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.