New law aimed at boosting high school graduation rates
OLYMPIA — The Pay for Actual Student Success (PASS) Act passed the Senate in the last hours of the legislative session with a strong bipartisan vote of 40-6. It is now on the governor’s desk awaiting her signature.
Sponsored by Rep. Tim Probst (D-Vancouver) and a bipartisan collection of 14 other legislators, House Bill 1599 creates a statewide reform to make high school graduation rates go up.
The bill is designed to use existing dropout prevention strategies that have already measurably reduced the dropout rate in Washington schools where they have been piloted.
It encourages expansion of those strategies into a statewide system, allowing only proven strategies to be used, and reserves a portion of payment until successful reduction of the dropout rate has been measurably achieved.
This is the first time that a pay-for-outcomes element has been used in Washington’s high schools. For the last five years, Washington’s high school graduation rate, including students who take longer than four years to graduate, has hovered between 79 percent and 75 percent.
“Building a stronger economy and a better society for everyone means addressing the fact that 20 percent to 25 percent of our students drop out before completing high school,” Probst said.
Strategies that connect local businesses with classrooms, identify adult mentors, provide college scholarships and use early intervention are among those that have dramatically increased graduation rates in several schools across Washington state. The PASS Act coordinates existing systems to expand the use of these strategies.
Studies have shown that, for each student that avoids dropping out of high school, the taxpayers save $10,500 per year, each year, for the rest of that student’s life.
“Left unchecked the state budget will almost certainly cause our high school dropout rate to go up. That’s unacceptable to me,” Probst said. “I think it’s a state fiscal imperative, a moral imperative and an economic imperative to get our graduation rates up.”
# # #
Rep. Tim Probst
360-786-7994
tim.probst@leg.wa.gov
Click on thumbnail for link to print-quality photo