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How Much is Enough?
A constituent asked me the following questions in email this week and I think the answers are worth pointing out. 1) Can you show me the studies that indicate there is a correlation between money spent per student and student achievement? It would be good to know that spending more money would get better results.…
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School Funding post-McCleary
I have not yet completely read the long opinion Judge Erlick issued yesterday in a court case brought by school districts, parents, and educator groups but I’m excited by the summary and the implications for a positive impact on school funding in Washington. The judge ruled that the state does not adequately fund public education…
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New Newsletter Available
I emailed out a newsletter today. I’m attaching a link to the PDF version of it – this is somewhat easier to print out and read if you’re a print person. 2009-12-15 Newsletter I expect to produce much more regular newsletters now that we are approaching the session. Please let me know if there is…
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Updates to Basic Ed Financing
The Senate released their budget yesterday. The House releases its today. I’ll opine later on the differences. Both are mostly no-new-revenue budgets. The Senate packages up closing some tax loopholes. The House comes out later this morning so I can’t comment on it now. Both bodies have passed a version of the Basic Education Finance…
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Differences between the House and Senate versions of Ed Finance Reform
The House and Seante passed VERY different versions of the reform legislation. Below is a staff summary of the differences in language that’s reasonably easy to understand, though still somewhat “inside baseball.” The Spokesman-Review in Spokane captures it in language that makes more sense to the casual reader when they say What’s emerged in the…
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House Approves Ed Finance Bill
Last night the House approved the current incarnation of our ed finance reform bill – HB 2261. I’m including links to some summaries of the bill, including the AP story from the Seattle PI site (out of nostalgia). It’s depressing that Curt Woodward was the only reporter physically present on the floor when we passed…
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Education Financing Update
For the entire 6 years I’ve been in the legislature I’ve worked on school funding. I’ve tried to improve the amount and the efficacy of use of the money. This year a bipartisan group of six legislators introduced a package of reforms coming from the Basic Education Financing Task Force report. I’ve written about it…
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Open Letter to Teachers about HB 1410
I’ve had a lot of questions from teachers on HB 1410 that seem to indicate some misunderstanding of our intent and I believe a misreading of the bill. 1410 is a serious attempt to address school funding inadequacies and the structural problems that have built up over 30 years since the last major revision. The…
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The News Tribune covers Basic Ed plan
Peter Callaghan wrote about our tremendous hearing in the House yesterday. We had 120 people testify, of whom only 13 were opposed. The most amusing juxtaposition was when a panel of 4 superintendents delivered a letter from all 35 school district superintendents in the Puget Sound region endorsing the bill was followed by the director…
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Basic Ed Finance Task Force does a press conference
The “Big Six” legislators did a press conference about releasing our bills into the wild. It was a bit of a stumbling performance – none of us do these things regularly, but it seemed interesting to the crowd that was in Olympia to attend the hearings. I hear they filled two rooms in the Senate…