The Adequacy Lawsuit is Dead--Long Live the Adequacy Lawsuit!

One of the things that Education Week is best as is the ongoing dialogue; there was a neat two-month span earlier this year when they went to town on Understanding by Design, and now there's a healthy exchange underway regarding filing suit as a means to get more money for schools.

The genesis was a well-researched opinion piece in the September 12th issue from Alfred Lindseth, who often represents the states as they defend themselves. He laid out a 5-part test for why the lawsuits have been failing (14 of the last 15, by his scoring) and gave a good insight into what "the other side" thinks.

This, in turn, sparked some great letters to Education Week from some of those most familiar with the adequacy wars, including Michael Rebell of Columbia University and Kathryn Firestone, executive director of the Oregon School Funding Defense Foundation.

Why this matters to Washington State is because of our own adequacy lawsuit currently winding its way through the system. The bludgeon that we have that most other states don't is the language from the state constitution regarding education being the paramount duty of the state. We could be the exception that breaks the trend Lindseth describes.

Read more here, if any.

Union Dues and Union Don’ts

Got a flyer in the mail last week from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation relating to the union dues lawsuit that will be argued before SCOTUS January 10th which I’ve previously blogged about here. It’s got quotes from newspapers around the country (DC, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas) supporting the EFF’s position; I think it would perhaps be a more effective flyer for Washington State residents if they had quoted more Washington State papers. They did get the Seattle Times, but the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Tacoma News-Tribune, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer are notable omissions.

One area where the EFF is definitely outmaneuvering the WEA is in getting their case out on this issue. The EFF has set up a dedicated website and a blog to go with it; you have to do some mining to find anything on the WEA’s homepage about the issue. Advantage EFF, but it’s not the court of public opinion that matters here.

Read more here, if any.

Education Week on the Special Ed Lawsuit

A short, concise update, from the November 8th edition:

Spec. Ed. Financing System On Trial in Washington State

Washington school districts gave their openings statements last week in a trial in which they are asking a state court to throw out the state’s system of financing special education, arguing that more than 120,000 special education students are being shortchanged.

A loss in the case could cost the state at least $100 million a year in more generous budgets.

Twelve districts from around the state – joined by Seattle, Tacoma, and 70 other supporting districts – urged Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee to rule that the system falls short of the constitutional mandate to fully finance basic special education.

But Washington state Assistant Attorney General Bill Clark defended the current setup in his statements in court last week, saying the state and local districts together fully meet the needs of all students.

The two-year state budget provides $1.38 billion in state and federal support for special education, roughly 10 percent of the K-12 budget of $13.8 billion. The state has 1 million pupils.

Read more here, if any.