The Poison Pill That Could Kill HB2261

....can be found here, via the Political Buzz blog from the News Tribune.

Senators McAuliffe and Oemig are holding a statewide listening tour to get teacher input on the bill. Good for them, I guess--better now than never, which is where we were at. The trick is that the cratering state budget won't be ready to accomodate all the new spending on all the new programs 2261 mandates any time soon, so if this nascent idea to speed up the pace at which 2261 was implemented were to take hold, much of it would have to end up on the cutting room floor out of economic necessity.

Consider that the Governor has already vetoed two sections of the bill dealing with access to preschool and gifted ed programs, which was a definite slap to the "2261 will make everything better!" crowd. If this were to become a trend, it's very easy to see a path to what the WEA feared all along--the good that made people like the bill will evaporate away a section at a time, and what we'll all have left is onerous new certification requirements and more bureaucracy.

Hooray.

Read more here, if any.

But on the other hand.....

Political Buzz at the News-Tribune has the story of how Terry Bergeson got a big endorsement from the Washington State Labor Council. Two thoughts:

1) For anyone who tells you that labor is a monolith, here's your counter-argument. The Public School Employees endorsed Randy Dorn, for obvious reasons, as did the Washington Education Association.

2) It's highly interesting that the WSLC didn't find their way clear to endorsing Terry at their nominating convention in May; it's only now that the stars have lined up. Her name is an obvious omission from their list of endorsed candidates. What's changed since?

Read more here, if any.