A break for schools

The simple-majority ballot measure for school levies is ahead by a comfortable enough margin to break open the champagne. This ballot measure had a simple request: Allow school levy requests to pass by a 50 percent-plus-one voting majority rather than a 60 percent supermajority.

The battle to get here was far from simple. It took nearly 30 years of efforts before the Legislature rounded up enough courageous votes to put the constitutional amendment before voters. On Election Day, the measure seemed destined for failure, trailing by 38,000 votes, symbolic of the electorate's anti-tax mood and presenting a statistically steep hill to climb.

Luckily, voters' mood of feeling economically pinched and overtaxed didn't extend to our public schools.

Voters were smart enough to separate genuine basic needs, such as levy money to pay for teachers and instructional materials, and the unprioritized needs lumped into the oversized roads-and-transit package.

The day after the election, this page noted that the measure was failing but that "ballots are still being counted and the simple-majority measure's 48.2 percent yes vote has a slender chance" of reversing the trend. So it did.

Late votes — tallied after Election Day — were overwhelmingly approving of the measure. King County supported the measure from day one. Later counts from Snohomish, San Juan and Thurston counties provided a boost for the yes side. Late votes from Spokane County reversed the no-vote trend, bolstering yes votes from King County.

From the beginning, it was absurd that school levies could be sunk with a 55.99 yes vote.

More funding work is needed. A task force set up to do just that ought to be monitored and held accountable for results.

But in the arena of school levies, the playing field is level at last.