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Legislature Still has Work to Do
You may have read in the press that the Legislature got a budget done by midnight on June 30th, allowing the state to continue providing unemployment assistance, Medicaid, childcare, public schools, college classes, and all of the other things that we have decided to do collectively. I am frustrated that we were unable to come…
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(Almost) Post-Session Advice
You’ll start getting some (almost) post-session notes from me now that I have time to digest what happened and what still needs to be finished. I have not had time recently to keep up with posting the advice cards I got from kids at Somerset Elementary in Bellevue so I’ll release several as catch-up. I…
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WSDOT: Public Tours of the New 520 Bridge – Register Today!
[Update 7/13/15] The text below is from WSDOT, not from me. They are offering this tour. It’s probably full by now anyway. They may offer more, so it’s worth watching the space if you are interested. Registration opens today for next public tour of the new SR 520 floating bridge Are you curious about complex…
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Bills I’m Hearing About – Voting Rights, Erin’s Law, Solar and Front License Plates
I’m getting a lot of mail about a handful of policy bills that did not pass during the regular session. While most of them seem like reasonable policy to me, it’s difficult to imagine that the Legislature will come to agreement on them at this point since we were unable to in the regular session…
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Meeting on K-12 Compensation and Levy Reform
[UPDATE 5/20/15 10:30 PM We will be on TVW. You can find it on their website or click here.] As I mentioned in my last blog post and newsletter, I think it’s necessary to discuss the details about levy reform in detail and in public. Tomorrow, we are hosting a work session on K-12 levy…
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Respectful and Understanding…
More useful advice from the fourth graders of Somerset Elementary School in Bellevue.
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School Levy and Compensation Reform
Two recent articles in the Seattle Times point out one of the remaining key elements of resolving the McCleary “problem”, and it’s a BIG element. Most estimates have the size of the problem at about $3,000,000,000 to $3,500,000,000 ($3 – $3.5 billion) a biennium. Wildly varying teacher salaries part of state budget debate This article describes the…
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School District Compensation and Levy Reform
Last week the Appropriations committee held a hearing on the second half of the McCleary decision; the requirement that the state fund adequate compensation, not local taxpayers. The hearing took over 3 hours and is super-interesting. You can watch it on TVW here. This sounds terrifyingly dull, but it wasn’t. Anytime you talk about property…
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Special Session Advice from 4th Graders
I’m not sure what to add to this. This advice comes to you from the 4th graders of Linda Myrick’s class at Somerset Elementary in Bellevue.
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Too Much Testing?
[Update: 5/8/15 added link to AP article “New standardized tests bring technical challenges, concern“] One of the issues that is tangentially budget-related that needs to be addressed during this special session is that of high school graduation requirements and the assessments that we are asking our kids to take. We’ve gone through many changes over the…
