Category Archives: In the News
Washington Earns a C on State Report Card, Ranks 20th in Nation
Education Week
The 22nd annual edition of Quality Counts continues Education Week’s long-standing tradition of grading the states on their performance. A state’s overall grade is the average of its scores on the three separate indices tracked by the report. Read more…
Inslee budget needs work
The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review
Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed supplemental state budget is a good starting point for legislators, but there is room for improvement. In short, the proposal embraces two good ideas that don’t necessarily go well together. The centerpiece of the budget is an effort to meet the state Supreme Court’s mandate to fully fund education beginning next year. Lawmakers constructed the foundation for that last year, passing a plan that will add billions in state money for K-12 public schools, but the court determined that it fell short by not funding teacher salaries until 2019 rather than next fall – the deadline set in the 2012 McCleary v. Washington ruling. Read more…
McCleary fix: A heavy lift on education needs to go a little higher
Yakima Herald-Republic
Last summer, as the Legislature rushed to pass the biennial budget with an education funding fix, many lawmakers admitted they had not read the document that was hurried ahead of a critical budget deadline — missing it would have entailed a partial state government shutdown. Of special concern was how, exactly, the budget would comply with the state Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary decision, in which the court ruled the state was not meeting its constitutional obligation to fully fund schools. Observers wondered how many devils lurked in the details of an intimidating 620-page document. Read more…
Inslee proposes tapping reserves, carbon tax in new plan to fully fund education
The Seattle Times
Gov. Jay Inslee wants to pull $950 million from budget reserves to satisfy a state Supreme Court deadline for Washington to end chronic and unconstitutional underfunding of public education. Read more…
Equity problems remain after court’s school ruling
The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review
The state Supreme Court ruled Nov. 15 that the Legislature is still out of compliance with the state constitution for failing to meet “ample provisions” requirements, saying another $1 billion or so has to be added to education funding. The new education finance laws also leave the school districts with the highest rates of poverty and minorities with the lowest paid teachers and lowest local levy funding, creating doubts the state has met its constitutional mandate in Article IX. Read more…
