Recent Press- WA revenue forecast: flat but 'awesome' - Spokesman.com - Feb. 16, 2012 February 19, 2012
- Most Issaquah representatives support ‘historic’ same-sex marriage bill : The Issaquah Press – News, Sports, Classifieds and More in Issaquah, WA February 12, 2012
- Join 48th Legislative District lawmakers for town hall meeting : The Issaquah Press – News, Sports, Classifieds and More in Issaquah, WA February 9, 2012
- House GOP lays out education budget - The Politics Blog - The Olympian - Olympia, Washington news, weather and sports February 4, 2012
- Fund ed first, House Republicans say - Spin Control - Spokesman.com - Feb. 2, 2012 February 4, 2012
Category Archives: Education
Educational Goals: penny-wise and pound-foolish decisions
The Ways and Means committee heard a number of contentious bills Saturday, including HB 2538, which is intended to save money for school districts by reducing requirements that the legislature has placed on them without funding. It was requested by … Continue reading
Landmark Supreme Court Case
The week before session the Washington Supreme Court decided the McCleary case unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs – two families and a number of school districts who claimed that the state had historically underfunded its primary duty to fund … Continue reading
Post-Special Session Newsletter
Now that the “special” session is over I’ve been motivated to write a newsletter that answers many of the questions I’ve received in email. If you want to print it click here for the PDF version that’s better formatted for … Continue reading
K-12 Funding Proposal – Additional Data
I am posting CSV versions of the two data tables as several people have requested the data in searchable formats. We are typically careful about doing this as people can manipulate the data in ways that say different things than … Continue reading
K-12 Funding Proposal – Local Levy Swap
I’m stepping outside my role as Ways and Means chairman to put out a personal proposal for comment. The idea described below is a big one, moving around about a billion dollars in property taxes that are used for the … Continue reading
WA Budget – Proposed Agency Cuts Explanations
I used this document in a caucus discussion of the proposed agency cuts and thought it might be interesting to people. It’s a long PDF with a duplicate copy of the spreadsheet referenced in my last budget post. To understand … Continue reading
Continuing Economic Distress
This is a fascinating chart that shows the difference between the current recession and everything after the Great Depression. As you go further back in time the data become less and less comparable to today’s situation, so we can’t really … Continue reading
Posted in Budget, Education, Social Justice
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School Levies
For the past two years we’ve had a group of technical experts working on proposals on how to fix school levies. They just released their report, available here. The report is amazingly detailed and is a great introduction into how … Continue reading
Posted in Budget, Education, Tax Policy
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Education Funding
I’ve received hundreds of email messages this session urging me to not cut education funding. I agree. I tried very hard this year to have the least impact on K-12 as possible in the budget process. The House budget proposal … Continue reading
Fun visit to Franklin Elementary in Kirkland
I visited Franklin Elementary in Kirkland on Monday and was very impressed with the sixth graders. They had thoughtful questions and were engaged for an hour, even with my wonky answers. One young artist sketched a portrait while I was … Continue reading
Posted in Education
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