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School Levies
For the past two years we’ve had a group of technical experts working on proposals on how to fix school levies. They just released their report, available here. The report is amazingly detailed and is a great introduction into how levies work and some possible approaches to fixing the problems. I read the immediately previous…
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Education Funding
I’ve received hundreds of email messages this session urging me to not cut education funding. I agree. I tried very hard this year to have the least impact on K-12 as possible in the budget process. The House budget proposal was better for K-12 than either the Senate’s or the Governor’s proposals. In the final…
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Fun visit to Franklin Elementary in Kirkland
I visited Franklin Elementary in Kirkland on Monday and was very impressed with the sixth graders. They had thoughtful questions and were engaged for an hour, even with my wonky answers. One young artist sketched a portrait while I was there. Visiting schools reminds me of why I do this job.
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House Budget Proposal
Earlier this month I released the House budget proposal for 2011-13. Just before the end of the regular session, the Senate released their proposal. I asked for the job of chairman of the budget committee, but it’s clear my timing with the economy might have been better. This budget is responsible, thoughtful, and sustainable. I’ve…
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March 12 Town Hall
The 2011 legislative session is now halfway through. State Sen. Rodney Tom (D-Bellevue) and Reps. Ross Hunter (D-Medina) and Deb Eddy (D-Kirkland) invite Eastside residents to a Town Hall on Saturday, March 12 for an update and discussion on the budget and other legislation of interest. When: Saturday, March 12 at 10:30 a.m. Where: Redmond…
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Education Bills
Many PTA parents have written in about a number of bills and I’m consolidating my responses in one post. The critical decisions we make about education this year will be how we decide to move forward with a long-term budget strategy. We need to decide as a state if we are going to live up…
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Answering Email
I’m sitting at my desk in Olympia answering email, mostly about the budget. Lots of people are writing in about different subjects, but all have the same theme – protect MY program. This is pretty interesting and useful data, but it’s hard to make decisions based on it. For example, I get a lot of…
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Unemployment trends re-emphasize need for education
This graphic from an article on the Brookings website is a clear exposition of why a larger and larger fraction of our workforce should engage in higher education. Not everyone is going to get a BA or a BS, but a larger fraction of our students need more education past high school, and we must…
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Tech Jobs in Washington
Last week I met with the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) to talk about their agenda for 2011. No surprise, it’s about jobs here in Washington. What surprised me was how they chose to spend their time in the meeting. We had an hour set aside (but took 2). They started with over 45 minutes…
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Impact of Early Learning
The New York Times had an article this weekend on the impact of Kindergarten teachers on student success later in life. It’s worth reading for lots of reasons, but perhaps the title is good enough: “The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten teachers.” The conclusions of the article are pretty useful: Successful early learning matters: “Students who…