Seattle Schools Community Forum

This morning, in an 8-1 decision, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that the $100,000 per day fines against the Washington State Legislature over the Legislature's inability to get public schools fully-funded will continue. Basics of the ruling: - the fines continue - the Legislature must open an account and put the fine money into it - the Legislature must have a plan - with funding and implementation - by the end of the 2017 Legislative session - the Court is leveling no other sanctions against the Legislature From the ruling in the section labeled Background :

This is my summary and I use only partial quotes from the State's response.  Its tone is respectful and I think that is because of our Attorney General Bob Ferguson.  I suspect if they had left it to some members of the legislature that I would not have the same tone.  What the State says.     

The race for Supreme Court justices continues to heat up with the news that yet another billionaire has teamed up with a legislator to target Justice Barbara Madsen .  From KPLU :

In yet another editorial , the Times keeps up the pressure on lawmakers to get McCleary done.  Now they are advocating for a mediator (someone like former Governor Christine Gregoire.) 

Update : good overview of funding from the Times . From KUOW : Washington Governor Jay Inslee must sign the supplemental budget next week. When he does sign it, that action touches off a series of deadlines in the McCleary case. KUOW is reporting that the Court told the legislature they must, within 30 days of Inslee signing the supplemental budget, give them a report on their McCleary plans.  Then the plaintiffs in the case can respond (within 20 days) and then the state has 10 days to reply to that response. Now we all know what the "plan" is - there was a bill passed on it.  They "plan" to kick the can down the road for another year.  I'm not sure what else the legislature could say they are actually doing. So I did a calendar check.  The end of next week is April 22nd and that would be the last day the Governor can take to sign the budget. The legislature has until June 6th to respond (Memorial Day moves it one more day further on.) The plainti...

From Cascadia Weekly : YOU HAD ONE JOB: With fewer than 20 days left in their short legislative session, a nearly paralyzed state House and Senate in Olympia passed watered-down education funding plans on razor-thin margins divided along extremely partisan lines hours before a cutoff deadline that would have stalled the bills in their houses of origin.

I attended the "listening tour" last night by members of the Legislature who appeared to want input on how to fund McCleary but had their own Senate bill that they presume will solve this issue.  I'll have a separate thread but the kid speakers did it best (along with the panel of teacher/principal/superintendents.  (One guy got thrown out of the room for interrupting and I had to ask a couple of legislators have a confab while I was talking if they might stop talking.) Readers, I have a question for you - district or District when I am talking about our "district?"  I go back and forth but it seems I should be more consistent.  I'm thinking upper-case but I note that the Times goes lower-case. The district has a blurb for parents about Schoology.   A couple of things to wonder about: 1) nothing is mentioned about student data privacy and 2) just like The Source, Use is optional for our teaching staff.

(Editor's note: I am not a lawyer.  I am a layperson who is interested in the law and I have sought to understand the Washington State Supreme Court ruling on the charter school law.)  Background

There will be three threads to this topic. Overview of Reaction to the Ruling The Ruling Itself Current Overview Part One: Overview of Reaction to the Ruling Simply put, many people - from the unscrupulous folks who wrote this law to those overseeing charter schools to those running charter schools - made a deliberate choice to gamble with children's academic lives.  And they lost.

There's the provocative question that Jen Graves over at The Stranger Slog asks. She's asking about how to properly fund our schools and gives an interesting history about how it happened in New Jersey (which funds their schools very well) and finally got that state to an income tax. It was something I noticed in a Slate story from earlier this summer about our situation here in Washington, and it bears repeating: "When, in 1976, New Jersey was in a similar situation [to Washington], the Supreme Court shut down the schools for eight days. The fruits of that conflict remain with New Jerseyites to this day, for the need to fund schools more fairly is what led New Jersey in 1976 to adopt a state income tax for the first time." It made me wonder the following things. 1. Does the Washington State Supreme Court have the authority to shut down schools across the state right now? ...

So much for kumbaya.  In a throwdown to the Supreme Court, the Senate Majority Caucus of the Legislature issued this letter today to Speaker Frank Chopp, and Senate Minority Caucus leader, Senator Sharon Nelson and House Caucus leader, Rep Dan Kristiansen.  This extraordinary order presents a clear threat to our state legislature as an institution. It demands a frank and open discussion among members and the constituents we represent regarding a proportional response. Proportional response?  Is that a threat?

 The one update I cannot provide?  That the Legislature has finished its work in creating a budget.  The Governor has said if it is not done on time, he will call ANOTHER special session.  From the Washington State Democratic Party from Governor Inslee:

Kudos to Peter Callaghan at the News Tribune for his column on what the Supreme Court should do to nudge the Legislature along to enact McCleary .  (If you read the column, you'll see I'm being sarcastic about "nudge.")  Out the gate: “Do we look stupid? We may have faults individually and collectively, but we’re not stupid. We ruled unanimously in January 2012 that the state is in violation of the rights of its children to an amply funded education. We pointed out the words — again — in the state constitution that say education is the state’s ‘paramount duty.’ No more whining: Rather than listen to you complain about this court’s order, let us remind you how accommodating we’ve been. We let you decide how to define basic education. We let you determine how much all that costs. We let you create the funding formulas and the timelines. And we gave you six years to do it! Get it done: “What follows is what we call a ‘court order.’ That means it isn’...