Or do our elected officials continue to care lass and less about the people they are supposed to represent?
Here is what the politicians said their goal is for Washington State Education. Below that I have provided a translation as to what they really meant.
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.
HERE IS WHAT THAT REALLY MEANS:
Let's see here...
1) We (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 now?!
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 they 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 teachers 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 we (the legislature) cut
their pay a couple of years ago!
8) If we (the
legislature) 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!
