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Improving Education for Incarcerated Youth
The laws that define education funding in Washington are complex. You know this if you have been reading this blog for a long time – I spent a good part of the last two decades working on bringing it into the modern world. You can spend hours reading overly long posts about that work here.…
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McCleary Almost Done
The latest decision from the court is available here. The slide deck this particular image is from is available here. This was used in the November 16, 2017 House Appropriations Committee meeting and is another excellent product from Jessica Harrell, the education expert serving Appropriations – someone I depended on for many years. It’s pretty…
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McCleary Resources
The League of Education Voters recently published a page of resources for understanding the McCleary decision and how it impacts school funding. It’s a reasonable collection of items. http://educationvoters.org/2016/07/22/mccleary-resources/ In addition, I would recommend that you look at some of the posts I’ve done over the past few years on school funding and the Supreme…
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McCleary Phase II
The Legislature has made significant progress toward fully funding basic education. In the last three years, we’ve reduced K-3 class sizes, funded all-day kindergarten, and provided kids adequate materials and supplies for their classrooms. But there’s one critical and final component we must deal with – teacher compensation and local levies. The chart below should…
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Constitutional Crisis? Not so much.
19 members of the Republican caucus in the Washington State Senate released an open letter today complaining about a “constitutional crisis” between the Legislature and the Supreme Court over the McCleary decision and the court’s recent order. While the order is politically and practically inconvenient, I don’t see any better way to get the state…
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Post-Session Notes, Operating Budget Comments
Thank you again for letting me represent you in Olympia. It’s an honor and a privilege, though I feel much less privileged when the session runs into July. We finished our work Friday morning June 10th, passing a transportation spending bill and bills that allow the state to take out bonds based on the revenue.…
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McCleary, the Court and Funding Compensation
Chris Vance has a lot to say in this article on Crosscut that I agree with, but more that I don’t. He is right that the Legislature didn’t address the compensation element and still needs to. I expect the court to have something to say on this soon. However, he and Superintendent Dorn remain confused about…
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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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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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Answers to Popular Education Emails
I’ve been swamped with email on education issues and want to consolidate my responses to a number of popular questions as I think it’ll give a better sense of what my positions are on your issues. I’m hearing about: Basic Education funding, including ensuring that we adequately fund our McCleary obligation. Funding and implementation of Initiative 1351 The…