Changing the world, one little kid at a time!
While out riding around Kirkland with City Council member Shelley Kloba she had us looking at this view, and I wasn’t sure why. Turns out we’re a little further away from the pond than I thought and that it’s actually Totem Lake. I did not know this lake actually existed – it’s kinda cool that it does. The hospital and the mall are off to the right in this picture. In the map below the view is from where I put the little yellow number 1. Continue reading “Totem Lake Actually Exists – Who Knew?”
In a Seattle Times Op-Ed today, Peter Ollodart throws up his hands at the prospect of filing sales tax returns in 45 states, and consequently is lobbying against the Marketplace Fairness Act if Congress.
If he really had to do that, I’d agree with him. Of course, under the structure of the bill in Congress he won’t have to. All versions of the bill require that the states pay for software services that would be available free to the business collecting the tax. He would sign up with one of the providers and they would file all the returns for him.
Continue reading “Seattle Times Op-Ed on Internet Sales Taxes Misses the Mark”
I’m pleased to report that the Children’s Alliance named me a “Champion for Early Learning” this year and presented me with this nice box of stale Wheaties.
We made significant moves in early learning for low-income this year and I’m glad to be recognized for it.
New data from DOT on 520 closures – best to plan ahead. If you use the bridge frequently it’s worth checking in on their webpage every now and then.
Plan ahead for SR 520 construction closures as crews prepare for five closures of the floating bridge and highway, one direction at a time, during August and September. During the closures, crews will tackle a variety of work throughout the corridor – from pouring concrete for new bridge columns on the west end to shifting traffic onto new highway lanes near Bellevue.
In an interesting article on the “Center for Public Integrity” website Washington State is called out as having a cost-effective way to make decisions about what medical treatments don’t actually work, and to stop paying for them. This is not without controversy, as you might expect.
In order to cut costs and put Medicare on a stronger footing, many health policy experts say the program must stop covering procedures that do little to improve patient health or are not worth the price tag. But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that administers the program, has for the most part failed to implement such cost-cutting measures, because its authority is limited, cuts are controversial and Congress frequently interferes.
Continue reading ““This Washington” saves money on Medicaid costs”
While I’m not sure I agree with the scary headline of this post from the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, I totally agree that we should be thinking carefully about how we implement a major upgrade of our early education program for at-risk kids. (Good headlines drive more readership, hence I quote it in my title…)
You can read their conclusions here, but the following paragraph is a good summary:
When well designed and implemented third-party randomized trials of good preschool programs generate estimates of effects that are orders of magnitude smaller than those being generated using the age-cutoff regression discontinuity design, it raises questions that should motivate a careful examination of the methodology of the age-cutoff research.
You can see that I have exciting reading habits!
Continue reading “Brown Center: “Obama’s Preschool Proposal is Not Based on Sound Research””
I’m pleased to report that we were able to add just over a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) in new money to education funding in Washington, or about a 12% increase. This is a step towards meeting the obligation to amply provide for the education of all children residing within our borders the constitution calls for and the Supreme Court is requiring us to do in the McCleary decision. My initial proposal was for significantly more. We believe the final bill will be close to $4.5 billion, and we have 5 years to phase into a solution. This budget has 2 years in it, so 2/5 of the eventual problem would require a $1.7 billion increase. We didn’t get there, but what we did do is pretty significant. Continue reading “The Education Budget”
Everybody loves a parade! The Redmond parade is nice – there’s lots of floats, it’s short, the weather is usually good, and it’s well organized. My favorite part of parades is wandering around as everyone is set up waiting for the parade to start – there are a lot of people to talk to and they are usually interesting.
A week has passed since the end of the second (and final) special session this year and I’ve finally put socks and shoes on and shaved. This was an exhausting exercise as the Senate Republicans figured out how they were going to make decisions. I’m pleased we were able to get it done at the end, but would have preferred to have not come so close to the deadline for shutting down most state services.
The final budget addresses most of my priorities:
Washington ranks 30th in total school spending per pupil in 2011
A new report from the U.S. Census provides a wealth of data on public school spending. (Links to all the data can be found here.)
A look at state revenues and spending per pupil can be found in this spreadsheet, Table 11 from the report. It shows that Washington spent $9,483 per pupil, ranking the state 30th, slightly below the U.S. average of $10,560.The table also shows that Washington ranks 30th in total revenues per pupil, $11,329. And, as we noted in our comparative analysis of education funding, we rank relatively high in state spending, No. 15, and lower in local funding, No. 36. (Read entire article here...)
The census data is the raw data on school funding. Typically it’s more interesting to look at some nuanced analysis. For example, the costs of hiring professional staff (teachers) varies by state, with highly urban states having higher costs not just for teachers, but for all college-educated workers, so the same dollar buys less education. This kind of analysis will come in over time.
Dick makes a couple of interesting points that are worth thinking (and talking) about:
Washington ranks high in state support because our constitution requires us to do so. The Supreme Court pointed this out quite painfully in the McCleary decision. Depending on local resources for basic education makes it difficult for taxpayers in low-property value areas of the state to give their children a comparable education to those in more affluent areas, a problem that plagues states that mostly depend on local revenue.
Dick is correct to be concerned about the rising costs of paying for unfunded retirement system liabilities. Washington is also in good shape here compared to many states, but these costs are increasing as we pay for decisions made in the 1970s. It’s important to recognize that these costs are real and must be paid, but that they do not increase educational outcomes for children today. (Essentially we’re paying for educational costs incurred 20-30-40 years ago that should have been paid then but were not.) Ensuring that we adequately fund BOTH the actual educational needs of our children and the constitutionally required costs of paying for decisions made 40 years ago is the task in front of the Legislature today.
