Washington Policy Center

Washington Policy Center is an independent, non-partisan think tank promoting sound public policy based on free-market solutions.

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Annual Dinner is September 5th

Have you heard who's coming to the largest gala policy dinner event in the Northwest?

Learn more about WPC's exciting 2013 Annual Dinner speaker lineup in Seattle and Spokane.

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New at Washington Policy Blog

Officials Use Race to Set Academic Achievement Goals for School Children
By Liv Finne
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Today we released our new study: “Officials Use Race to Help Set Academic Achievement Goals,” available here.  Last fall, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and education officials at the state’s 295 school districts used student race as a factor in setting state, district and school-level academic achievement goals for tests in math and reading for 2012 through 2017.
Powerful Teachers’ Union Elects New President
By Liv Finne
Thursday, May 16, 2013
On April 27, 1,200 delegates of the powerful state teachers union, the Washington Education Association, gathered at a Representative Assembly meeting in Bellevue to elect new top executives.  The new union leaders will serve two-year terms.  The union president received a compensation package worth $186,000 in pay and benefits in 2010, the latest year for which figures are available.  
SB 5242 would end "Dance of the Lemons" in teachers’ placements
By Liv Finne
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Every public school principal is painfully familiar with being forced to send children to a classroom where she knows the teacher there is not the best fit, but the teacher's placement has been forced on the school by higher-ups at the central district. In an effort to improve classroom instruction, bad teachers are often shuffled from one school to another, an administrative tactic known among principals as "The Dance of the Lemons."
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