Washington State Supreme Court Rules
By unanimous vote, the Supreme Court has ruled Tim Eymann's initiative unconstitutional. The initiative had two parts - reducing the sales tax and imposing a two-thirds vote by the legislature to raise taxes. It also may have had a back-door effect which the justices shut down, from KOMO news:
My understanding is that this ruling may head off the levy cliff that threatened the funding for many district's including Seattle Schools. I got this point wrong. This ruling has nothing to do with the levy cliff.
The Court's ruling here. And, by the way, a HUGE shout-out to the wonderful kick-ass Washington League of Women Voters who are true public education champions. They have put themselves out there time after time.
Three of the justices, writing in a separate concurrence opinion, wrote that they believed that the initiative also violated the constitution in another way: by essentially proposing a constitutional amendment - which can't be done by initiative in Washington state.
The Court's ruling here. And, by the way, a HUGE shout-out to the wonderful kick-ass Washington League of Women Voters who are true public education champions. They have put themselves out there time after time.
Comments
Hi Melissa,
I've seen this comment in another forum. Are you able to explain the manner in which the court's ruling impacts the levy cliff? Thanks in advance.
How it works, A decides what C needs, then A and C get together to figure out how to make B pay for it.
This is what the League of women voters (A) is all about. There are several problems facing A. One, there are far fewer Bs and two, the Bs that are still hanging on are starting to fight back.
FULL STOP
FULL STOP,
I can't really make sense of what you're trying to say. The League of Women Voters has no authority to decide what "C" needs. The League is a party to McCleary which is about the state fully funding education, rather than the local taxpayers, as the Constitution states.
The Levy Cliff is about Legislation that reduces the levy lid from 28% to 24% in 2018.
It has nothing to do with this initiative or the sales tax.
Catherine
Now think about it. if the poorer districts had the money then all this would be moot, but they don't and most likely will never have enough local taxes to support the progressive's educational agenda. So that leaves all of us in wealthier taxation districts to put up the tab.
I feel for poor districts, but Seattle school district is not poor by anyone's measure! I would warn the State not to think they can just keep robbing King County to pay for other districts problems. As someone said in the other comment, C is mad as hell and not going to take it any longer.
With C
What's a progressive's educational agenda? I'd love to know.
I think one of the directors summed it up, in a recent letter to Nyland.
To paraphrase, progressive agenda goals are distracting our schools students from learning by spending valuable resources on unproven programs that assume one group is more disadvantaged than another when it comes to being educated. These programs are usually pushed on the district due to one groups subjective findings or feelings over facts. These programs in no particular order are,
anything that has equity appended to it
social justice initiatives
Sensitivity programs
Multi cultural programs
In contrast, the district actions or lack of when it come to advanced learning is particularly troubling, please understand there's nothing wrong with the above programs as long as SPS is not prioritizing anyone of them above having the best curriculum and highly capable teachers. There's no proof that SPS can social engineer students into performing better using these programs, however I don't think many would disagree of the effectiveness of good teachers using proven curriculum and being allowed to teach it over feel good programs.
With C
-Mark
confused