Editorial: Blow-up round of education
The U.S. Open golf championship will be played at Chambers Bay in Pierce County next weekend, and Washington legislators will be on hand to give lessons in puttering.
Reporters will be kept away from the lawmakers, but what a relief. After months of seeing puttering close up, there’s little new they could report.
If there’s a resolution to the budget impasse pending, there was no mention of it Thursday, when the Senate Ways & Means Committee heard testimony on a proposal to comprehensively reform education funding.
Most agreed SB 6130 is probably too complex to be adopted by this session of the Legislature, but that in no way differentiates the plan from any others, at least that we have seen so far.
The fact that Sen. Ron Dammeier, R-Puyallup, vice chairman of the Ways & Means and Early Learning & K-12 Education committees, is one of the bill’s sponsors certainly suggests he has not seen a way forward for the long term, based on the discussions that have been going on for months now.
The multitudinous nuances of equalizing the educational opportunities for every student in Washington’s 295 school districts have confounded resolution even with the best of intentions. The state Constitution and Supreme Court say the Legislature must amply fund basic education, which lawmakers defined in prior sessions.
Legislators have worked on a budget presuming it will take an estimated $2 billion for the 2015-17 biennium, and another $2.7 billion for the 2017-19 biennium.
But among the proofs the justices want are consistent sources of funding that not only meet their expectations for the short term, but the long term as well. The state has more or less trued up funding among districts in the past, only to watch as individual districts raised local levies that enabled them to pay teachers more, build better schools, etc.
The court is not going to let that happen again.
The reforms envisioned under SB 6130 will increase costs an estimated $3.5 billion over six years, but how inclusive that is of some of the other numbers was not clear. And, most tellingly, the bill does not identify a source of funding.
What it will do is shift the cost of basic education, and pay for the necessary teachers and other staff, to the state. If districts want to go “beyond” or “outside” basic education – how defined is undefined – they can raise that money locally, but how much might be capped.
The Spokane School District, through the School Funding Alliance, is among the districts concerned that parameters will not erase inequities in the pay of non-teaching staff. The district also needs funding to add all-day kindergarten at every elementary school, and some flexibility on minimum class sizes that recognizes space variations.
The financial mechanisms for assuring all districts are treated fairly, including formation of an Education Funding Council, will challenge districts and counties.
The sponsors said they do not expect SB 6130 to pass this session, but it may affect how the Supreme Court justices regard whatever education plan they review next month.
If lawmakers want to move from puttering to putting, they better act soon.