In addressing education funding when it convenes in January, the Legislature must serve two masters.
It has to satisfy a state Supreme Court ruling — and lift a contempt of court finding — that mandates that it fulfill its paramount duty to fully fund education in the state, which could require an additional $1.5 billion to $2 billion each year in the 2015-17 budget.
And it must satisfy the state’s residents that those expenditures will result in measurable improvements in education. Sooner, rather than later, the state will have to identify sources of revenue that will allow it to meet its paramount duty to education while at the same time meeting all other responsibilities.
Voters aren’t going to have the appetite to see taxes increased unless the state can show how things are going to be better, said Dave Powell, executive director for Stand for Children Washington, the state branch of the national education advocacy group. The state will have to spend money, Powell said, “but they have to spend it wisely.”
Stand for Children is part of the chorus of voices urging the Legislature to find consensus and meet its obligations to education. Among its priorities, the state group is backing support for higher education to halt tuition increases and for pre-school and early education, specifically Shoreline Rep. Ruth Kagi’s Early Start bill, which would provide support and assistance for certified child care centers and early education programs. And it also, having opposed Initiative 1351, believes the class-size initiate will have to at least be suspended while the state addresses the more immediate funding issue.
Stand for Children also wants the Legislature to attempt to restore its waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind requirements, lost in April after the Legislature failed to include student performance on standardized tests as part of teacher evaluations. Losing the waiver meant that almost all schools in the state had to notify parents that they were failing. The state’s school districts also lost control of $40 million in federal support that had to be used for outside tutors.
This has been were Stand for Children and the state’s teachers unions diverge. But it’s a conversation worth having.
Powell admits that teachers are distrustful of linking the results of standardized tests to their evaluations because lawmakers “haven’t created clarity as to how those measurements will be used,” Powell said.
The concerns of teachers are reasonable, and finding a way to satisfy both teachers and the federal mandate also could be one avenue to winning greater public trust that the money being spent on education is well spent.
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