Whatever the outcome of budget negotiations in the coming legislative session, local school districts shouldn’t expect any additional state funding coming their way. In fact, even with new revenue added to the equation, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an additional bite taken out of K-12 education as the legislature struggles to balance a $2.6 billion shortfall in the last year of our current two-year budget.
What seems increasingly likely however, is a temporary or even permanent lift in the state imposed local school levy lid, that currently limits local, voter-approved school levies to a maximum of 24% of a district’s operating budget, or as high as 33% for a handful of districts that were grandfathered in at a higher rate. The logic is that with state funding in short supply, local districts should be able to ask local voters to make up the difference.
At the same time, I also expect the governor and legislature to yield to pressure to save “levy-equalization” payments, state funds that go to “property poor” districts to help offset their residents’ inability (or unwillingness) to raise adequate local school levies. Individual, one can make rational arguments for and against both lifting the levy lid, and maintaining levy-equalization, but combined, I fear that the policies will only serve to undermine broad support for state K-12 funding over the long term.
Why? Consider the rational self-interest of a Mercer Island parent and taxpayer. Freed from the shackles of the school levy lid, the Mercer Island School District can now raise all the money it needs and wants, with little if any concern for what goes on in Olympia. Even better, all of the additional money raised locally is kept local; not a dime goes to subsidizing education in less affluent districts.
Now consider the rational self-interest of taxpayers in those “property-poor” districts. These are the same parts of the state that generally oppose new taxes, and support tax cuts… a statewide voting block that makes it nearly impossible to fund K-12 education at adequate levels. Yet despite their steady opposition to new state taxes, and their lack of support for local levies, they get the levy-equalization payments nonetheless. It might be unfair to say that the state is rewarding them for failing to raise school funds locally, but such anti-tax sentiment certainly appears to come at little cost. I mean, why should residents vote to raise their own taxes at either the state or local level, if they think their schools are going to get the money regardless?
Like I said, rational self-interest. And it’s hard to see how either lid-lifts or levy-equalization provide much incentive for voters in both wealthy and poor districts to support statewide funding for K-12 education.
If, on the other hand, these less affluent districts feared their levy-equalization payments might get cut off, they might be more supportive of statewide revenue increases that could stave off such an educational calamity. And if the residents of affluent districts continue to have the quality of their children’s education somewhat tied to that of the state as a whole, they too will remain advocates for adequate statewide K-12 funding.
For all the legitimate criticisms one can make of K-12 funding in Washington state, it still remains far more equitable than that of my native Pennsylvania, were the state/local funding formula is reversed, and thus the quality of your education is largely determined by the property tax base of the school district in which you are raised. And when it comes to equity, it would be a shame for our current budget crisis to permanently push us in the wrong direction.
what a fucking waste of time bunch of ignorant gibberish that is. but, i’m making money by posting here so i dont care.
Is State Poet Laureate funding being preserved? I sure hope we don’t lose that.
manoftruth @1,
If you want to be banned, just ask.
Hi Goldy.
I have the impression that each school district receives a fixed fee per student, independent of local costs. Is this correct?
Is there a primer which describes how schools are currently funded?
Also, is there a state with a successful school funding that we could learn from?
What is “successful”? Both fair and attains a high median achievement level? But please use your own definition, since its your argument.
How does society reward merit while also ensuring a level playing field? That’s the central tension between capitalism and democracy. Our history has shown that there must be a balance.
That, in a nutshell, is the very essence of the American Experiment.
Whenever revenue sharing is mentioned, I think of pro-sports.
Compare football and baseball.
Football has both revenue sharing (media and tickets split 50/50) and salary caps. Their leagues are quite competitive. Most of the money goes to players. Fans rejoice. Everyone benefits.
Major league baseball shares some revenue and has no salary cap. The league is very uncompetitive. Major market teams buy their championships. A few minor market teams pocket the extra cash. The fans are pretty unhappy. Only a few benefit.
Ask yourself:
Which revenue system would a liberal advocate? Football or baseball’s?
How about a conservative?
myself @ 4
Result! I found these on the Office of Superintendent of Public Instructions web site.
Brief descriptions of the apportionment formulas and how schools may raise local money (currently):
Washington School Finance Primer
Organization and Financing of Washington Public Schools
Bravo to OSPI for posting these docs (and many others) online. Now they just need to be converted from PDF to HTML.
I’ve never been in favor of local property taxes staying at a local school district.
The greatness of our nation, the understanding of how democracy works, and the engine of our future economy depends on highly educated citizenry.
All funds should flow to the state level and be distributed evenly to all schools.
Every child should receive nothing short of a WORLD CLASS education.
We are continually falling behind the rest of the world which puts us squarely on the path to losing our global leadership position.
Anyone who is opposed to “class warfare” on principle would totally be onboard with this idea. Nothing creates a deeper division between the classes than education.
@3 No, don’t make it that easy for him. Make him kiss your feet first.
@5 Merit has nothing to do with anything anymore. A couple years ago, I read a news story about a hairdresser who became a mortgage broker and made $2 million in her first year. No education, knowledge, or ethics were required for that job. A glib tongue and unlimited greed were sufficient.
If you leave it up to the denizens of the red-voting counties, their education taxes will be zero and their kids will be home-schooled. The only reason you see yellow buses and school buildings in rural Washington is because King County property owners pay for it.
RR @ 5
I dunno. The hairdresser got into the ground floor of a ponzi scheme (the Republican real estate bubble). Sounds pretty saavy too me. I certainly didn’t have the gumption to do the same.
Hate the game, not the player.
RR @ 10
Money well spent.
As a tax payer residing in King County, I want everyone to know that I’m happy to pay my taxes. I revel in being part of a civil society. I exalt knowing that I’m helping each young mind become a productive, tax paying, happy citizen.
I only ask for two things in return from our red county friends and neighbors.
First, don’t mistake kindness for weakness.
Second, please, don’t hate us for you helping you. I don’t need gratitude. But don’t make me regret pulling my weight.
@11
As a tax payer residing in King County, I want everyone to know that I’m happy to pay my taxes. I revel in being part of a civil society. I exalt knowing that I’m helping each young mind become a productive, tax paying, happy citizen.
wow…are you a fucking loser…and i thought darryl was the biggest idiot here.
@11..sounds like you need to spend a long weekend in the inner city for some real perspective..
I have a simple idea.
Lets gather all the MOT types together and give them their own state. They can take whatever money they have now. However MOTistan will receive no funds for any social programs … no funds to research universities, no guv programs, no income from public property, etc.
Any Federal resources as in oil from Alaska, will go to the other states.
Folks in MOTistan will also be required to find employment in their new state. Of course the Motley crew will no longer have to pay taxes other than those that go to national debt, defense, prisons, the VA, and other mandatrory shit.
Good luck MOTley ones!
@11 “I only ask for two things in return from our red county friends and neighbors.”
See #12; and whatever you do, don’t expect any gratitude from those Republican swine.
@13
@11..sounds like you need to spend a long weekend in the inner city for some real perspective..
lol…..yeah, let him see how his tax dollars are really spent. wait, let me give him a hint at the lives of our so called “urban” bros…food stamps, wic, aidc, section 8, teac. plus in massachusetts you get 100 per cent free medical. no copays , zero.
@14 Sounds a lot like the deal that Israelis worked out for their Palestinian friends and neighbors.
@16 Speaking of food stamps, “enrollment has skyrocketed across the state. King County has seen a 39 percent increase in food stamps …. On the Eastside, which historically had a small population on food stamps, the numbers have doubled …. Snohomish County saw a 50 percent jump, one of the highest increases in the state. Pierce County, the epicenter of home foreclosures in the state, saw a 40 percent increase.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ps21m.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Looks like the fastest growth in food stamps is outside King County, and in King County’s reddest area. When Republicans can’t peddle worthless paper anymore, they go to the government for paper they can trade for food.
@15…spoken like a true Goebbels…all you gotta do is replace “republican” with “jew”…..ergo we see Goebbels Rabbit’s true nature of hatred.
give power to Goebbels Rabbit and people like him, and watch the body count rise…
@17 .. yiu think MOT wants to live in Gaza?
@18…and yet another example of Goebbels Rabbit and his hatred of his fellow countryman.
He will twist the data to create a phony conclusion to justify his hate.
what foul person you are Goebbels Rabbit.
How many of your fellow countrymen would you find a final solution for if you were in power?
Last week sometime I was watching the news and there was this article about two classes at schools in the Seattle area competing in a contest to make the best video. For some reason I had my doubts that this type of education was going to help the students get an understanding of the reasons for the Bill of Rights, know how to balance a check book, understand where money comes from, the reasons for the First World War or the biology of humans.
Schools spend a lot of money wasting money. Until that issue is addressed there won’t be much support for more money.
What we need are charter schools that provide students with a diverse education and fewer games for the teachers to play. We need to free the teacher from the administration and let them set the standards. We need classroom innovation.
amen 22…..
most HS kids have never heard of the first world war, much less know its causes, or more importantly, its lasting legacy and impacts.
@22 Blue Collar
The part I agree with is charter schools.
There is no reason PARENTS ought not to be able to choose where to send their kids.
Some may well choose soft and fuzzy teaching. Others may want an emphasis on sports, still others may want their kids to learn ASpanish or Lummi …
as long as standards are met, and enough kids choose the school, we should let the parents choose.
Thanks for posting this, Goldy, it is exactly what I have been thinking and saying for months.
The strange irony is that the Republicans fight for levy-equalization because their districts will not pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
If the legislature insists on giving money to people that insist on lower revenue, then give them less, please.
If they are getting it anyway then why would they ever support a higher base for K-12?
Having the Spokane folks say “thanks Seattle” on tvw replay of the Spokane town hall with legislator leaders made me want to kick in my tv.
The loophole has been the PTA. You can compare two schools within the same district and they will be different.
@25 Mr Baker
I suspect that money is less of an issue than parental control. The same parents who raise $$$ for goodies are likely to be effective in getting their way in the classroom.
In contrast, SPS openly tells parents that the District owns the kids. This drives more effective families, white .. black or mauve .. out.
Money is important but ending open enrollment and fictions like creating a magnet at Cleveland have been tried, and tried, should have died.
In fact what does happen, over and over again in the SPS is that nay academically successful school gets crucified for elitism. Ask any activist parent.
The only answer, of course, starts with enough money but those dollars will end up as custodial care until we offer parents choice.
@26
Suspect?
Hmmm, ok.
I suspect that money is always the issue, and parental control is a symptom.
Btw, one of the “goodies” we raised money for at my son’s school, through PTA, was the art teacher and librarian salaries.
Here ya go, a school with about 300 kids raises $80k
http://www.danielbagley.com/pta.htm
Rockatansky @ 13
Where, exactly, is this “inner city” you speak of?
Tell you what. You give me an address, a date, and a time. We’ll meet there. We can grab a beer, some pho, a coffee, or whatever.
Then you can tell me all about the depravity of this “inner city” that you hate so much.
Blue @ 22
You. A libertarian. Against competition? Really?
Please help me out here. That whole free market thing you libertarians yammer on and on about. Those are just words? You really don’t believe in it?
So that’d make you what? A fair weather free market cultist?
Just asking.
PS- A student video competition is a brilliant idea.
RR @ 10
Sorry, I forgot something.
Republicans happily pay for parks, schools, etc. For themselves. They just don’t like to share.
There was a comparative study. Sorry, no citation. I’m looking for it. I’ll post it when I find it. It was illuminating.
SJ @ 24
Please. You’re not helping.
Republican policies create the crisis. So the remedy is to completely gut the schools? Oh, and incidentally, the beneficiaries are all cronies?
Sorry, I’ve seen this trick before. Not falling for it again.
thing @ 16
I have a pretty clear idea where my taxes are being spent. Do you?
http://www.recovery.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.....ral_budget
Please review these. And then suggest what items you’d cut from the budget. Please, take your time. I’d like you to be specific.
@30…hate? no, not at all.
its YOU who seem to have all the hate – hate for suburbia or rural counties.
Your point is that the so-called “red” rural areas are takers of taxes, rather than givers. My point is that inner city is no different. You seem to think there is some healthy tax base in the Rainier Valley? LMFAO…
Its the more affluent areas of the city proper and suburbia that are pulling the tax weight.
Maxwell @ 35
Yea. Nice try. Marvin Stammer already tried that one. I love both country and western. Honky tonk and rockabilly too, but please don’t tell any one.
So. No beer then?
@33 Osgood
What “trick?”
Giving parents choices and seeing that there is enough money to pay for the schools are not only compatible they make no sense without each other.
If anything, I would argue with the Supreme Court in Brown vs the Board of Ed, if you force kids to go the schools chosen based on race, neighborhood parents wealth, etc. they can never get an equal education.
Part of the problem lies in the idea that condescending liberals have about the poor. An awful lot of well off liberals feel that poor folk would be better off if they just did what rich folks told them to do.
Charter Schools are simply schools where a group of parents, using only the same resources available to other schools, get together with willing set of teachers and run a school.
The only money issues come when you allow such schools to exist but then limit enrollment to a neighborhood or otherwise self chosen group … e.g some ethnic community that wnats to exclude others.
I will give you a historic exampkle. Seattle used to have a school that served its Asian kids .. I believe it was actually Kimball. Any kid who wanted to go to that school and participate in Asian culture could go. We moved into our neighborhood (in part) because it was close enough to Kimball to allow our kids to be bussed there.
Then Seattle desegregated and Kimball was broken up.
Who benefited from this?
@29 what would be wrong with these parents raising money IF the SPS still had open enrollment?
@19 There’s no comparison between Hitler’s victims and Republicans. The 6 million Jews didn’t kill, torture, or wiretap anybody.
@21 And here we have wingnut victiology on full display. I’ve never suggested liquidating Republicans or putting them in concentration camps, except when I parodied Ann Coulter and Jonathan Gardner, who suggested the same thing for liberals. Hell, all I’ve ever said in seriousness is that Republicans should pay their fair share of taxes. That’s “hate”?
sp victimology
SJ @ 38, 39
Please. Be serious.
Kimball Elementary was/is a public school.
You’re referring to alternative schools.
The term “charter school” already has an established, well known, and broadly accepted definition: private schools funded with public money.
What?!
We’re talking about revenue sharing models. That wasn’t your queue to initiate the circular firing squad.
@22 Yeah, and the world’s gonna end if students learn how to compete and how to make videos, but don’t know what caused the First World War? Even historians don’t agree on what caused the First World War, so how can we expect kids to know? If I could use only one word to sum up the underlying forces and crosscurrents that drove European governments to war in 1914 it would be “rivalry.”
@40…..thank you for confirming your hatred of your fellow countryman, Goebbels Rabbit.
Thankfully you will never be a person of power.
@41…nice try at backtracking.
@44…..not only do you hate your fellow countryman – you prove to the rest of us that you are clueless about 20th century history.
no wonder you worked for the state.
i’m not saying i’m not taking part, but, wow…what a loadfull of hatred around here.
43 …Jason
Charter schools are NOT private schools. They are public schools controlled by a group of parents and teachers who agree on governance rather than by the central district. Otherwise they are like any other public school .. they must conform to the same standards, enrollment rules, and funding.
The HUGE difference that liberals kvell over is that Charter schools usually ALSO have authority over curriculum and hiring/firing of teachers. Unions hate the latter idea.
Alternative schools do not have local governance. They are run by the same central admin and union as all other schools.
Jason
You and I agree on the issue of the Repricans and money for schools. However, a major reasoon that the Rs get away with this is that we ALL have created a school system that is divided into two classes .. charity schools and affluent schools. Seattle parents with $$ can send their kids to private school or move to a District where there is more parental control.
The result?
Funds for public schools have sunk in priorioty to the level of funds for charities. Look at Goldy! His daughter goes to mercer Island schools. That fact obviously decreases the urgency of his interest in how the SPS work as wekk his credibility on that issue.
As I said before, it is impossible to disentangle school policy from the funding issues;. When the SPS announces it is going t divert funds to make Cleveland into an alternative school so as t attract white kids while NOT supporting successful programs at Garfield and Roosevelt, guess how many voters WANT to dish up money?
BTW, the UW is slowly headed won the same canyon as the SPS. WA state, along with California, is destroying its elite colleges because of a confluence of anti-elite libruls and anti-tax repricans.
sj–
As an avid over-eater at the government trough, I predictably expect you to always whine about not enough tax money.
It’s never about the Unions, the quality of teachers or how cost-effectively the $$ is spent.
You are a tax blinded KLOWN sj.
@45 et seq.: I don’t have time for you right now. I’m busy making $$$ in the stock market.
Why not a single state-wide school system like Hawaii has always had?
Rates for local property taxes, now going to local schools, could be leveled across the state. Those revenues would channel through Olympia where they would be equalized geographically.
No more rich and poor school districts. No more failed school levies.
Put the responsibility on state government where it belongs. After all, it’s their “paramount duty” to fund public education, as mandated by the State Constutiton.
@ 31 Jason Osgood spewed “Blue @ 22
You. A libertarian. Against competition? Really?
Please help me out here. That whole free market thing you libertarians yammer on and on about. Those are just words? You really don’t believe in it?”
I can’t speak for anyone else but yes I am a true believer in free and open markets.
The problem I mentioned is from a government school. I think there probably was a better use of funds and I am willing to bet the quality of education in the system those students are in could be better.
What is the drop out rate in that system?
Frankly I don’t think the government should be running a school system in the first place any more than the government should be telling others how to design a computer. I am all for the separation of education and the state and for me that is a first amendment issue.
53. Perfect Voter spews:
My nephews grew up on Maui…and went to private schools, as do many of the non-Natives.
The cost of living in Hawaii is unbelievably high.
Paramount duty to fund education does not mean an open checkbook to the WEA. That’s what has happened however. Now we need even more money!
I’m with BC Libertarian.
Funding education does not preclude Charter Schools.
It’s time to aggressively change a failed system.
Competition is the best way.
Actually, it’s the PARENTS DUTY to decide how their kids should be educated and to what level..not some Olympia Bureaucracy.
It is important to understand that levy equalization is about equalizing levy rates not about giving a handout to people who don’t pass levies. Because assessed value is so much higher in some places (more industrial development, etc.) it costs less in levy rate to raise an equal amount of money. Levy equalization is provided to equalize those rates and the education provided with those funds. Districts that do not pass levies do not get levy equalization. Our constituion promises a “general and uniform” system and that’s hard to do without levy equalization.
@56, they are getting revenue from somebody else, not from their own levies.
I don’t think that fact is missed by anybody.
You’re welcome, Spokane!
The point is that the base level funding should be enough state-wide so that a school anywhere could provide a basic education without any levy at all. So, the tax poor districts pass a levy AND are given more money, and then they do not see the funding problem with the base (they are getting a handout).
Then you have Republicans on the House floor on the final evening of session nearly crying for a redistribution of wealth on one hand, and bitching about proposed educational reform on the other. The voters that send them their are getting the “saving money” song and dance AND the “bringing home the bacon” stagecraft.
even though i hate most of you ignorant kikes, as i jew myself, in my moments of selfishness, i’m glad we keep the public schools in the decrepid state they are, and also med all the goyim males with ritalin. by the time my kids grow up, the white christian culture will be such a mess, we wont have to worry about another holocaust.
Screw the kids! Just don’t throw free job counseling for hookers and free transgender operations for convicts under the budget bus! We need those programs.
Blue @ 54
Finally! A libertarian who stands by his convictions. Perhaps you can answer a question for me.
In the libertarian utopia, who pays for the administration of our elections and our courts?
A while back, I asked our token libertarian, Mr Cynical, what cuts he’d make to the King County budget. He emphatically stated that government should only pay for defense and keeping the peace.
I inferred that he, representative of all libertarians, thinks that all other services should be cut. Including elections and our courts.
Sadly, Mr Cynical hasn’t taken the time from his busy schedule of spewing hatred and lies to defend his supposed beliefs. The cynic in me thinks he’s just making shit up as he goes. But now that we have another libertarian around, I think it’s worthwhile to ask.
@51 Mr. C
Someday you will post something meaningful. Of course given your police record, you still wold not want your name known.
Mr Cynical
Sadly, no. BC has beliefs. However wrong he may be, he can argue his case.
You, on the other hand, have no beliefs, so have no ability to make your case.
You’re nothing. If not inconsistent.
Goldy ..
While you are being aggressive. howsabout crucifying MOT?
61. Steve Schwartz spews:
What is meaningful to one person may not be to another. Are you embarrassed to be slurping at the trough??
It is meaningful that those compensated with Public Funds demand more!
Especially to us taxpayers in the Private Sector.
Comprende??
Perfect Voter @ 53
It’s good question. Please understand that this response is not a slam.
A state-wide system would be the worst possible solution.
One important strategy to improving public schools is to allow parents choice. In a comparative study including Chicago, Boston, and New York City, the Boston schools had the highest student achievement. The reason is that Boston is divided up into 12 separate school districts and parents had more choice. New York City has one huge school district and fares the worst. Chicago is somewhere in between.
In Seattle, parents have some choice, but not really. It’s still same the school district. And school “choice” is more like a preference.
Worst of all, the survival of alternative schools and attractive programs (beacons of excellence) are determined by the whimsy of who ever is in charge this week. (Any nail that stands out is pounded down. That’s just how bureaucracies and centralization work.)
Reforming Seattle public schools requires splitting the district into 2 or 3.
That’d end the fight between north and south and west.
It’d downsize (rightsize) the bureaucracy, putting more money into the classrooms.
Parental choice becomes a matter of moving to a new district. This is exactly what my parents did when I was kid. This is exactly what the parents in Boston do today.
Competition, proper incentives, choice, and transparency (feedback) raises quality, almost magically.
(Free market cultists parrot the words, but they’re actually just advocating for rigged games solely to benefit their cronies. There is no “free market”, just markets designed well or not.)
There are other necessary reforms. But splitting the district is the biggest, having the most bang for the buck.
I wish you guys would make up your minds…first I hear that liberals are elitists, then I read that we hate elitism. So, which is it?
If you want kids to spend more time learning about economics, early US History, etc, then you need to get rid of the test formally known as WASL which focuses on math, reading, writing and science. With such high stakes attached to the testing, other subjects fall to the wayside. It isn’t right, but it’s the reality.
Private schools are not required to give this test, by the way. And there is no proof that merit pay improves student learning. But it does make some of you feel better, I guess.
Mr Cynical @ 51
In 2005, Montana ranked #11, receiving $1.47 of federal money for every $1 of taxes paid.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/r.....w/266.html
So, in truth, SJ carries your weight.
sparky @ 66
Correct. Absolutely, utterly, and indisputably correct. For two reasons.
#1
There’s an entire discipline dedicated to testing and quality assurance. All discussions start with a single immutable truth:
You cannot test your way to quality.
Even if standardized testing was a good idea, our schools are doing it wrong. Testing today is used to determine achievement. The proper use of testing is get feedback on how well quality improvement effort is doing. (For all the anti-intellectual trogs, this process is called the “scientific process”.
#2
Standardized testing is the quickest way to shunt money out of the classroom and into the coffers of cronies. I forget the exact amounts, but testing cost ~$300 per student per test. That’s pure profit for the Republican testing companies. That’s money denied to our children.
The trogs argue that we already spend too much on our schools. This is another example of being kind of right, but for the wrongs reasons.
The price we pay for standardized testing steals money meant for our children, drives down achievement, demotivates our students, and prevents any actual learning. All that, just so some cronies can make a buck. What a deal.
@ 60 Jason spews “In the libertarian utopia, who pays for the administration of our elections and our courts?”
First I’d prefer to discuss the problems of education rather than my beliefs but…
I think we should choose our political office holders as often as possible by using public lotteries instead of elections. If that system is good enough for juries who often have issues of life and death in their hands then it should be good enough to run a city.
Next because what often goes on in court is between businesses who are suing one another then maybe we should look at the system used in the past in Europe, the Law of Merchants, and let the merchants pay for their own legal system and up date it.
Now for what I did not reply to there is a rather simple answer. I don’t have an answer to every problem but I’m working on it.
Blue @ 69
Excellent answers. Thank you.
You have a plan. You’re not merely against everything. I respect that.
I’ll read up on lotteries vs elections and the Law of Merchants. At the very least, it could be fun to argue about.
Exactly.
I think you have most of the gist of what Charters are supposed to be, but in practice it hasn’t been nearly that rosy. The NAEP study in 2004 was blasted by charter advocates because it showed that Charter Schools weren’t doing as good a job as regular public schools; the argument given then was that judging Charter Schools by the same standard as regular schools was wrong, because they serve different kids.
This is what the staff of struggling public schools have been saying for years.
The other piece is that if the goal of charter schools is to foster innovation by freeing the school from the shackles of state regulations, why not do that for every school? I think it was Rosemary McAuliffe who had a cynical proposal to just throw out all the common school code language in the RCWs; she may have been on to something.
As to the teacher’s union (I’m a happy member, fwiw) some of the best high schools in the state are found in heavily-unionized Bellevue. That’s not me saying it, that’s the Evergreen Freedom Foundation:
http://washington.compareschoo.....09POST.pdf
Best in the state? International, of Bellevue. Also in the top 20 are Aviation High School in Des Moines and Arts and Academics of Vancouver, highly successful programs in school districts with union contracts.