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Wondering about the square signs over 520?
WSDOT sent me an interesting email this morning. “Smarter Highways” is a federal program that the feds are actually paying for. It’s supposed to make the system work more smoothly. I understand the State Patrol will actually enforce the speed limit on the signs, so it’s worth figuring out how they work. ————————- WSDOT will…
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Good News on the Budget
This morning the US Senate approved legislation extending the “enhanced” federal match for Medicaid for another 6 months, starting in January. This is good news for Washington state. The Senate paid for this change with other adjustments in the federal budget, so it doesn’t have an impact on the federal budget deficit, also a good…
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Sales Tax Exemption for Canadian Residents?
British Columbia is making a minor change in their sales tax today that for some incomprehensible technical reasons winds up exempting all of their residents from paying sales tax in Washington. The City of Bellingham and Whatcom county will be heavily impacted by this and have sued the Department of Revenue to get them to…
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Interesting Study on Charter Schools
The US Dept of Education just released a study on charter middle schools that’s worth reading. Click Here for the report. I’ve supported charter schools in the past as a way to experiment with new ways of building schools, but not as a panacea for all students. Just like regular schools, charter schools vary significantly…
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Education Data
For a number of years we’ve been working on improving the collection of data about education. This has been painful – there are 17 different data systems across K-12, plus different systems in each of the higher ed silos and no data collection at all in early learning. We’re trying to make sure we understand…
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Conservation NW – People who do real work
Tricie and I spent last weekend in the Okanogan looking at the work of the local land trust and of Conservation NW, the umbrella organization that is working to protect a corridor between the Rockies and the Cascades. It’s an amazing place. Here are a couple of pictures from the trip – one mine, two…
