Seattle Schools Community Forum

Reminder of the boundary meeting at JAMS tomorrow night at 6:30 pm.  Please email stories, information and questions to 2017boundaryadvocates@gmail.com Audit and Finance committee meeting agenda for Thursday's meeting from 4:30-6:30 pm.  The documentation is 383 pages but a number of pages are part of the EEU contract.

From the excellent political e-mail newsletter, Sol's Civic Minute from former McGinn staffer, Sol Villarreal, this reminder that tomorrow, Monday, July 6th, is the deadline to register online/mail-in to vote in this year's primary on August 4th.   You have until July 27th to do it in person. October 5 is the deadline to register online/mail-in if you want to vote in the General while October 26th is the deadline to do it in person. This is a big election year for Seattle and Seattle public education.  Who gets on the City Council and their attitudes/beliefs about what role the Council should play in public education is important.   As well, the School Board elections are important, too. Look for The Stranger to release their coveted and profanity-laced endorsement list next week, just in time for the ballot drop. Another good source of info on what is happening at the STILL on-going Legislative session (number three), comes from Coalition to Prote...

From Publicola , the most recent Elway poll:  "Voters "aren't having" the fact that both the Democratic and Republican proposals don't fully fund I-1351, last year's $1.4 billion (when you account for the overlap with the McCleary mandate) smaller class size initiative . The poll also found that 48 percent of voters (versus 43 percent) would take a second vote on the initiative with a funding source—and 60 percent of those people would vote yes. No specific tax proposal got polled, though."

Legislative action on public education still going (anything not voted out of committee by April 1 is dead and this list in not inclusive of all ed bills): - expanding states early learning system of ratings - HB 1240 use of restraints/restraining for students with disabilities (passed out of Ed Ctm unanimously)  - SB5748 tying student scores to test scores died but, as I previously reported, an amendment to bill 1345 includes tying student scores to test scores.  That bill is still alive. - SB5419 SUPER act - Establishes the Student User Privacy in Education Rights Act; which increases the strength of safeguards protecting student information. This one got by me. Given it's from a Republican, Senator Litzow, I don't have great hope. - SB5433 Requires the creation and incorporation of curricula about the history; culture; and government of the nearest federally recognized Native American tribe or tribes. - HB1031 Dual Credit Expands eligibility for Colleg...

The Legislature doesn't like what the voters want. Really? From The Olympian : Legislature Might Send I-1351 Back to Voters. So wait, does this work for ANY unfunded initiative?  Because we could talk about others like I-1240. Also, how much would this repeal election cost taxpayers? A couple of choices for the Legislature: Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2015/02/13/3576397_legislature-might-send-initiative.html?fb_action_ids=10153069460173166&rh=1#storylink=cpy

I'm going to call it a winner as well (the 1351 campaign already did). Yes - 989,754 No  - 962,794             26,960 Yes - 50.69% No  - 49.31% The gap is only widening (No has never caught up again since Election night).  The last drop of ballots at 6:02 pm was King County which is at nearly 55% in favor with 88K left.  No other county has near the ballots although, oddly, Spokane was supposed to have a new count at 5 pm and did not (they have 13,500 ballots).

The Seattle Times has run another editorial in opposition to the class size initiative , I-1351. This one is disguised as a news article about the initiative's commanding lead in the polls, but all of the content is an argument in favor of a "no" vote. This isn't even clever. It belongs on the editorial page.

 Update:  it seems I'm not the only one who thinks that I-1351 + McCleary = the push needed to force the Legislature to make real change in revenue sources.  The somewhat to the left left, Budget & Policy Center, says this: Without an identified revenue source, I-1351 leaves it up to the legislature to determine how it will be funded. The sheer enormity of the gap between our resources and funding needs means that there is no escaping the need for new revenue. Funding I-1351 and meeting McCleary without additional revenues would be impractical. A cuts-only approach would decimate health care, child care, community colleges and universities, and other investments kids need in order to succeed in the classroom.  end of update. I hope that it has not missed anyone's attention that there is again an initiative to lower class sizes in Washington State. Our state's class size?  We are 47th out of 50th in the nation.  (Sadly, just like with McCleary, p...

Sorry to pick on the Times but their publisher (and fearless leader), Frank Blethen, put up a speech that he gave recently to a Rotary Club.  He makes a lot of claims without backing up his stats or explaining his thinking. To whit,  

The Seattle Times wrote an editorial to discourage people from signing petitions to put Initiative 1351, Class Size Reduction, on the ballot. The editorial was, of course, full of lies, misrepresentations, and unprincipled statements. I don't know where other people stand on initiatives. Lots of states don't have an initiative process. They are certainly open to abuse. We have seen Costco use the initiative process to buy themselves the law that allows them to sell liquor. We have seen a dozen millionaires and billionaires use the initiative process to buy a charter school law. Tim Eyman writes frivilous initiatives to provide himself an income as the manager of the campaign. There was a time when Tim Eyman was the de facto political leader of this state - it was a time when there was no leadership coming from Olympia. A number of Mr. Eyman's initiatives, though successful at the ballot box, were reversed by the Court because they failed to meet constitutional requirem...