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Yoo Hoo, Washington Legislature (and Governor Inslee)
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I was just in Minnesota - great place with good education. (Funny thing - in my sister's city, they have an out-of-retirement superintendent running their district.)
Could we get another like this with Kansas Governor, Sam Brownback? He drastically cut taxes on the rich and business owners resulting in downgrades to the state's bond rating, state revenues woefully under projections, and severe cuts in education investment but no notable increase in jobs or businesses.
Minnesota and Wisconsin are a real-life experiment in the outcomes that flow from applying two very different political philosophies to states with similar fundamentals. Excellent analysis via Mother Jones:
Charlie - see in particular the second article I linked to above.
Washington State is at first blush sort of like Minnesota: A bright blue metro with 1/2 the state's population, and the other 1/2 in somewhat more conservative towns and rural areas. Minnesota has the history, though of the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic%E2%80%93Farmer%E2%80%93Labor_Party), a very progressive bunch overall. Washington State's conservatives seem to be more of a libertarian bent.
Anonymous said…
Minnesota's NAEP scores look good until you adjust them for demographics, then WA is actually a little higher. MN has a very large achievement gap: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_29034342/nations-report-card-gives-minnesota-students-lackluster-grades
The poverty rate for Blacks in MN is much higher than in WA.
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read). end of update Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board. To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up. But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Here's the agenda for tonight's Board meeting. I note that people can no longer sign up to speak at a Board meeting by phone. It is strictly by online sign-up. Not good. Public Testimony seems to cover two topics. Apparently, the Chinese program at West Seattle High School is in jeopardy and there are several speakers for that issue. The other issue is, of course, school closures. There are six people on the waitlist. Here's the latest from the Times which says that " Seattle Could Close about a quarter of its elementary schools." First, that would be a heck of a lot of schools (17) and two, only elementaries? My cynical side is that the district is throwing out a big number so they can "generously" only close 10-12. The article claims that the district is taking "$32M from its reserves" which is not true; they have no reserves. I think the reporter means capital reserves. I'll be tuning in with updates. 4:15 pm and has the 4:15
Comments
He drastically cut taxes on the rich and business owners resulting in downgrades to the state's bond rating, state revenues woefully under projections, and severe cuts in education investment but no notable increase in jobs or businesses.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/mark-dayton-minnesota-governor-profile-scott-walker
and
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/minnesota-progressives-turn-state-blue
Washington State is at first blush sort of like Minnesota: A bright blue metro with 1/2 the state's population, and the other 1/2 in somewhat more conservative towns and rural areas. Minnesota has the history, though of the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic%E2%80%93Farmer%E2%80%93Labor_Party), a very progressive bunch overall. Washington State's conservatives seem to be more of a libertarian bent.
The poverty rate for Blacks in MN is much higher than in WA.
LisaG