Senate passes education reform bill

OLYMPIA – The state of Washington could eventually pay more for basic education under a bill passed by the state Senate on Thursday. Just how the state will find money for that obligation, however, is still far from certain.

The education measure, which would be the first major reform of the state’s basic education system since the 1970s, passed on a 26-23 vote.

The Senate-passed bill is different from a version approved earlier this session by the House. But Senate Education Chairwoman Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, said a deal has been struck with Gov. Chris Gregoire and the House to approve the bill as it currently stands.

The measure doesn’t just call for throwing more money at the education system. It could mark the beginning of some major changes in K-12 learning: A longer school day and more credits for high school students, preschool for low-income kids, all-day kindergarten, a fairer way to dole out money for schools, and more money for librarians, counselors and nurses.

The bill provides a timeline to phase in the proposed changes, with full implementation of the plan required by 2018. But lawmakers still need to find a way to pay for it.

“We’re incredibly close to making the most historic changes to our state’s education system in 30 years,” said one of the sponsors, Rep. Pat Sullivan, D-Covington.

Education reform supporters say the state has shirked its responsibility to pay for basic education, which the state constitution calls the government’s top priority. Reformers say the existing definition of basic education has been whittled down over the years, diminishing what the state is required to finance.

Meanwhile, the state financing system has increasingly placed a burden on school districts, which are forced to make up the difference with property tax levies, said Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina.

Add that to unfunded curriculum requirements handed down by the Legislature, and some schools were set up for failure, Hunter said.

“We were making those decisions, not them; it’s one of the broken things in the system,” Hunter said.

The reform effort is also connected to a lawsuit scheduled to be heard beginning in August. A coalition of school districts and education groups seeks a court order to require the state to pay the full cost of educating the state’s 1 million school children to compete in the modern world.

Republicans roundly criticized the measure. They say all it amounts to is another unfunded mandate passed down to already cash-strapped schools.

“This is a complete reorganization of the state’s education system, but we don’t have any funding for it – no funding whatsoever. That, to me, is a hoax,” said Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver.

In an unlikely alliance, Republicans supported the position of the Washington Education Association, the state’s teachers union and a major political supporter of the Democratic Party.

“That’s because we’re both looking at it from a commonsense perspective. We’ve said all along there’s no money in this bill,” said Rich Wood, a WEA spokesman. “It’s a misguided distraction from the real problem facing our schools: The billions of dollars in cuts the Legislature is about to hand down to education.”

But reformers say now is as good a time as any to implement the changes, even if money is not currently available.

“It’s too hard to do it all at once. Now we need to figure out how much it will cost,” Hunter said.