Teacher COLA to Full-Day Kindergarten: I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT UP!

So on Wednesday the great news comes through that the House supplemental budget has a 1% COLA increase for teachers, on top of the 3.9% we get from I-732, and many districts will also receive an additional .7% catch-up to match the grandfathered districts. Oh happy day! Caloo, Calay!

But then the other shoe dropped, and I read that the additional COLA was going to happen because the roll-out of full-day Kindergarten in more districts was being postponed.

And that's not the way it should be.

I was part of the lobby team for the WEA this year. I sat with Senators and Representatives and explained to them that the COLA was important. I took a tip and didn't refer to it as the Dino cuts, because they weren't. I worked hard to sell that proposal--all of us in Olympia did--but I wasn't representing the product I thought I was.

These are the moments that make us as a Union look terrible. "Didjya hear what the God damn teachers did? They cut kindergarten for poor kids so they could get a raise! Have they no shame?!"

It looks like we're standing on the backs of the neediest kids so that we can reach up and grab more money, and that's unconscionable. After fighting hard to get full-day kindergarten going last session we put a stop to it this session for the sake of a few dollars more, and that's shameful. It looks like we put the dollars ahead of the kids in the most egregious manner imaginable, and that's embarrassing.

The thing is, this is still a mistake that can be rectified. The Senate releases their budget here in a few days, and my hope is that they'll keep the full-day K phase-in the way it is AND enhance the COLA a bit. Money's tight, sure, but it's doable, and that's what I hope our lobbyists will be suggesting.

Appearances matter. We still have time to come out of this looking good.

Check out the most recent This Week in Olympia for more information.

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Mr. Grant Goes (back) To (the state capital of) Washington

Our second WEA lobby day was Monday (for info about the first, see here), and it was another good time. I was able to meet with Don Barlow and Alex Wood, stopped by and chatted with the aides for Bob Morton, Bob Sump, and Joel Kretz, and had a very nice conversation with my friend in the Republican caucus.

Both of our class size bills died in their house of origin. HB2458 made it out of the Education Committee before failing to get a hearing in Appropriations; SB6376 suffered a similar fate in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. In the legislative conferences I had I tried to play up the construction angle (i.e., "Sure it's really expensive, but $200 million of that is infrastructure and jobs!"), but I pretty well knew that there was no chance a bill with a price tag like that was going to see the light of day.

People higher up the food chain than I think that we still have a shot at getting a COLA catch-up. I'm not entirely sure--if the revenue forecast due on Friday isn't good, then I think the odds are really slim--but there's always hope.

If you ever have a chance to do lobbying work, it's a kick in the pants. Seeing the process up close is educational, and it's invigorating to go and speak on behalf of a bill that you believe in. I look forward to doing more of it next year.

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Bergeson’s COLA: 10%

Alternate Title: Because She Earned It
Alternate Title: Mrs. Bergeson Gets a Raise

So the Citizen’s Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials met recently and decided that everybody gets a raise. Governor Gregoire jumps up to nearly $164,000. Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown will go up from $44,311 to $49,280, which isn’t all that much more than I make.

The curious one to me is Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson getting a 10% raise, from $107,978 to $119,234, more than an $11,000 raise. In the article from the Spokesman-Review (which you can’t read because they’re horrible about bogarting their web site; go to the Seattle PI instead) Commission member >Alan Doman cites a need for “comparable pay” because “we don’t want to get behind the process.”

I’ve joked about this before, but let’s be out with it: if we’re judging Dr. Bergeson on her merits, right now it’s an awfully hard case to make.

In this past legislative session Bergeson was, by nearly all accounts, a non-factor. Hell, she was the Incredible Disappearing Superintendent. The big issues in education in Washington went on around her and not a one seemed to involve her.

Take, for example, delaying the math and science WASLs. No one in this state has more invested in those tests than Terry Bergeson, but during the discussion the people you heard from were Christine Gregoire, Skip Priest, members of the House, Mothers Against WASL, the Washington Association of School Administrators...but not a whole lot from the Good Doctor.

After the session was over Terry released this statement which is a nice enough overview of what went on, but again in reading through it you see a whole lot of what other people did and very little of what she did, what she wanted, what she hoped for. She tried to portray the delay in math and science as a team effort between her and Governor Gregoire, and talks about the need for revising the curriculum and give teachers more training, but you can't ignore the fact that she's had better than 10 years on the job to try and get it right, and that it got to the point that it did is less a commentary on curriculum and more on a failure of the system she heads.

Dr. Bergeson knows education. I have a lot of respect for her; you can't listen to her talk about the state of education in Washington and not be impressed. At the end of the day, though, there are way too many metrics that we're failing in, systemic problems that haven't been corrected, and failed efforts at reform that amounted to nothing. We're reactive, not proactive, and that's not a good strategy.

Sound Politics has more, as well as the Ridenbaugh Press.

Read more here, if any.