Superintendents call for more school funding

Published 7:58 am Friday, February 29, 2008

Superintendents from across the state may be taking legislators to court.

During a news conference Jan. 16 that included Shoreline Superintendent Jim Welsh and 34 of his colleagues from around Puget Sound, the group uncovered a clear outline of immediate funding needs for public education to be presented to the state Legislature.

The issue of securing adequate state funding for public schools could boil over if the Legislature does not attend to it during the current session, Welsh said.

“We certainly hope the Legislature takes the initiative, but we are not averse to having the courts also take a look at it,” he said.

The plan presented at the press conference last Friday includes three areas identified by the Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD): special education, transportation funding and a study to determine ways to adequately fund public education in the future.

Joan Tritchler, PSESD spokesperson, said those are the issues most prevalent in public schools across the state.

Districts often have to use local levies to fund those areas when they could be using it for student achievement programs, Tritchler explained.

Though adequate funding for public schools has been an ongoing issue, the strict federal standards put on districts in 2003 through the No Child Left Behind Act have greatly increased the anxiety among districts regarding funding.

“It’s been clear for five to 10 years that our state system (for education funding) is not working,” Edmonds Superintendent Wayne Robertson said. “What No Child Left Behind did was create a little more urgency.”

Under the federal mandate, schools across the country must meet annually increasing state standards of achievement in reading and math for fourth, seventh and 10th graders, as measured by the annual Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) exams. In addition, the law also requires schools that fail to meet adequate yearly progress standards to provide additional teacher training, create district improvement plans and offer to transfer students to other schools in the district. By 2008, students also must pass the WASL to graduate.

“We are not on track to be able to do that unless basic education becomes fully funded,” Tritchler said. “We’ve received less money under heavier standards. Nobody’s trying to not achieve that for every child, but you have to put the resources behind what you are requiring.”

Possible solutions to increase public education funding might not be easy to swallow for some taxpayers.

“If we’re going to have a public education system, we have to tax ourselves to do that, whether it’s a property tax, income tax, sales tax,” Everett Superintendent Carol Whitehead said. “We have to decide which of those taxes or a combination of them would be least detrimental.”

Robertson agreed.

“I don’t think there’s any other choice, and to avoid that conversation is an extreme example of denial,” Robertson said.