Last night the House Appropriations Committee held a public hearing on HB 1476, a bill to fund empty seats in school classrooms across the state, even though under the governor’s order public schools have been closed since March 13th, 2020.
First, committee members heard testimony from the staff about how public school enrollment is down by about four percent. That means that since last March about 40,000 families have pulled out of public schools and sought alternatives.
School administrators don’t like that, since it means their budgets lose money (state funding is largely provided on a per-student basis). So they are pushing for HB 1476, which would require Washington’s beleaguered working families and other taxpayers to pay schools for having empty classroom seats.
A few hours before the hearing, I tweeted this note:
Today I am testifying on HB 1476, the bill to provide the schools $~700 million. The school system wants the state to provide funding for the 37,000 students who have withdrawn. No money for the students, only for the system, to fund empty seats. #waleg #waedu @CoreyDeangelis
The response to my tweet was huge. The best comment came from a father who said HB 1476 shows the “incredible chutzpah” of the education establishment in Washington state. Not only has the WEA union blocked SB 5037, the bill to reopen the schools safely to all students, but now the union is demanding HB 1476’s “enrollment stabilization funding” to spend public money on students who are no longer in the public system.
Here is my testimony on HB 1476, which I presented to the committee:
Good Afternoon Chair Ormsby and members of the committee. My name is Liv Finne, Education Director for Washington Policy Center. Our research shows this bill would be bad policy for our state. It’s got the wrong focus. Since last March, because remote learning has failed them, over 37,000 students have withdrawn from the public schools. These students are not getting the education they were supposed to get. Yet this bill would pay the public schools for NOT educating students who have withdrawn. In essence, this bill would fund empty seats in our schools.
The people hardest hit by this crisis are Hispanic, black and low-income students. They have fallen even further behind in their learning, in a hurt that could last a lifetime. These students need direct education aid. Also badly hurt are families who are paying thousands of dollars each month for day care, tutoring, and other education costs for their children.
Two bills this session would direct funding to families, who most need it. Representative Kraft’s bill, HB 1215, would give families $7000 per child to educate their children. SB 5200 would give $15,000 scholarships for the education of special needs and foster care children.
Directing funding to help families and students would be the correct response to this crisis, not funding empty seats in the schools.
Thank you.
You can watch my testimony here: