WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Rep. Hunt & Rep. Reykdal’s joint e-newsletter

Dear Neighbors,

A large focus of this legislative session – like most sessions – is education. We have a moral obligation to give Washington students the best future possible and to do that we must fully fund education. Validating this premise, the Washington State Constitution is clear that providing a basic education is “the paramount duty” of the state. As you’ve probably heard many times, the McCleary decision has made that mandate abundantly clear.

Just what is ‘McCleary’ anyway?

 
It’s a term used in just about every budget conversation at the state Legislature. But what do people mean when they refer to McCleary and the McCleary decision?

“McCleary” refers to a Supreme Court decision that found the state is not adequately funding basic education. In their ruling, the Court ordered the Legislature to fully fund K-12 education by 2018. But in that same ruling, the Court also agreed that the plan we put in place in 2009 – House Bill 2261 – was the right plan to get us back on track.

So when you hear people say we need to meet our “McCleary goals” or “McCleary obligations,” what they’re really saying is that we need to fully fund basic education.

To do this, we need to invest an additional $4.5 billion into our K-12 funding system. We made progress on that goal last year by adding just under $1 billion to basic education funding. The initial 2013 House Democrats budget proposal would have allocated $1.4 billion – enough to be considered “on pace” with meeting our goal.

That plan required closing a handful of outdated, expensive, and unnecessary corporate tax exemptions to increase funding for basic education and get closer to our goals. However, the Senate refused to close any of those exemptions, which resulted in fewer dollars going into our basic education system.

Fully funding basic education is our top priority – and our Constitutional duty – so we will continue conversations about our options. But one thing is for certain: we cannot reach our McCleary goals through general spending cuts. If we’re going to fulfill our obligations as a state to ensure all children receive an opportunity for a basic education, we need to also ensure everyone is paying their fair share.

Here is a presentation by non-partisan legislative staff with much more McCleary information.

Improving education from start to finish

 

  • McCleary isn’t our only educational focus, though. Success in school relies on more than success in the classroom, and we are making sure Washington kids have healthy environments to live, learn, and grow up in. Last week we passed several measures with that goal in mind.
  • Washington has nearly 7,500 child care facilities that serve about 174,000 children. Research shows that high quality childcare does wonders but poor quality actually damages a child. House Bill 2377 will help assure high-quality childcare that provides us with the desired outcomes: greater academic achievement, increased graduation rates, lower incarceration rates, less poverty, and less reliance on government assistance.
  • Hungry kids can’t learn – it’s that simple. Evidence has shown that a lack of nutrition can be detrimental to academic development. HB 2536 will create a “Breakfast After the Bell” program to help our students begin their days with adequate nutrition. Nearly half of our state’s one-million public school students are already eligible for free and reduced meals at school, but this program has left out the most important meal of the day. As we work to meet our responsibilities of improving education, it’s important to provide healthy and quality learning environments for our children.
  • Our students’ education needs are as diverse as the students themselves. The best opportunities to succeed are those tailored to each unique segment of Washington children. HB 2166 will direct the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to collect data associated with students from military families. Military families move around a lot, providing challenges to school-age children who frequently move from one school to another—often across states. We want to better serve the students, however long they are in our state.
  • Many high-achieving, low-income students don’t receive information about available resources that could help them get into college. Modeled after a program that produced a dramatic increase in successful applications to top schools, HB 2694 will ensure Washington colleges reach out directly to these successful students.

What else are we working on?

 
This year we are working on implementation of 24 credit requirements and requiring at least 1080 hours of instruction for high school graduation. Washington has one of the most effective teacher-principal evaluation programs in the nation. Even though it is still being implemented, the responses from teachers, principals and administrators has been highly positive. However, U.S. Education Secretary Duncan wants to impose his own biased views, views from Chicago Public Schools that face huge problems, on Washington and all other states. We will have more details on these fronts in a subsequent report.

With that, we will end with a quotation from Public Law 96-88 that created the U.S. Department of Education. “The establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the Federal Government over education or diminish the responsibility for education which is reserved to the States and the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the States.” Title I, Section 103