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from https://mynorthwest.com/jake-and-spike/seattle-school-investigation/4274887

rCyA decade of kids suffered for itrCO: Political consultant explains how Seattle Public SchoolsrCO equity crusade went off the rails
Sep 12, 2026, 5:00 AM

BY JAKE SKORHEIM AND SPIKE O'NEILL SHOW
The Jake and Spike Show, weekdays from 12 p.m. - 3 p.m.
Political consultant and former journalist Sandeep Kaushik spent six
months investigating how Seattle Public Schools dismantled its
top-performing programs in the name of equity, and wound up making
outcomes worse for every student, especially the disadvantaged kids the district claimed to be helping.

Kaushik joined rCLThe Jake and Spike ShowrCY on KIRO Newsradio to share the devastating findings from his research.

rCLIt was really a tragic mistake, and a decade of kids in the Seattle
School District suffered for it,rCY he said. rCLThey misdiagnosed the
problem, and they made it worse.rCY

KaushikrCOs investigation, rCLThe Decade of Decline in Seattle Public
Schools: A Cautionary Tale About Forsaking Educational Basics for
Castles in the Sky,rCY was published on Education Progress. It traces how district leaders gutted gifted programs, relaxed discipline, and
proposed closing the districtrCOs most popular schools.

Kaushik says district abandoned what was working
Kaushik found the districtrCOs leadership abandoned an
accountability-driven model that was producing results and replaced it
with what he calls a culture of rCLidentitarian belonging.rCY

rCLThe theory took hold that the reason poor and minority kids arenrCOt
doing well is werCOre being overly harsh and judgmental towards them, and
if we create this culture of belonging, thatrCOs the key to improving
their educational performance,rCY he said. rCLThen they will feel engaged,
and then they will perform well.rCY

The achievement gap was a serious problem. In 2016rCo2017, Seattle ranked fifth-worst in the country, according to the Stanford Education Data
Archive. Instead of doing the difficult work of reforming entry pathways
and providing targeted support, Kaushik believes they took a shortcut: eliminate any program that disproportionately enrolled white or Asian students.

That meant gutting the Highly Capable Cohort gifted and talented
program, targeting popular option schools offering STEM and language immersion, and putting the schools with the longest waiting lists on the chopping block.

District leaders declared war on their own gifted program
KIRO host Jake Skorheim read from KaushikrCOs report detailing the moment
the district declared war on its own gifted program. In 2019, then-Superintendent Denise Juneau publicly denounced the HCC as a
program of segregation rooted in rCLeducational redliningrCY and labeled Garfield High School rCLApartheid HighrCY and rCLthe slave ship.rCY

When minority parents showed up at school board meetings in 2020 to
testify in favor of reforming rather than eliminating the HCC, board
member Chandra Hampson dismissed them as rCLtokenized fronts for
privileged white parents,rCY according to KaushikrCOs report.

rCLYou have minority parents whose children were part of this HCC program
who then go to the school and say, rCyHey, this is a mistake,rCO and then
the school called them tokens,rCY he said.

Mississippi did it for a fraction of the cost
Kaushik pointed out Seattle Public Schools spends the 10th most of any
of the top 100 school districts in the country.

rCLIt wasnrCOt a resource problem at Seattle schools,rCY Kaushik said. rCLIt was
ideological.rCY

He cited Mississippi as proof that the boring, unglamorous work of early intervention actually delivers. That state identifies at-risk readers by second grade and floods them with intensive tutoring, individualized attention, and learning buddies.

rCLMississippirCOs gone from 49th in the country in educational attainment
to 9th,rCY Kaushik said. rCLOn one-third of the money thatrCOs getting spent in places like here.rCY

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Superintendent admits the district got equity backward
The entire saga reminded Jake of the Kurt Vonnegut short story rCLHarrison Bergeron,rCY set in a future society where exceptional people are
physically handicapped so no one outperforms anyone else.

Kaushik gave credit to current Superintendent Ben Shuldiner, who took
over in February, for being the one who actually introduced the comparison.

rCLHerCOs the one who brought up that story to me,rCY he said. rCLHe says, rCyThatrCOs how we did it wrong over the last 10 years. We did Harrison Bergeron. We didnrCOt do equity the way yourCOre supposed to, of raising up the lower-performing kids.rCO He brings that up all the time and says
thatrCOs not how yourCOre supposed to do this.rCY

Kaushik added that his six-month investigation was driven by two goals:
to create a national case study for the many progressive cities where
similar policies produced similar results, and to force an honest reckoning.

rCLThe memory-holing of this stuff really pissed me off,rCY he said. rCLI just absolutely 100% believe yourCOre never going to do better if you canrCOt
admit and examine what you did wrong in the first place.rCY

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to rCLThe Jake and Spike ShowrCY weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
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