-
Frustrating but Powerful
This week I attended a meeting hosted by the Mockingbird Society where foster youth and young alumni of “the system” present proposals they’ve worked on in small groups for a year on how to improve their experiences. This isn’t the first time I’ve attended this event, and it won’t be the last. These young people…
-
Eastside Schools Rock
5 of the top 5 high schools in Washington State and 5 of the top 200 high schools in the nation are in either the Bellevue or Lake Washington School District, acording to the annual US News and World Report 2012 ranking. While not an uncontroversial ranking (it doesn’t include Bellevue’s football prowess, for example)…
-
End of Session Budget Update
Thank you for allowing me to represent you in the Washington State Legislature. It’s an honor and a privilege. This year was pretty “special.” There’s nothing like a little drama to spice up a legislator’s life. This session had it all – defections on budget votes, protesters requiring hearings to be shut down, people being…
-
Educational Goals: penny-wise and pound-foolish decisions
The Ways and Means committee heard a number of contentious bills Saturday, including HB 2538, which is intended to save money for school districts by reducing requirements that the legislature has placed on them without funding. It was requested by the governor, and most of the savings came from lowering the frequency of audits when…
-
Landmark Supreme Court Case
The week before session the Washington Supreme Court decided the McCleary case unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs – two families and a number of school districts who claimed that the state had historically underfunded its primary duty to fund education. As those of you who have followed my writings over the years know, I…
-
K-12 Funding Proposal – Additional Data
I am posting CSV versions of the two data tables as several people have requested the data in searchable formats. We are typically careful about doing this as people can manipulate the data in ways that say different things than the original presentation did, and I’m hoping people are careful with it. The proposal will…
-
K-12 Funding Proposal – Local Levy Swap
I’m stepping outside my role as Ways and Means chairman to put out a personal proposal for comment. The idea described below is a big one, moving around about a billion dollars in property taxes that are used for the support of public schools. I’m giving a speech on this topic Saturday morning at the…
-
WA Budget – Proposed Agency Cuts Explanations
I used this document in a caucus discussion of the proposed agency cuts and thought it might be interesting to people. It’s a long PDF with a duplicate copy of the spreadsheet referenced in my last budget post. To understand the spreadsheet you need to read the earlier post first. There are 6 pages here…
-
Continuing Economic Distress
This is a fascinating chart that shows the difference between the current recession and everything after the Great Depression. As you go further back in time the data become less and less comparable to today’s situation, so we can’t really look at the craziness in the 19th century. I’m reading a lot of economics these…