Highlights From Today's Appropriations Committee Meeting

Every bit of testimony boiled down to "We know the Governor's budget doesn't look anything like what you'll be passing in April, but damn it's good!" Worth watching for the WSSDA defense of levy equalization--always good to hear it spoken for--and to hear the 4-year institutions making their case to be protected in this year's budget. Also, Ross Hunter knows how to keep a meeting moving, and Timm Ormsby has low tolerance for bad handwriting.

Read more here, if any.

The Budget Delay Explained

It's clearly a case of pooformance anxiety. When you're getting ready to crap all over your constituencies, it's awfully hard to relax the sphincter.

The House budget comes out tomorrow, with a presser at 12:00-ish and a hearing at 3:30. Hopefully the Capital Budget will also release this week, and then the ball is in the Senate's court.

It's going to be an interesting three weeks.

Read more here, if any.

My Other Favorite Exchange from Inside Olympia

Sen. Zarelli: "Don't give medical care to illegals."

Rep. Hunter: "You're a moron. That will cost more money in the long run."

Sen. Zarelli: "At least I'm proposing ideas, like closing McNeil Island."

Austin Jenkins: "Should we close Larch Mountain, too?"

Sen. Zarelli: "NO! Also, Walla Walla sucks."

Austin Jenkins: "I think they actually send them to Coyote Ridge, which is new and efficient and awesome."

Sen. Zarelli: "Zip it, pinhead. I'm talking with my hands, which proves my sincerity."

Rep. Hunter: "I support closing everything in Sen. Zarelli's district. This seems fair, and wise."

Sen. Zarelli: "You almost lost an election to Mike the Mover."

Rep. Hunter: "Oh, go to hell."

Austin Jenkins: "Let's talk pensions."

Sen. Zarelli: "You work until 85, then we bill your family for you dying on the job."

Rep. Hunter: "Actually, that sounds about right."

Austin Jenkins: "And that's all the time we have for today. Tune in next week!"

Read more here, if any.

Ross Hunter: I'm Going After the Teacher Jobs Money

That's pretty much what I just got out of his appearance on Inside Olympia last week.

I've been pushing for my district to encumber the money as soon as we can, and this is the exact reason why.

Read more here, if any.

Washington Education Week

Or, the WEWee for short. Essentially, the crap that's cluttering up my desktop that makes me go, "You know, that'd be great for the blog!" but that I secretly know I'll never actually get around to devoting an entire post to.

• The Budget Stinks: So I expected that the Caseload Forecast Council might say that there were going to be more K-12 students in the system (they did), and I figured that next week the Revenue Forecast Council would crap in everyone's cereal bowl again (they're going to), so that leads one to believe that the Governor's budget next month is going to be an untold litany of horrors; truly, Chris Gregoire just may be one of the Four Horsemen.
  
  
• Federal Way Stinks: So the schools are likely to take a hit, but the Supreme Court says that's OK because the schools are amply funded anyhow so, hey, what's more cuts? I mean, if everybody EXCEPT you had a school librarian, that wouldn't be fair, but if nobody INCLUDING you has a school librarian, that's equality, baby!
  
  Talk about a race to the bottom. The thing that's being lorded over Federal Way is that their WASL scores aren't terrible, but that only means that X number of kids have gotten over an arbitrary bar. Madness that way lies.
  
  (The Senate Democrats blogged with links aplenty, here. However, since I'm a good union guy and TOTALLY PISSED at the Dems, I encourage you to go and read 5/17 instead.)
  
  
• The NAEP Stinks: Over at Crosscut Dick Lilly wrote what could be considered a call for national standards. Sadly, he wrapped it up in the NAEP, and I'm not frankly a fan. My bottom line--if the NAEP is the "gold standard", then why is there such a big push for national standards? If the NAEP was what it has presented to be, wouldn't we just use the standards it's been written to?
  
  
• Fred Jarrett.....Doesn't Stink? So the dynamic last year around education reform and HB2261 seemed to be that Ross Hunter was leading the charge in the House, Fred Jarrett was leading the charge in the Senate, and everything was going to be awesome until the stupid WEA brought O'Douls to the party (I mean, who does that?!?) and injected politics into education, which was never, ever what Hunter and Jarrett wanted to do while springboarding off of Ed Reform into a run for King County Executive. The WEA, thralls to the Democratic Party that they are, then contributed to an independent expenditure against Democrat Ross Hunter accusing him of actually, literally being Willy Horton. The pleasing end result was that Rep. Hunter finished in 5th place, and when you're not at least a factor of 10 ahead of Goodspaceguy, well, you're not having a good day.
  
  I only rehash all of this because #1 Ross Hunter still exists, and he's coming back.....FOR REVENGE! and #2, Sen. Jarrett got himself appointed to a plum position in the Dow Constantine administration, meaning there'll be a Senate vacancy that could lead to some shuffling in both of our state legislative bodies. One of the commentators on Weekday on KUOW yesterday seemed to think that this would be a real blow to an education reform agenda that may already be teetering under it's own weight; it could be a really interesting dynamic to watch.
  
  
• King5 on the coming pension crisis. Prepare for the savagery to follow when the state passes an income tax and most of us get nothing out of it because all of the money goes towards paying of our Plan 1 obligations.

Have a great week!

Read more here, if any.

Oh No She Didn't!

WEA members received an email today related to the NEWS Lawsuit, the latest effort (remember Doran?) to get the courts to weigh in on funding schools. It'll be an interesting case to watch; I wish that TVW was showing it.

Inside that email, though, are a couple of shocking paragraphs (emphasis mine):

Each day of the court case, we're highlighting state politicians who are failing the children of their district by refusing to fully fund our schools.

A politician like Laura Grant, who represents the 16th District: Her recent vote for education budget cuts in school districts like Walla Walla, Kennewick, Kiona-Benton City, Pasco and Prosser means $8 million less to help educate our children in the 16th District.

Or John Driscoll in the 6th District, who voted for the huge unfunded education overhaul bill at the same time the Legislature cut $10.6 million in state funding to the Spokane, Cheney, Mead and Nine Mile Falls school districts.

And don't forget Ross Hunter, who figures his votes to cut $17.4 million from schools in Bellevue, Issaquah and Lake Washington will go unnoticed. We have news for him. Educators, parents and, most importantly, children in classrooms who are going without because of his opposition to full funding are noticing.

All three of those members of the House are Democrats, two of them (Grant and Driscoll) from historically Republican districts. Hell, John Driscoll only beat John Ahern by about 100 votes in their contest, and Laura Grant polled below 50% in the primary earlier this month in her bid to win a special election to finish out her father's term.

The WEA calling out Democratic legislators. That's something to think about.

Read more here, if any.

The League of "Education" Voters, the Bellevue Teacher's Strike, and School Librarians

Noted a press release put out recently saying that two Bellevue parents have joined the Board of Directors of the League of "Education" Voters.

Noted, too, that the Bellevue School District cut High School Librarians last month in order to save money. The school board says that the principals know best, and that every one of the principals wants to cut library.

Further noted that one of the reasons the L"E"V put forward to support HB2261, the Basic Ed Finance Reform Bill, was that it would protect school libraries. And librarians.

It's pretty obvious that the L"E"V is more interested in the theory of change than they are in the effects of the change. Instead of protesting the library cuts, they almost seem to praise them as "finding savings in creative ways." There's an open letter to all school librarians in the state: The L"E"V is on your side, until the going gets tough.

The final note: Bellevue is either represented by or close to the legislative districts of Representative Ross Hunter and Senator Fred Jarrett, two of the leading voices that guided the final work that came out of the Basic Ed Finance Task Force. The hotbed of ed reform in the state right now, for better or worse, is Bellevue. And the L"E"V won't even stand up for their librarians.

Noted.

Updated 7/8 10:00 PM: I got a message on Facebook from a reader who didn't understand the whole "finding savings in creative ways" criticism from up above; if you follow the link, it now reads "Cutting the basics" instead. Thanks to the miracle of Google's cache, though, you can still see the original, and here's a screen shot to prove it:

I'm glad they've acknowledged that librarians are basic education again. Just wish they had done it the first time.

Read more here, if any.

Let's Keep Up the Positive Momentum for Goodspaceguy!

Goodspaceguy (yes, that's his name) is a perennial candidate in Western Washington for whatever office happens to be open at the time; sort of like an Alan Keyes, but less insane.

The reason I bring him up? He's polling a single percentage point behind State Senator Fred Jarrett, and only 3% behind State Representative Ross Hunter. Those are two of the leading voices behind the ed reform bill that's gotten so much attention in the past 6 months.

If reforming schools was meant to be a step on the ladder to bigger things, it doesn't seem to be working.

Read more here, if any.