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“We can’t bake sale our way out of this”

On April 19, Washington’s Paramount Duty President, Eden Mack, took part in Seattle Speaks: Making The Grade, a town hall debate that was broadcast live on The Seattle Channel.

Topics included class size, the need for more buildings, equity and the achievement gap, high school graduation rates, and the problems with insufficient funding from the Washington legislature.

Seattle School Board President Betty Patu said, “Money is very important in terms of us pushing education as far as we can. And when we looked at all the various areas in our school district, there are so many mandated from the state that it doesn’t seem to match up with the funding we receive. And when we talk about equity and how do we actually provide the best education we can for our students, it’s really hard to actually provide that education for our kids when we don’t have enough to be able to give them the excellent education that we want.”

Washington ranks 39th in the nation in terms of school funding. Moreover, over the last 12 years, the achievement gap between middle and low-income students has grown more in Washington than in any other state in the US. While the legislature has invested funds in basic education over the last few years, this has merely restored funding to 2009 levels, before cuts were enacted, and the town hall meeting included discussion about what a fully funded education looks like.

Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos (37th District) shared her thoughts:

“My vision is one where we’ve created an excellent and equitable education system that delivers deep and personalized learning for each and every student in the state….If we can focus on what’s best and what each child in our state needs, then we will actually be happy to pay for whatever it is that will deliver that kind of educational system, not just for us, for our society, but really for the economic needs of our state as well.”

But the chronic underfunding highlighted in the McCleary case continues, and continues to affect school districts across Washington. As Eden Mack explained, “We can’t bake sale our way out of this….You can’t drive the car if you don’t put the gas in it.…Looking at what districts pay for isn’t the actual question. The question is: how much does basic education actually cost and how much money do we need to find to pay for it?”

The full video is available here.

 

City Speaks: Making the Grade

Washington’s Paramount Duty’s President, Eden Mack, is speaking at City Speaks: Making the Grade on Tuesday, April 19, presented by Seattle Channel, Seattle CityClub, and Town Hall Seattle.

The question presented to the speakers and audience is: “As the state Legislature defers fully funding public education for yet another year, what are the implications for the Seattle school district?” Please come; it’s free! You can register online here.

Other speakers include Betty Patu, President, Seattle School Board; Stephen Nielsen, Deputy Superintendent, Seattle Public Schools; and Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, chair of the WA State House Education Committee. Front-row guests include: Jonathan Knapp, SEA President; Sheila Edwards Lange, Interim President, Seattle Central College, and Co-Chair, Seattle Education Summit; and Melissa Westbrook, Education Activist, Seattle Schools Community Blog.

You are invited to join the Washington’s Paramount Duty Statewide Coalition

We are forming the Washington’s Paramount Duty (WPD) Statewide Coalition – an important step in expanding our base of support.

Our statewide organizing effort is focused on only one thing – closing the gap and fully funding basic education in Washington. Though we do not yet have agreement on how much money is needed, it is safe to say that this is the most significant fiscal challenge our state has ever faced. (Check out our recent blog post on this subject.)

Because of its size, the funding gap can’t be closed by budget cuts alone – that would devastate vital state services like higher education, long-term and mental health care, and public safety. We need new revenues to close the gap and fully fund basic education. We will be calling on lawmakers in the 2017 legislative session to adopt the new funding we need – funding that is sufficient, sustainable, fair, and accountable. 

But we can’t do it alone. In order to win passage of a funding solution, we need to build a broad and diverse base of support – and that’s why we are inviting organizations across Washington to join us. Participation means:

  • Your organization’s name will be on our materials as a WPD Statewide Coalition member.
  • We will provide you with regular updates on opportunities to share our messages with your membership or network via email and your own social media strategy.

If you and your organization believe that all children in Washington have a right to a fully funded basic education, and if you agree that we need a revenue solution that will get us there, please join our coalition and echo our call.

Joining the WPD coalition is easy – just email us at heather@paramountduty.org and say “count me in”.

We’re excited to have you on board.

Washington’s Paramount Duty is One of ParentMap’s 2016 Superheroes

Today ParentMap magazine released its 2016 edition of their “Superheroes — Our Annual Issue of Champions for Washington Families”. We are deeply moved that Washington’s Paramount Duty was chosen for this honor.

For 40 years our state has been failing our kids. Repeated promises and court cases have not moved our elected officials to fulfill the paramount duty that is guaranteed by our state constitution. It is going to take a Herculean effort in the 2017 legislative session to motivate them to finally close the gap and fully fund basic education, so I guess that “superhero” isn’t too grandiose of a title, if we manage to do it.

And, do you want to know who the real superheroes have been for the past 40 years?  They are all of the educators, staff, administrators, parents and families who have refused to give up on public education and who continue to fight every day to try to fill the huge funding gap left by the State.

There are literally 800+ different parent-teacher organizations in Washington who every year hold bake sales and Christmas tree sales and walk-a-thons to provide schools the basics like paper, and nurses and librarians and so many of the other needs. Virtually every one of our 295 school districts are forced to run levy and bond campaigns every few years, only to have many of them fail. (Even worse, the levy cliff is happening soon, too.) And then there are the city levies (like Seattle’s Families and Education Levy), foundations (like Edmonds, Renton and many more), and — more recently – the use of donorschoose.org where donors swoop in to save the day and fund things like furniture, and books for the library.

We have all been running ourselves ragged trying to plug the gaps because the state has not been fulfilling its paramount duty for decades now. This patchwork system of literally thousands of different emergency fundraising efforts is not working for us, and it is time to stop trying to fix a gaping wound with Band-Aids.

Schools have been in triage without the resources they need for far too long. We founded Washington’s Paramount Duty because we recognized that this problem will not be fixed until we come together to figure out the funding solution, and speak with one voice. We are bringing together parents, education advocates and community organizations — statewide — who are not only fighting for their local schools, but know that we need to finally fix the funding system for all of the 1.1 million students in Washington’s public schools.

It is time to close the gap and fully fund basic education now. Thank you, ParentMap, for recognizing the importance of this effort, and to all of you real-life superheroes.

 

Finding a Funding Fix Starts with Defining the Cost

The 2016 legislative session ended earlier this week (Tues, March 29) with a disappointing outcome if you were hoping for more funding for basic education, but it was always unlikely that the Legislature would fix the funding gap during this short session.

Though legislators have until the 2017-18 school year to fully fund basic education, as ordered by the Supreme Court in the McCleary case, many are committed to adopting a solution in 2017 and have appointed a legislative working group to look at funding options now.

That is encouraging, but before we can find a solution, we need to define the problem. If our lawmakers can’t agree on the right number, our school funding system will remain broken. Current estimates range widely, from $3.5 billion to $10 billion, and finding the right number calls for a critical look at what is — and what is not — included in each:

1. $3.5 billion per biennium ($1.7 billion per year).

This is the amount some lawmakers think it will cost. This estimate assumes most costs are already covered and that the bulk of what remains is staff salaries. (Right now, school districts around the state cover large portions of staff salaries through local levies.)

2. $7.6 billion per biennium ($3.8 billion per year).

This is how much the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction thinks it will cost. This estimate is based on the definition of basic education in HB 2261 and recommendations from a committee mandated with figuring out how to implement it. It also includes the cost of reducing class sizes called for in Initiative 1351, which voters approved in November 2014.

3. $10 billion+ per biennium.

This estimate from Tom Ahearne, lawyer for the plaintiffs in the McCleary case, is based on the state’s testimony in the lawsuit, defining what is included in “basic education” – a cost of $8 billion a biennium. Plus it includes cost-of-living raises for school staff, capital expenses for school building renovations — and approximately $2 billion in a one-time capital costs to build new classrooms needed to accommodate both all-day kindergarten and smaller class sizes.

There’s a wide gulf between these cost estimates, begging the question, “why?” Before we can fix the funding gap, we need to come to agreement on the actual size of the problem we are trying to solve.

Welcome to Washington’s Paramount Duty

Welcome to Washington’s Paramount Duty – a growing network of parents, students, teachers and community leaders united around one goal: compelling Washington State to close the gap and fully fund basic education now.

We can no longer afford to passively wait for lawmakers to do the right thing. We need to organize and speak with one voice. We need you.

For 40 years public school funding has been undermined by state government cutbacks, band-aid solutions and budget tricks. Four years after our State Supreme Court ruled unanimously that our state government has failed to meet its paramount constitutional duty to fully fund basic education, state leaders STILL have not funded their paramount duty.

Our agenda is the well-being and education of the 1.1 million children in our public schools. We believe every Washington child has a right to receive a fully funded basic education. Founded and led by parents, we represent an untapped resource with great potential and a unique credibility: all parents are touched every day by all the consequences of the K-12 education funding gap.

Finally fully funding basic education in Washington State is not just a good idea. It’s a right all children in Washington are guaranteed and the state has left unmet for decades. No parents should accept anything less for their child. No local community should accept anything less for their school district – and, as a state, we cannot accept anything less for the 1.1 million kids enrolled in our public schools. Their futures are in our hands.

If you are a parent, student, teacher — or a willing advocate for our public schools and the 1.1 million children in them – we need your voice to close the gap and fully fund basic education in Washington State.

Together, we can fight for passage of a meaningful and fair funding solution for our public schools — and when we win, together, we will celebrate a life-changing victory for every child enrolled in them.

Please — stand with us. Join Washington’s Paramount Duty today.