This Week in Olympia: You Can Watch Committee Hearings Live While You Eat Your Dinner!

It's going to be a busy week as policy committees work to pass out bills before the arbitrary deadline to get them to the budget committees.  Most every day has a 5:00, 5:30, or 6:00 hearing scheduled, meaning that the Brotherhood will be busy later than usual.

Monday:  There are no 8:00 committee hearings, probably to give west side legislators a chance to drive down after a holiday weekend at home, and only the Senate has a slate of morning meetings with nothing that jumps out as related to education.

At 1:30 the Senate K-12 Committee is meeting to discuss a bill to allow private schools to also offer on-line programs, and an idea for Required Action Districts that is co-sponsored by 4 of the 5 Democrats on the committee and none of the Republicans.  The 3:30 Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting has been cancelled, but over in House Appropriations they'll be hearing a bill about voters pamphlets for primary elections, and at 6:00 the Senate Governmental Operations Committee will be having a late executive session where the chair will hopefully apologize to Sheriff Knezovich for the dumb, dumb things she said.

Anyhooo.....

Tuesday:  8:00 brings a House Higher Education meeting which could be interesting because they're hearing a state version of the DREAM Act.  Expect Sound Politics and The Reagan Wing to be fully fired up.  The Senate Higher Education Committee meets in the afternoon to hear a differential tuition bill, but that one is sponsored by the Democrats so expect this proposal listed on the committee webpage to move instead.  The House Education Committee will be hearing a 23 page bill to implement the recommendations of the Achievement Opportunity Gap Commission.  It's prime sponsored by the chair of the committee hearing it, so I'd think it'd have a shot.

At 3:30 the fiscal committees start meeting; in House Appropriations they're hearing some bills that have come out of committee, including one sponsored by Rep. Magendanz about student truancy.  Tonight's late meeting at 6:00 is the House Finance Committee, where they'll be hearing the bill to impose a tax on gas refineries that has been suggested as one way to pay for the McCleary decision.  I have three different fart jokes I'd like to tell here, but this is a family blog.

Wednesday:  Nothing in the morning.  In the afternoon Senate K-12 will be hearing a good little bill to suspend some of the various programs that have been thrust down on the schools in recent years (so long, Student Learning Plans), but it would also take away the requirement that school board members join WSSDA, which has come up before and been pushed back at hard.  That could be an interesting hearing.  I also rather like this bill which cuts down on the number of fire drills, from 6 to 4, but adds to the number of lockdown drills, from 1 to 4.  That's a net loss of instructional time.

The House Higher Ed Committee also meets at 1:30.  At 3:30, the Senate Ways and Means Committee will be passing out Senator Dammeier's "Flunk ALL the 3rd Graders!" bill, as well as having a hearing on Senator Litzow's school reform proposal.  In the House, the Education Appropriations Subcommittee has a full agenda, and at 5:30 the House Education Committee is meeting with an agenda that looks a little light at this point but is guaranteed to fill up as the week goes along.

Thursday:  House Education at 8:00 with an empty agenda.  House Higher Education with a single bill to hear at 10:00.  An interesting one will happen in the Senate Governmental Operations Committee at 10:00 when they hear a bill to allow a simple majority vote for school bond issues, which would be huge.  At 1:30 the Senate Higher Ed has a bunch of appointments they're working through.

A bit of an oddity for the Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting at 3:30:  a bill that would exclude "Employee Wellness Programs" from those things that can be bargained; essentially, making them off-limits to the unions.  This is an issue that was just covered in the Labor Notes newsletter I read (highly recommended for anyone who cares about unions) here and here, and apparently Senator Tom is also a subscriber because he's the prime sponsor.  The sunset meeting at 5:30 is the K-12 Education Committee, and there are two bills related to gun safety in the schools that could bring out some crowds.

Friday:  Senate K-12 is meeting first thing with a blank agenda, as is House Education at 1:30.  That's pretty much it for the day.

Read more here, if any.

MoneyGrabber!

One of the Big Idea school reform bills to get attention early in the session was Senate Bill 5237, prime sponsored by Senator Bruce Dammeier of Puyallup.  He said that it was all about "the critical juncture" between 3rd and 4th grade.  He said it was about dropout prevention and improving the graduation rate.  He said it was about closing the achievement gap and putting kids on a successful path for life.  He had an ally in Stand for Children, who had to commit a classic Lie of Omission to justify their support, but Stand has proven this year more than any other that they don't really care what the reform does, as long as it's something they can call reform.

Everyone else said that this bill was absolute nonsense.  That making the MSP a high stakes test, when we're getting ready to roll out new standards related to the Common Core and the new tests that will follow, was the absolute antithesis of what kids need.  That retaining a kid who was struggling in reading, but OK in every other subject, was pedagogically unsound, and that retention in general is linked to higher drop-out rates.  The bill summary gives a nice, tidy overview of both sides of the discussion.

The result was a complete re-do, which you can see in the substitute bill that was heard in the Ways and Means Committee.  The retention piece was moved from the 3rd grade test to the 4th grade test, which isn't any better, but there's also a lot of pieces about intervention and professional development, which looked great until the financial guys came back with an $80 million dollar price tag that had the Ways and Means Committee clutching their pearls at the shock of actually having to fund stuff.

A similar bout of apoplexy occurred in the Senate K-12 Committee on Friday morning during a hearing on Senate Bill 5242, which would provide 10% bonuses for math and science teachers.....

(Secondary math and science teachers, who have at least 50% of their day as math and science, and who are deemed excellent under criteria that hasn't been written yet by the Professional Educator Standards Board.  So if you're a 5th grade science teacher, or only teach two periods a day of math, or don't meet whatever standard the PESB comes up with--sucks for you!)


....when the GOP members of the committee didn't like the cost estimate that OSPI came up with for what those bonuses would cost ($70m every two years).  Crosscut did a short story on the meeting as well.

So the Senate K-12 Committee, the new Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, with Crazy Stevie as the chair, not only can't pass the ideas that they do like (grading schools!), they can't find the money to pay for the bonus program they want either, and those bills that do make it over to the House will be given the mercy of a quick death unless they have some sort of blessing from Sen. McAuliffe.

I've said before that Senator Litzow may not be good at his job, but I take it back--for guys like me who want to snark about education politics, he's an answered prayer.

Read more here, if any.

If You're Not Prepared for Power, You End Up Like Steve Litzow

....because he's had a bad week, and it's going to get worse.

On Wednesday he held a hearing about making the reading test in 3rd grade a pass/fail proposition; this, at the exact same time that we're changing both the standards and the testing to meet the demands of the Common Core.  It's a bad idea that was copied from Florida, exactly like another one of his bills, and this did not go unnoticed by the Senate Democrats.

What Litzow has done, essentially, is picked up the gavel, pulled down his pants, and showed his butt for all the world to see, and as the  Democrats line up to kick it with aplomb you'll see those "reform" bills that do pass out of the committee be on strictly 6-5 party line votes, and I'm not sure what'll happen when Jerome Delvin leaves to go be a County Commissioner back home.  The members of the Majority Coalition will then be asked to make some absolutely terrible votes where they'll get zero Democratic support on the floor, and then those bills will die in the House.  If Washington really is an education reform backwater, the way that Senator Tom is fond of saying, it's only because Litzow's committee is working hard to set ed reform back 20 years.  Well done!

Other reading:

The Bush Foundation is reading out to the states
Corporate Interests Pay to Play

Read more here, if any.

Rep. Norma Smith Nails It, Unintentionally

When you travel in my district, and when you sit with job creators that are hanging on by a thread....they're worried.  When consumers don't know what tomorrow holds, in terms of what's coming down from us, they worry.  It impacts decisions in families. -- Rep. Norma Smith

I agree with the good representative from the 10th Legislative District, and I would encourage her and everyone else involved in governance to understand that teachers feel that uncertainty, too.  When the Senate is looking to throw on more, new accountability, to change an evaluation system that was just changed last year after being introduced in 2010, when they want to make the new 3rd grade Common Core-aligned test a high-stakes test where one bad hour for a kid could mean one year of their life--that's uncertainty.

Read more here, if any.

Accountability for Thee, But Not for Me! Charter School Edition.

First, let's review:

• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Washington Policy Center
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Yes on 1240 Fact Sheet
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Lisa McFarlane in a Ballard News Editorial
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Mary Lou Evans in the Everett Herald
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Liv Finne
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Bellingham Herald
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Partnership for Learning
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Olympian

....and numerous other editorials, letters, Facebook posts, and pretty much everywhere else you looked.

Contrast that with this language from Senate Bill 5328, prime sponsored by Steve Litzow and co-sponsored by 7 others.  The effect of the bill would be to give every school a letter grade from A to F, of course based off of test scores.  Actually, not every school:

(3) Each school that has students who are tested using the assessments administered statewide in reading, writing, mathematics, and science required under RCW 28A.655.061, 28A.655.066, and 28A.655.070 shall earn a school grade, except as follows:
(a) To protect the privacy of students, schools, and district testing fewer than ten students in a grade level;
(b) An alternative school may choose to receive a school or a school improvement rating;
(c) Charter schools, unless the charter school governing board chooses to earn a school grade;

 There is absolutely no legitimate excuse for this.

"They're new, it's not fair to grade them!"  High turnover schools are practically new every year.
"They work with high-need populations!"  So do all of our alternative high schools.
"They have their own accountability!"  So does my public school, through the State Board of Education's Achievement Index.

This is what those who were against I1240 were talking about when they worried that the initiative would create a two track system of public schools that were accountable and charter schools that are not.  In the coming years, when the test scores tank because of the switch to the Common Core State Standards, this bill would create a reality where most every real public school had a scarlet F attached to them while the "public" charter schools could opt out and avoid the consequences.

There are other problem with the bill--the incentive piece is simply insulting, and this would be another layer of accountability bureaucracy on top of what the Board of Education is already doing--and I can't imagine it would pass the House.  It's simply sad to see just how little Senator Litzow and the rest of the Majority Coalition Caucus think of public schools.

Read more here, if any.

Congratulations to Senator Rodney Tom on Breaking the World Record Time for Shitting the Bed After Taking Power

I'm not even talking about all the nonsense with Pam Roach, although that is a fun side story that gives the press corp something to do in this week where every committee meeting begins with 30 minutes of "I'm Representative Jones, I love kids, and my district is awesome!"

Remember last month, when the Majority Coalition Caucus came into being in the Washington State Senate and released their five governing principles?

We, the members of the Coalition Caucus, come together behind the principles of:

• budget sustainability and living within our means;
• creating an economic environment where jobs are plentiful and small businesses thrive;
• providing a world-class education system through reforms and enhancements;
• governing collaboratively to protect our most vulnerable while prioritizing the needs of middle-class Washingtonians;
• and setting priorities for state government and holding it accountable.

How do you reconcile those principles, then, with Senator Tom's insistence on destroying the Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) Program, our pre-paid tuition program here in Washington State? Those families that buy the GET credits are budgeting for the future and making sure that their kids are taken care of. They're doing their best to help their children access a world-class education system without having to start their adult lives $50,000 or more in the hole. They're prioritizing education by accessing a program that's great for middle-class Washingtonians. The families using GET are doing the exact right thing.

In return Senator Tom, who worries about the middle class in the same way that a hawk worries about the number of mice in a field, calls GET a Ponzi scheme (horseshit--the money is always there for those who pay into it) and tries to argue that GET is somehow driving tuition costs when it's the legislature and the directives that they've given to the colleges that's making that happen, not GET. Senator Tom is the former chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee--he knows full well why tuition has become what it has become. I mean, really:  

Tom said it's unclear exactly who the GET program helps.

It's clear as day, unless you really don't want to see.  It helps middle class families, like mine.  Someone who literally lives off of a trust fund may not get that, but our reality is different than his.  It is heartening to see that the House Republicans, most notably Gary Alexander, have already come out against eliminating GET, and I applaud them for it.

It only took five days, out of 105 in the session, for Senator Tom to have his first several screw-ups.  Here's to more of the same next week.

Other reading:

• Senator Rodney Tom: The Politics of Two-Faced Divisiveness by Joel Connelly at the Seattle PI
• Senator Rodney Tom: Give College Savings Program the Budget Ax by John Stang at Crosscut
• Axing College Savings Program: The Jury Is Out, ibid
• Money From Nothing?, by the only media outlet in the state that would praise Senator Tom for this.

Read more here, if any.