Wash. lawmakers take next step toward ed reform

They haven't found a single new dollar to pay for their ideas, but state lawmakers and education officials are pushing ahead with plans to start implementing education reform.

A new education reform committee recently held its first meeting. It is chaired by the superintendent of public instruction and counts among its members the speaker of the House and the chair of the Senate Education Committee, so the political will to move on is there.

But some of the faces around the table have sat at similar meetings, battling similar issues for years.

First came the governor's Washington Learns task force that published an ambitious plan to improve education in 2006. That report led to the state's new Early Learning Department, but the Legislature could not find the money to implement most of the other ideas.

Then came the reinvented State Board of Education, which moved ahead on some related ideas, including new high school math requirements and a proposal to require high school students to earn 24 credits instead of 19 to graduate.

Next, the Basic Education Finance Task Force, wrote a road map last summer for completely changing the way the state distributes its education dollars. The task force's ambitious plans would cost an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion a year, on top of the $7 billion a year the state already spends on education.

The 2009 Legislature adopted some of the task force's ideas and put a new group, the Quality Education Council, in charge of implementing the plan, but with a new twist. This time, the task force is also in charge of finding the money to pay for the changes.

Rep. Skip Priest, R-Federal Way, has sat around many education reform tables, including Washington Learns and the Basic Education Finance Task Force.

"I think it's time we have a sense of urgency about this issue," Priest said after the Quality Education Council held its first meeting at the end of August.

Priest believes two pending state lawsuits will help light the fire under the seats of committee members: a Federal Way lawsuit before the state Supreme Court and a suit brought by a coalition of school districts and community groups that is being heard in King County.

Both lawsuits focus on whether the state is meeting its constitutional responsibility to amply cover the costs of educating all students in Washington.

"I strongly believe that we are not meeting our constitutional responsibility," Priest said.

He's hoping the judges in one or both cases will remind the Legislature they need to make school finance a top priority.

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, said in a recent interview that he believes the Legislature's efforts toward education reform are unrelated to what's happening in the courts. The Legislature has been making an ongoing effort to fix the system.

Chopp said he decided to sit on the Quality Education Council because he recognizes the importance of the committee's efforts.

"I'm hopeful we'll be able to make some real progress," Chopp said, adding that he is optimistic about the group's chances of completing the jobs assigned by the 2009 Legislature.

Those jobs include:

• Finding new sources of revenue for public schools.

• Building a framework for distributing dollars based on the idea of a "protypical school," and creating a timeline for transforming the current system toward one based on model schools.

• Establishing a new definition of basic education for the state, and deciding whether expenses like transportation, technology and preschool should be included.

• Demystifying the way the state allocates education dollars so any parent could understand their school district's budget and track the money the state sends to their community.

• Considering a new mentoring and support system for beginning teachers.

• Creating a new salary schedule for teachers based on how much people in similar fields make in different labor markets throughout the state.

The council has a number of interim deadlines but is expected to complete the current work on school budget reform by Sept. 1, 2018, and then meet every few years to update the state's definition of basic education.

Subcommittees are working on parts of this list and every proposal by the council will need Legislature approval before it becomes law.

Chopp said lawmakers keep returning to the issue of public school reform because the need to invest in public schools is an ongoing issue.

"We can always do better and that's what we plan to do," he said, adding that he was pleased to be working with state schools Superintendent Randy Dorn and others to move this work forward.

Dorn, who was chosen to chair the council at its first meeting, said he sees this effort as education reform part two. Part one was requiring students to improve their academic performance to reach grade level.

"Now we need funding to allow students to have a reasonable chance to meet their potential," Dorn said.

The superintendent said he made it clear that he has no interest in chairing another study group.

"We've done enough studies. We have the information. I'm going to move to implementation and push hard for that," Dorn said, adding that he expects to see some action within the next two meetings.

Dorn hopes school transportation will be at the top of the list because he said the state underfunds this category of the budget by $250 million.