As usual, the Seattle Times editorial board is willing to make all the tough choices:
THE state Legislature must accomplish mission impossible this session. In the worst budget cycle in decades, lawmakers still must pass reform legislation that propels schools into the 21st century.
The price tag will be in the billions, but not now. This is a decades-long investment.
Uh-huh. The Times wants the Legislature to redefine basic education to fund full-day kindergarten for everybody, and preschool for those who can’t afford it. They also want the state to fund technology and security, while restoring about a billion dollars worth of education spending cuts in the proposed 2009-2011 budget. And they want to do all that, without raising any new revenues.
So, let me get this straight. First, Washington state’s paper of record cautions the Senate Majority Leader to choose personal ambition over the common good, and now it’s urging the Legislature to approve a popular and expensive series of education reforms, that it can’t possibly afford, essentially just saying “we’ll figure out how to pay for it in the future.”
And they have the temerity to complain about politicians?
Don’t get me wrong, I mostly agree with the Times’ education spending priorities. I just think that the responsible (and mathematically honest) thing to do is to actually talk about how we’re going to pay for the things we promise.
Um, unless I’m mistaken, this pretty much serves as a priori proof that the “non-partisan” Seattle Times is in fact the GOP Seattle Times. After all, aren’t breathless demands for out of control spending and wildly irresponsible tax cuts without any accounting for cost and funding essential hallmarks of modern GOP political theory?
Nahhh …
The Seattle Time4s ceased being published a few years ago.
I know this because when the PI dies someone started sending us several pages of blank verse with an ST logo but there was no content.
We canceled that ebcause we figured it was not worth the time and effort to put in the recycle.
Still, I woner what it is that David is reading?
This is just TOO DAMN FUNNY.
So much emphasis on Tax Increases & Borrowing in a Recession.
Too little emphasis on clearly defining the Mandatory Items & Discretionary Spending…funding Mandatory 1st.
Also, fail to propose obvious answers like forcing Consolidation of School Districts like Arizona is doing….cutting out duplicity.
Small School Districts are a LUXURY, not a NECESSITY.
I have seen virtual no brainpower go into this effort to right-size Public Education. I doubt I will because of LEFTIST Political Pressure.
Obviously the scam is to punish the people they serve and try to extort a tax increase.
Pretty obvious.
I have an issue with the Seattle Times. Yesterday’s front page headline was something like “Tuba Man teens plead guilty.”
Now, if it were 20 white teens to beat and kicked to death an old black tuba man, and the sentences for the 3 caught ranged from 36 to 72 weeks, would it be a similar headline? No, it wouldn’t. It would be something like “Tuba Man killers get 36 weeks.” They’d sensationalize it and try to stir up anger in the black community for this “racist” crime.
Troll–
Point well made.
Race is only an issue when it serves the LEFTIST PINHEADED ideology.
Stuff like this is why Puddy became a Conservative. It’s so blatantly obvious.
Frankly, I hate to see race used either way.
Instead, the LEFTISTS use Blacks and Race like pawns….pathetic.
troll–
According to U.S. Justice Department figures over 34,460 White women are sexually assaulted or raped by Black males each year, and most authorities believe that the actual rape figures are at least twice the reported number. The number of Black female rapes by White Men is Statistically, is 0! Because they have fewer than 10 cases nationally.
In just one year the number of White women raped by Black males is 6 times the total number of all lynchings during the entire history of the United States. (Estimated to be about 5,000 including both Whites and Blacks).
Now, do we have a problem here??
Yes.
It’s called hijacking.
Let the FACTS speak.
Let the silence be deafening.
The LEFTISTS have used Blacks as Pawns for decades….using race as a knife that only cuts one way. Obviously, it cuts 2-ways when it comes to crime. Why not get stats on the table and do something productive?
Bill Cosby tried…and was publicly scorned by the Pimps of Poverty.
Better to just present anecdotal outrageous events….then look at the big picture.
Cosby is a great man. He tried. So did JC Watts.
@7
It’s not hijacking. The topic is the Seattle Times.
Dear State elected officials/Seattle Times,
How are we supposed to end the recession when laid-off workers can’t get retrained to do new jobs?
I’m no big fan of the editorial board of The Seattle Times, but, in fairness, they did elaborate a little more in today’s editorial.
Troll … ahumble suggestion
KUDOES … you raise a reasonable point, why then do yo submerge it in muck?
I can take up your banner.
The issue of how school money is spent is tightly tied to another issue .. charter schools. Our president is strongly inv favor fot hem because they provide choices and decrease the role of central admin in determining educational policy.
Seattle, BTW, will be excluded from the Education Initative because we do not offer charters.
Back to your numbers, Chris Mitchell .. sometime here .. knows a lot about this. I ama nto at all sure that the part of our school dollar going to central admin is all that big or that it wold even be less in bigger districts.