The New Openness in Olympia - Blocked Education Reforms Get a Hearing
Wednesday afternoon a blast of cold, fresh air blew through a Senate hearing room in Olympia. New ideas for improving public schools were allowed a hearing. Under the leadership of Senator Steve Litzow (R-Mercer Island), the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee convened its first meeting. Former Chair of the Committee, Senator Rosemary McAuliffe (D-Bothell), looked on as ideas she had blocked for years were openly discussed.
You can watch the hearing here. Here is a summary of the points made:
1) The Legislature has the power and responsibility to define Basic Education. The Legislature can repeal HB 2261 and still comply with the McCleary court decision, said Senior Assistant Attorney General Dave Stolier;
2) More money for the schools does not mean better schools, said national school finance expert Professor Marguerite Roza. She showed a graph of Washington school district spending, which shows there is very little relationship between spending and student outcomes.
See page 2 of Professor Roza's Powerpoint.
3) Built-in cost escalators will outpace revenues for K-12, based on CBO assumptions, so reform is necessary to protect 180 days of instruction and other public education programs for children;
4) School employee benefits are consuming an increasing share of expenditures, with Washington’s school staffing benefits rate growing from 22.9% in 2004 to 30% in 2008, starving classrooms of needed funds.
5) District staffing had been growing through recessions and is only now starting to fall.
6) By financing a per-student dollar amount, the Legislature can allow districts to innovate and better spend their money on improving student learning. Small districts are the engines of innovation. HB 2261’s prototype school staffing formulas will block such innovations, causing small, high-performing districts to pay unneeded personnel costs.
7) Class sizes—national research shows teacher effectiveness is the most important factor for student learning, far more important for student learning than reducing class sizes. Parents know this and choose the best teacher over a smaller class size every time. Teachers would prefer receiving a $5,000 bonus over reducing their class size by two students.
8) HB 2261 prototype school staffing formulas are already out-of-date, as is the single salary pay scale.
A new day is dawning for children in our state. Sound reform ideas that were denied a hearing in the past are now being included in the policy debate, thanks to the new openness of Chairman Litzow.
Comments
I guess our elected officials
I guess our elected officials are prime examples of a failure in education. This was one of the most idiotic statements I have ever read. I cannot believed we voted for these people.
This is nothing but a blatant statement of how to further undermine our public education cloaked with the phrase "educational reform." It's like saying we'll no longer pave the roads and call it "transportation reform."
Let's see here...
1) We run (the legislature) run this state and we can choose to ignore any law we want!
2) If we pay less for our schools they will miraculously get better because we (the legislature) said so!
3) We (the legislature) refuse to spend any more money on these kids so we're going to cut funding however we see fit!
4) Teachers do not deserve to have growing health care costs paid for. They do not contribute enough to our (the legislature) reelection campaigns, therefore their families are unimportant to us (the legislature). Teachers need to pay more money for their stupid health care or we (the legislature) will take money out of classrooms and show all of you who is boss around here!
5) How dare the districts hire more employees through local funds while we (the legislature) have slashed pay and funding in the name of recession. Did you know we (the legislature) made it illegal to cut our pay for any reason. That's right, who's your daddy?!
6) If we (the legislature) cut school funding even more and call it "per student" we can tell the smaller districts it's all the fault of the bigger districts and you all will be too dumb to figure it out.
7) We (the legislature) paid for this bogus study that says a class with forty kids is just as effective as a class with twenty kids, as long as we send teachers to a government training session that the teachers will be forced to pay for themselves. Those teacher would take $5,000 to feed and clothe their families and we would just stick another two kids in their class. Those teachers will fall for anything, that was great when when we (the legislature) cut their pay a couple of years ago.
8) If we call the staffing ratios out of date, we can put more kids in each class and save money for our (the legislature) own travel and entertainment budgets. That would be sweet, who's up for another trip to Asia?
Chairman Litzow rocks! Let's all make sure there's a little extra thrown into that reelection campaign fund!
Well done
Well done