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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, May 11, 2008 Schools could use rejected initiative's help now By Jerry Cornfield Political Columnist On a table in the hallway of my home is an unopened envelope with a ballot inside. The North Thurston School District is seeking approval of a property tax levy to pay some of the district's day-to-day basic expenses, such as teacher salaries and fuel for buses. When asked in February, voters said no. This time around, district leaders are trying much harder to make clear that this maintenance and operation levy is not about adding goodies but reducing pain. Passing it won't even put the district in the black. It'll only leave it with less red, meaning fewer jobs to ax, programs to cut and dollars to pull from reserves. Such fiscal bleakness is ubiquitous around the state. Districts are getting tossed about in a perfect storm of bad conditions -- declining enrollment, rising teacher salaries and soaring fuel prices -- forcing voters and school boards to struggle through waves of bad options to survive. This week, Jennifer Priddy, the state official with the best knowledge of the financial health of public schools, bluntly told a panel of lawmakers and educators, "This is going to be a bad year" because the problem is widespread and deep. Four of the state's 295 school districts are now essentially in receivership, with two more on the verge of joining them. At a time like this, it's worth pondering what might be different had voters in 2004 passed Initiative 884. That measure would have hiked the sales tax by a penny and steered the money, estimated at $1 billion a year, into the education system, from pre-school to college. From the outset, parents pushing the initiative faced long odds of succeeding. Tax increases don't do well, and this one simply got whipped. Any chance of success demanded that the education establishment put the full weight of its forces and finances behind it. That didn't happen. The Washington Education Association -- the powerful statewide teachers union -- gave only polite backing to the measure. Instead, it focused its energy and resources on repealing legislation allowing the creation of charter schools. Theirs was the battle of Referendum 55, and they won. Teacher unions collectively contributed nearly $1 million and their members contributed literally thousands of hours to the effort. By comparison, the WEA put up less than $100,000 for the initiative. Then and now, the union's strategy seemed short-sighted. WEA is fixated on getting more money into public education and into the pockets of its members. Few argue the validity of the goals; voters passed a WEA-backed initiative in 2000 ensuring annual raises for teachers. Possibly no amount of WEA muscle could have averted the defeat of I-884. What's obvious is those dollars could soothe a lot of pain today. And some of the union's soon-to-be-unemployed members could use a job, even in a charter school. That's something to think about when I open the envelope. Find political reporter Jerry Cornfield's blog, The Petri Dish, at www.heraldnet.com. He can be heard at 8 a.m. Mondays on the Morning Show on KSER 90.7 FM. Contact him at 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.

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