Today's Fake News From Olympia, Holiday Edition

"I've never seen a tax cut put out a fire." -- Barney Frank, This Week With Christiane Amanpour, December 18th 2011

HEROIC TAX CUT TURNS AROUND LOW PERFORMING SCHOOL
Anthropomophized Reduction in Business and Occupation Tax Challenges Kids, Solves Poverty, Erases Achievement Gap

Giddy officials in the Spokane Public Schools announced today that HR509 Section 2148 Regarding Certain Deductions to Capital Investments, recently hired to teach math at Rogers High School as part of the School Improvement Grant process, had completely changed the lives of all the kids lucky enough to be in his/her class.

"We were a little reluctant, frankly, to hire a tax cut to teach, but by God it worked!" said Spokane Schools Superintendent Nancy Stowell. "I look forward to many more tax cuts coming in and making all our schools better, forever."

Future moves suggested by Stowell include having a funding cut restore the art program, and starving the beast to make the school lunch program run in the black.

UNION HATING DEMOCRATS RUSH TO DEFEND THEIR VACATION TIME

With their traditional 3 week Christmas vacation being threatened by Governor Gregoire's special session, a long series of Senate Democrats with absolutely no sense of irony or labor history took to the floor to complain.

"We have a God given right to our vacation time!" thundered Senator Rodney Tom (D-Medina). "The very idea of having to work on a holiday is inhumane, and I am clearly the first person to ever think that!"

"The Gentleman from Medina is correct!" shouted an approving Steve Hobbs. "Not only is this unpaid overtime during what historically would be a break, but I submit to you all--has any worker in history ever been asked to put in so much time during the Holiday season for so little recompense?"

Happily, the electrical supply for all of Snohomish County will now be provided by attaching generators to the bodies of those killed in the Everett Massacre as they roll over in their graves.

RYAN'S POPULARITY IN WEA REACHES AMAZING NEW HEIGHTS
Sets a New Personal Best By Going Three Days Without Being Offensive, Condescending Prick

NOBODY BOTHERS TO TELL PAM ROACH THAT LEGISLATURE ADJOURNED
Confused Senator Only One to Show Up For Cancelled Committee Hearing

"I...I guess I kind of figured that Joe (Zarelli) or Mike (Hewitt) would tell her," said Senator Dan Swecker of Rochester. "I mean, things can kind of get by Pam sometimes, but we were all packing our boxes and talking about driving home...it was sort of understood, right?"

Members of the Olympia Press Corp later found Senator Roach sitting alone in a hearing room in the Cherburg Building holding a passionate debate with herself about the rights of adoptive and foster parents.

TEACHERS ANNOUNCE NEW FOUR TIER RATING SYSTEM FOR GOVERNOR GREGOIRE
"It will be clear. Oh yes, it will be clear," say Enthused Educators

A committee of Washington State teachers today rolled out a new 4 tier evaluation system for Governor Gregoire, a logical accompaniment to the Governor's proposal for teachers.

"We embrace what the Governor is proposing for us, and we hope that she'll feel the same way about what we propose for her," said Joseph Hill, a 3rd grade teacher in the Kent School District. "The purpose of the evaluation system is to improve governing. That's the focus of the evaluation system."

The four proposed ratings for the Governor run the gamut from a high of "Hasn't actively screwed up the state today" down to the lowest rating, "Couldn't find her ass with both hands and a map."

"Currently we've got the Governor at our second lowest rating, "Mike Lowry with TBI". Hopefully, these rigorous new measures will help her improve on up to "Comparisons to Bill Plummer coaching the Mariners are mostly unfair."

Read more here, if any.

The Rich Get Richer

So we had this bill in the legislature, 2893.

It lifted the levy lid, what school districts can raise themselves, from 24% to 28%.

It also lifted the levy equalization percentage, which benefits property-poor school districts, from 12% to 14%.

It was also written in such a way that if the increase in levy equalization wasn't funded, then the increase in the levy lid wouldn't be valid either.

Governor Gregoire used a line-item veto to take that away.

Now levy equalization for property-poor districts is being threatened with a 3% to 5% cut for the coming school year.

Property-rich districts, though, will still be able to ask voters for more and more levy dollars, while property-poor districts watch the one lifeline they have get frayed away.

There are two Americas. It's hard to tell that Governor Gregoire really gives a damn about the one I'm in.

Even beyond basic school levies, though, are programs like the Families and Education Levy in Seattle and the proposed Children's Investment Fund in Spokane where the levies are run through the city instead of the schools, meaning millions of extra dollars for programs for kids. I don't begrudge them their success, but see the title of this post.

More from KPLU here and the Everett Herald here.

Read more here, if any.

Our Beloved Governor

Ouch.

Read more here, if any.

Why I Scream

The State Board of Education just redesigned their website. More than a billion dollars in cuts to schools last year, another $400,000,000 hit coming this year, and yet the SBE has the money to redesign their website. It reminds one of an old joke:

A little girl from Spokane is told by her parents that, because of the lousy economy, they're not going to be able to celebrate Christmas this year. With tears in her eyes she writes a letter to Santa asking him to bring her family $100 so that they can afford to have the holiday.

Oddly enough, this little girl's touching letter makes its way to Olympia and shows up on Christine Gregoire's desk. The governor is so touched by the girl's plight that she sends her $5 and tells her to keep her chin up. The girl gets the money, and writes another letter to Santa:

Dear Santa,

Thank you for the $100. Unfortunately, Olympia got their hands on it first and took off 95%.

Yours,

Susie

Read more here, if any.

WeWee #5: Chris Gregoire Ate My Baby

One big story this week with 100 different facets to it.

#1) The Governor's Budget: As required by law, Governor Gregoire released a balanced budget that really takes the piss out of a ton of sacred cows. General Assistance Unemployable? Gone. The state's Basic Health plan? Eliminated. 3 year olds in ECEAP pre-school? Not any more.

In the K-12 realm specifically, we're looking at the elimination of levy equalization ($142.9 million), the K-4 class size reduction money ($110.6 million), all-day kindergarten ($33.6 million), the Student Achievement Program ($78.5 million), gifted ed funding ($7.4 million), as well as a bunch of the categorical programs I listed here.

I'm having a hard time with this. On one hand, the state revenue forecasts don't lie--we're well below the projections that were set, and that hole has to be closed. On the other, there are still pieces in this budget that are impossible to justify given the hole that we're looking at, and frankly it makes her oft-repeated statement of "We've looked at everything with three zeroes" nothing more than the usual political bloviating.

Do I think this was a hard budget to put together? Absolutely. I refuse to grant, though, that this is the absolute best work she can do, because if this is all that Governor Gregoire and our leadership have, I've made some pretty horrible voting mistakes these past few elections.

#2) But There's Taxes Hope on the Horizon: At the same time she was releasing her budget Governor Gregoire was also saying that she'd be releasing a different budget next month that could bring in more state revenue. This could include closing tax loopholes (Dot Foods comes to mind), ending the sales tax exemption for folks from states like Oregon that don't have the sales tax, and a potential $1 billion plus in taxes from things like securities, detective work, and data processing. The first things to come back, should the money come in? Levy equalization, all-day kindergarten, and the basic health plan.

The response was predictable, with Republicans like Sen. Joe Zarelli and Rep. Gary Alexander blasting the budget as a charade to justify more tax increases, while Democrats like Lisa Brown bemoaned the general situation and said they looked forward to seeing what the Governor proposed come January.

(But not an income tax)

Given the way things are going, it wouldn't shock if the deficit by then was $3 billion.

#3) You Can Blame All of This On Eugene Debs and Joe Hill: There was a good write-up in the Spokesman-Review on how Spokane County officials are pushing for concessions from their union contracts in order to avoid laying off 150 workers. In a similar vein you've got the Fordham Foundation urging Arne Duncan to be more aggressive about challening teachers unions on Race to the Top, and the usual from Mike Antonucci sharing the books that make up his spank bank.

I had a meeting with my staff on Friday morning to talk about the Governor's budget. My district could be on the hook for about $1.5 million in cuts if nothing changes; that's about 8% of our budget. The guidance I need from them is pretty simple: jobs, or money? I can protect salaries as per the contract, but that'll mean a lot of our members are pushed out the door. I can save jobs, but it'll be at the cost of per diem money, supplies reimbursements, and other pieces that I've talked about here and here.

I'm a proud union guy because I've seen the difference that collective action can make, and I make absolutely no apologies for that fact. At the end of the day, though, there's always going to be that tension between the needs of the individual against the needs of the body, and it's finding that balance that is the absolute hardest challenge in my work.

#4) And Moses Walked Through the Palouse and Said, "Lo, Let There Be LEA": Goldy over at Horse's Ass points out that the money that funds levy equalization tends to come from property-rich districts that happily vote for taxes (Seattle, Bellevue, Mercer Island) and goes to support school districts in some of the most conservative bailiwicks in the state, notably around Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and Vancouver.

It bugs me that levy equalization could be political--those districts need that money, sometimes quite desparately--but (and this is a point I've been trying to get across in my WEAPAC work) school funding is based off the state, and it all comes to us through a political process. I'm working with a lot of my small school districts even now on how to get the right things said to the right legislators, and it's quite an adventure.

#5) Well, That Could Be Interesting: Part of the Governor's budget plan is to close the juvenile facilities at Green Hill in Chehalis and Maple Lane in Rochester; I had just mentioned them two weeks back. I'm curious to talk to their local presidents, because what do you do with the union members when the state closes the school? It could be an early preview of what will happen with the State Board of Education school reform plan.

---

Bits and pieces:

• It's not looking good for job hunters in the Yakima area. On a 1-to-10 scale of surprise, this rates a negative 7.
  
• The EFF has an idea on how the state can save a little scratch. They've clearly picked sides in the War on Christmas, and I'm telling.
  
• It really isn't funny, but a headline like Drug Counselor Arrested for Dealing Drugs does lend itself to some humorous quips, no?
  
• This made me genuinely and sincerely happy as a kid at Christmas. Similarly, this video sums up several hundred hours of my childhood in one easy package.
  
• Pretty interesting thread over at Sound Politics on new legislation from Cathy McMorris-Rogers that would ban certain kinds of restraints used on students. This came up in our own legislature not too long ago, and I'll stick by my same principle: you shouldn't substitute the judgment of an OSPI or DoEd bureaucrat for that of the teacher in the classroom. Not on this, anyhow.

I'm traveling for Christmas next week, so no Washington Education Week until the new year. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010!

Read more here, if any.

The Governor's Budget: This Is the Best She Can Do?

F me, but I'm starting to get the buyer's remorse pretty hardcore right now.

Previously I wrote eloquently and succinctly about a section of the budget that I feel should have been cut. The troubling thing is, there are two more pieces just like that one that ab-so-lutely have to go. To review, from page 172 if you'd like to read along at home:

$700,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2010 and $900,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for the development of a leadership academy for school principals and administrators. The superintendent of public instruction shall contract with an independent organization to design, field test, and implement a state-of-the-art education leadership academy that will be accessible throughout the state.

Page 175:

National board certified teachers who become public school principals shall continue to receive this bonus for as long as they are principals and maintain the national board certification;

Page 177:

$530,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2010 and $530,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for the leadership internship program for superintendents, principals, and program administrators.

Let's take the first and third element, where the cost is quantified: that's $1.43 million dollars that she left on the table. As to the second element, moving into the principalship implies a large pay raise to begin with, and if National Board teachers are some of our best, do we really want to incentivize them to move out of the classroom?

The piece that's eating at me, though, is the principle of it all. The Governor can boo-hoo all she wants about this being an unjust budget, but at the same time there are easy, easy cuts still sitting on the table, the sort of cuts that most people would agree are A-OK to make in tough times like these. Are we seriously saying with this budget that it's more important to create a brand new school leadership center than it is to provide ECEAP pre-school for needy kids?

It's the values question, and the Governor has failed it miserably.

Read more here, if any.

A Steaming Pile of Horseshit

I'm trying to come to personal equilibrium with the education budget--really, I am--but the fact that this piece has apparently made it through the first round of cuts is beyond the pale:

(10) $700,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal
32 year 2010 and $900,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for
33 fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for the development of a
34 leadership academy for school principals and administrators. The
35 superintendent of public instruction shall contract with an independent
36 organization to design, field test, and implement a state-of-the-art
37 education leadership academy that will be accessible throughout the
38 state.

If the budget crisis is big enough that you can throw kids off health care, cut teacher salaries, and eliminate all-day Kindergarten, then it's big enough that the damned administrators don't need their leadership academy.

Read more here, if any.

No on I-1033 Week: Because Tim Eyman Is a Twit

Sound Politics has given Tim a platform to talk about I-1033, which seems kind of repetitive because he'd be preaching to the choir there, but such is life. What's rather funny is one of the headlines he used:

GREGOIRE BLOWS A GASKET OVER INITIATIVE 1033
....particularly when you compare that to the previous video of him acting like a jerk to Joel Connelly and David Goldstein.

It also doesn't help that his biggest critique is a house built on sand:

After Gregoire recently announced that she's changed her position and now wants higher taxes - whatever increases "lawmakers and interest groups" tell her to enact - the need for Initiative 1033 became even more evident.

Let's compare that to what she actually said (emphasis mine):

Now Gov. Chris Gregoire, of all people, jump-started the tax talk in response to a question from Associated Press reporter Curt Woodward. The governor said her “door is open” to lawmakers and advocates who want to make the case for a tax package come January. “I’ve told them come on in, convince me that that’s the right thing to do and that the people will support it,” said Gregoire in a briefing with Capitol reporters.

So she's asked lawmakers (you know, the guys we elect) to make their case, and if they can convince her that tax increases are the best way, she'll consider it.

That's a long ways off from the metaphorical dinner bell that Eyman would have you think that she's ringing. My belief is that the political will won't possibly be there this session, since 2010 is an election year, and that's despite a reasonable argument to be made that taxes might be better than the alternative.

Government may have it's problems, but this initiative is not the solution.

Read more here, if any.

Will the Great Recession Put the Breaks on Dorn's Hiring Spree?

With the big state-level news lately being that Governor Gregoire has ordered a 2% reduction in spending by state agencies (see here, here, here, or here) one wonders if the good Superintendent Dorn hasn't overextended himself with 9 job posting for OSPI this month alone. I'm guessing some of those are stimulus money hires, for if it wasn't for the stimulus money WE'D ALL BE SCREWED, but all the same it looks like the hiring freeze has thawed if you're the Dorninator.

(Dorninator trademarked by this blog, even though I don't think it sounds all that good and probably won't catch on, but all the same)
(Also, I miss Tone from the Top. Come back to us!)

Read more here, if any.

Gregoire's Education Budget: How to Save Levy Equalization

(For more posts about Governor Gregoire's proposed education budget, try here and here.)

In her budget proposal Governor Gregoire suggests cutting the amount of money from the state for local levy equalization by 33%, which would have a profound impact on many of the smaller, property-poor districts here in Washington (and, for some reason, Spokane, but that's a topic for another day).

There's an awful lot of information available from the Office of Financial Management website, and if you poke around in the agency summaries section you can get enough numbers to keep you in Excel for the next decade. One of the interesting documents to me is on the compensation plan, wherein we can read that the increases in health benefits for K-12 employees are projected to cost $127,904,000.

The cuts to levy equalization are estimated to save $125,400,000.

I think you can see where I'm going here.

If we suspended the increase in health insurance benefits for the next two years and instead fully funded levy equalization, the only hit to the district budgets would then be the reduction in I-728 money. This is fair, because then at least every district is getting hit in the same way. If you cut levy equalization, though, a lot of districts that are already struggling are going to get hit in a way that the Bellevues of the world will not, and that doesn't help anyone.

You can't mention levy equalization without also mentioning Neal Kirby, the godfather of LEA; he wrote a great editorial for the Aberdeen Daily World on what exactly levy equalization is and why it matters.

And sure, ideally, education wouldn't take any sort of cuts. I think we need to deal in reality, though, and look for those areas that would cause the least harm. Levy equalization is not that area.

Read more here, if any.

The Governor Takes a Suggestion

There's been a couple of interesting posts in the past few weeks about the website that Governor Gregoire set up to take suggestions on how to save the state some money; the Washington Policy Center and Richard Roesler of the Spokesman Review being two of the best. Check out the document at the WPC website; it's about 27 pages of suggestions that were sent in, some feasible, some not. All the same, good reading.

I'll have more on this later after I've had a chance to read through it more thoroughly; if you have any good ideas on how the schools could save money, leave 'em in the comments section. There's a general belief in some circles (cough*bobwilliams*cough) that about 10% of the state budget is pure waste; if we attack that belief head on, we're only helping ourselves.

Read more here, if any.

I Feel Like I've Been Too Hard on Governor Gregoire....

....after all, she really has been a good friend to teachers over the years, and her budget does try to preserve some of the I-728 money that the Seattle Times would have seen cut much further, and we teaching folk did get a 5.1% COLA last year, which isn't bad at all, and she is protecting our health bennies, which is awfully good, so what the hell, here's my make-up Christmas Blingee to celebrate our Governor.

Happy Holidays!

Read more here, if any.

O Hai, I Make Public Policy.

Actually, Statcounter is brutally efficient in reminding me that no one visits this blog except for me, and I actually haven't even been here since late 2006 (all postings since are created by BlogBog 3000; I'm way too busy whinging about the Sonics and finding new TV shows to badparent my daughter with), but I did find this blurb from the New Tribune interesting:

Here's the general analysis of Gregoire's budget that was done by the House budget committee staff:

(snip)

Other Adjustments:

· OSPI is encouraged to look at school district consolidations with the goal of administrative savings. Report to Legislature Nov. 2009.

That sounds a lot like something that I've been pushing for a year now; I wrote a quick-ass paper on it for one of my Leadership classes, too.

I'm just happy to see the idea get a mention, anywhere, because I think it's the right thing to do. It will be painful, but there are way too many school districts out there where I think it would be better for a lot of the stakeholders.

Now I just need to find a way to get on that committee...

Read more here, if any.

I Get Mail! How To Figure Out Your District's Cut.

To whom it may concern,

Is there an easy way to find out how much money the cuts in Gregoire's budget would cost my school district?

Thank you for any help you can offer,

(Annonymous)

Well, there's not exactly an easy way, but it can be done with only a few clicks around the OSPI website:

1. First, click here to go to the Apportionment and Financial Services subsection of the OSPI website. There's enough data here to keep you up for days.
   
2. On the side menu go to Reports ---> District Reports (or click here).
   
3. In the menu, select the name of the school district tyou'd like to look at and click the "search" button.
   
4. Scroll down to the 2007-2008 school year and click on the report called "F-196 All Pages." This is the yearly financial summary that the districts report to OSPI.
   
5. In that report, first do a search for the number "3300." This will take you to the line item for "Local Effort Assistance" (LEA), the area I blogged about yesterday. Write down the income number they show there.
   
6. Go to the very next page of the document and look for line "4166", which is the amount the state gave your district for the Student Achievement Fund (SAF), probably better known as I-728. Write down this number, too.
   
7. Now you get to do some math. LEA is looking at a 33% cut, so multiply that first number by .33 to see how much your district could be in line to lose.
   
8. Similarly, I-728/SAF is looking at a 24% reduction, so multiply your SAF number by .24 to see how much your district could stand to lose. Add the two together to see the total loss.

The hazard of using this method is that you're using last years reported numbers to make predictions about what could happen next year, completely skipping this year; there's a three year time span, then, and the numbers don't always play fair. For example, I think there was a bit of a bump in the I-728 money this year, which would make the potential loss greater, and the property tax valuation that impacts the LEA money is always hard to get a handle on. You could use the F-195 budget for this year, but the F-196 for the previous year is actual spending (not projected), which I think is a more solid base to work from.

I'm willing to bet, though, that the numbers you'll find in the method above are pretty close to the reality. The big districts are on the hook for the biggest cuts, sure--combined, Spokane 81 is looking at an almost $7 million dollar hit--but even a small district like Almira in Eastern Washington could stand to lose $57,000, mainly off of lost LEA money. Similarly, a really, really small district like Onion Creek (25 kids K-8) could take a $30,000 haircut.

Happy accounting!

Read more here, if any.

Gregoire's Education Budget: Levy Equalization

(First in a series of serious looks at the education section of Governor Gregoire's budget, which means I have to drop the l33t speak and put away the lolgregoire pictures I made. Damn.)

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Local Effort Assistance (LEA), also known as Levy Equalization--the money that the state gives to those districts with lots of non-taxable land (state parks, prisons, etc.) to make up for the lost levy money. The thrust of that post was that cutting LEA works politically because so much more of it goes to Eastern Washington school districts, making it easy for your political power base to make the cut--Seattle doesn't get any LEA money, so what does Frank Chopp (Speaker of the House, out of Seattle) care? The Governor ordered a 4% reduction to LEA for this biennium to make up for the hole that has appeared, and in her budget proposal that cut's going to get deeper:

Reduction in levy equalization, which provides a state match to local school districts with higher-than average tax rates to raise a local levy (those districts are more “property poor” than average). For calendar years 2010 and 2011, allocations for levy equalization are reduced by 33 percent. This timing allows school districts to phase in the reductions over two school years. ($125.4 million GF-S)

Putting it off helps slightly, maybe, I guess, but I tinkered with the spreadsheet to see how much money that could cost Washington districts, and it ain't pretty:

• Spokane: $3,998,849
  
• Yakima: $3,357,764
  
• Pasco: $2,535,265
  
• Kennewick: $2,342,471
  
• Evergreen: $2,193,321

The figure that I've used recently for the average cost of a teacher is $80,000; in real money, then, that's about 50 teachers in Spokane. For a district like mine ($442,000), it's about 4.5 positions out of 130 positions.

Now there's a lot of legitimate objections to be had here. #1 might be wondering why a decidedly urban district like Spokane is getting any LEA money. One would suppose, too, that Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown out of Spokane's 3rd LD would have something to say about a cut that could really hurt her home district. You could also offer that these cuts don't necessarily need to be staff cuts, as there are also other areas of the budget beyond salaries.
All well and good. My overarching concern, though, is that this isn't a cut that effects everyone equally. If you cut the class-size reduction money (that's the next post) you're at least being equitable; going after LEA, which was put in place to remedy a systemic injustice, just creates a different problem.

Watch to see what the legislature does with this, because it could be a hell of an albatross.

Read more here, if any.

Governor Gregoire: "Ha ha, I hate health care and children, who's a tax and spend liberal now bitches?"

Actually, the quote was more along the lines of, "I'm sure each and every one of you will find something you don't like about this budget," but if you ask the right people they'll give you an answer more in line with the title.

And Christine, love ya babe, and thanks for the Christmas card below, even though my invitation kinda sorta got lost in the mail, but all the same best wishes, and by the way fire your tech department for making that really, really unflattering picture what shows up when people link to the YouTube video. It even looks worse in wallet size on your homepage. Tweet me later!

Read more here, if any.

The Priorities of Government, the Priorities of Schools

Here in Washington State, "Priorities of Government" is a process by which the state identifies those spending decisions that need to be made, ranks them, and then only funds those most important programs that it can pay for. Introduced by Gary Locke in the early part of this decade, it was a big campaign issue when Governor Christine Gregoire and Senator Dino Rossi squared off this year for the Governor's office.

This year the state is facing a $2.3 billion $3 billion $3.5 billion budget hole which has to be balanced, and a large part of that is going to have to come out of the education budget, since it's the largest part of the state budget. You can do this a couple of different ways: by suspending planned spending increases (think COLA) or by cutting existing programs. I think this year we're pretty likely to see both.

You can find more blog chatter about the Priorities of Government here and here, and a list of what the Budgeting Office thinks matters and doesn't for schools at the first link above. It's interesting reading, particularly if you start at the end and see what they think absolutely should not be funded. Consider:

• Leadership Internship Grants, $1.41 million dollars (91/92): There are 92 potential "purchases" on the education list, with 92 being the least important. This program here was #91, besting only the Reading Corps. I'd say this is a righteous cut; while it's nice for the people who want to become principals, there certainly isn't a shortage of people looking for school leadership positions, so why fund a program that doesn't have a real need attached to it?
  
  (I'm going to have more to say about this one at a later date. There will be cursing. This will also be a test of the political power of the AWSP.)
  
  
• School Nursing Corp Restoration, $4.52 million (89/92): Again, who would argue with school nurses? Dr. Bergeson had a specific proposal for lowering the student:nurse ratio, and this proposal would go towards that ideal, but given the economic times....away it goes.
  
  
• National Boards Oversight, $524,000 (87/92): This would provide "statewide coordination and oversight efforts" for those pursuing their National Board Certification, which seems completely unnecessary given that there are plenty of Universities that have programs in place to help people who want to go after the certificate. Why add more bureaucracy?
  
  
• Professional Certificate Bonuses, $55.77 million (86/92): This would give a $3,500 bonus to any teacher who has gone through the process to earn their ProCert. The idea is Bergeson's baby--I first heard about it at a WERA conference back in 2006, with her name attached to it--but when the state forces people to get their ProCert it really doesn't have to back up the process with more money if it doesn't want to. I'd like to gently success they scrap ProCert period and try to add some efficiency to the system.

Governor Gregoire releases her budget next month; like last year, that will be a really good indicator about where things could go.

Read more here, if any.

This Is Why Political Gamesmanship Sucks

"At the very same time as they're dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into those less than gracious "Don't Know Dino" ads. Those aren't my values." -- Dino Rossi, from the Yakima Governor's Debate

Heaven forfend. Dino, a gracious man, would never countenance a mailer from the Republican Governor's Association that pretty much links Christine Gregoire to your child getting sexually assaulted by a pervert.

On Her Watch and Don't Know Dino are equivalent. To pretend otherwise is either willfully ignorant or just another campaign tactic.

You're not above the fray, Senator Rossi. You're in the middle of it.

Read more here, if any.

What if.....? Superintendent of Public Instruction Edition

It's an idea that I've been playing with for a bit now, and a conversation I had at lunch today helped to spur it along even farther: what would the possible governor/SPI matchups mean for the future of education in Washington State?

There's a great post up at the News Tribune right now comparing the differences between Terry Bergeson and Randy Dorn based on a debate that happened today. You can get the education platforms for Rossi and Gregoire off of their respective websites.

(An aside: Rossi's is much more fully developed. C'mon, Chris)

So let's dream about the future, shall we?

Scenario 1: The incumbents both win. What changes? Very little. The work of the Basic Education Finance Task Force is finished and promptly ignored, much like Washington Learns. Some version of the WASL remains in place, because there's no way in hell that Terry can back away from that test now. The biggest name in education in Washington State turns out not to be either Gregoire or Bergeson, but rather Rep. Dave Quall and Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, because the legislature has already shown an alarming disregard for our Superintendent and I see no reason why that would change. In that environment your committee heads become that much more important. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Results: A WASL, but a different WASL. We keep on keepin' on.

Scenario 2: Same Governor, New OSPI. Fun one to consider. Gregoire has come out in support of the WASL in past years, though that support has become noticably more tepid (especially towards math) as the test becomes a bigger and bigger target for the public. Randy Dorn has come out pretty strongly against the WASL and for ditching the entire system:

For over a decade, OSPI has clung to the test it created—the WASL—which is currently a bureaucratic, exorbitant waste of taxpayer dollars providing no useful information to teachers, students or parents. I will overhaul the assessment system to make it cost effective, less wasteful of precious class time, and capable of providing timely results that aid effective instruction and provide a national comparison of our students' performance. The new system will focus first on improving student learning and the money saved will be put back into the classrooms where it belongs.

Remember that piece about saving money, because it's a Dino plank as well.

A Dorn administration would give Gregoire cover. Don't like the system? Give our new OSPI time to fix it. Hate the WASL? Randy's working on that, too. Randy has some other views (notably merit pay) that would put him at odds with teachers, and it could create an odd dichotomy between the Governor, the WEA, and the OSPI.

In short: the pace of change slows as Dorn tries to shape OSPI in his own image. Governor Gregoire gets more cover. Eventually a new testing system has a chance to grow out of the relationship, but not immediately.

Scenario 3: New Governor, Same OSPI. Pick one to be Felix and the other to be Oscar:

Bergeson: “We’ve changed the culture of learning in our state and we’re on a journey that’s not over,” she said. “It’s well worth the time it’s taken to do it.” (1)

Vs.

The first step in improving our education system is to replace the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) with a new test that has clear standards and a proven track record of success. (2)

I have a very, very hard time seeing how the two of them could work together. Bergeson has been pounding the podium for more school funding; Dino refuses to raise taxes. Bergeson would accept changing the periphery of the test; Dino proposes throwing the whole thing out entirely. In a Rossi administration you'd suppose that many of the categorical programs that contribute to the bloat of OSPI could be at risk, and that's not change Terry can believe in.

Rossi points out correctly that ditching the WASL could have the potential to save tens of millions of dollars, money which could be re-invested into the system, but he has his own designs on that money that don't match up with Terry's. Further, if you believe that Dino's transportation plan would siphon money out of the general fund and hurt education spending by making the pie smaller, then Terry's slice also gets smaller by default.

Results: dysfunction junction.

Scenario 4: New OSPI, New Governor. The hardest to predict. Randy and Dino seem to be the most compatible when it comes to the nuts-and-bolts of how to change the testing system. Randy's made some noise about merit pay, which dovetails nicely with Dino.

With a $2.7 billion dollar deficit revenue shortfall staring us in the face, though, ideas are going to be hard to fund. Would this dynamic duo be able to get anything accomplished?

Results: Division of Yalta.

--------

It's going to be an interesting November.

Read more here, if any.

The Recent WEA Mailing on Gregoire v. Rossi

I'm a little surprised to see the Association putting as much emphasis as they are on the primary; it's a given that Gregoire and Rossi are going to be the two that move on to the general, and I'd expect it to be close all the way to November. Maybe the hope is for a convincingly wide Gregoire margin on Tuesday that gets some headlines and puts Dino on the defensive.

The numbers will tell the tale.

Read more here, if any.