the Child Support bill which passed the Washington State legislature in 2009.
Political Independence
In 2008, after the Snoqualmie Valley School District suffered three consecutive school bond failures in a row, I ran for the State legislature in order to increase school funding. Despite running as a Democrat in a heavily Republican District, and being out spent more than ten to one, I nearly defeated the 8-year Republican incumbent getting 6,000 more votes than any Democratic legislative candidate has ever gotten in East King County.
In the 2010 primary, I defeated a wealthy candidate who outspent me by more than 25 to 1. In the 2012 election, I endorsed the Republican candidate for the State Senate exposing a million dollar bribe that had been given to our former State Senator. I have proven that I am on the side of the honesty in government and am not owned by either political party.
School Funding Advocacy
Since 2008, I have, through a few caring legislators, introduced several bills that would have provided billions of additional dollars in school funding. Unfortunately, after 8 years of trying to convince the state legislature to fully fund public schools, I have reached the conclusion that the state legislature is so corrupt that they are never going to fund our public schools. I therefore decided to run for Superintendent in order to promote an alternative plan to immediately and fully fund our public schools in order to hire more teachers, reduce class sizes and increase the graduation rate in our state.
Provide Students with Fairer Assessments
In 2014, together with my wife Elizabeth Hanson, I wrote a book called Weapons of Mass Deception - about how Billionaire Funded Ed Reform Scams are harming our kids and destroying our schools. You can read most of this book for free at the following link: https://weaponsofmassdeception.org/
As a result of that research, we also created three education news websites: Coalition to Protect our Public Schools.org, Restore GED Fairness.org and Opt Out Washington.org. The goal of all of these efforts is to restore sanity to our public schools. Together, we have written more than 100 articles on important educational topics - read by more than 100,000 people.
If you would like to join our campaign to restore full funding for our public schools, email us. Together we can provide a better education for every child in Washington state.
Regards,
David Spring, M. Ed.,
david (at) springforbetterschools (dot) org