Panel unveils road map for school reform

SEATTLE – Voluntary all-day kindergarten. Performance pay for teachers. A cap on college tuition increases. And a flurry of changes to spur math and science learning.

After more than a year of studying the problems of Washington’s education system, a panel of political and education heavyweights on Monday unveiled a road map for wide-ranging reforms.

“The critical foundation of our education system is unchanged – and must change,” said Gov. Chris Gregoire, speaking to hundreds of educators, lawmakers and staffers at a crowded conference center on Seattle’s waterfront.

As things stand, the “Washington Learns” panel found, more than a quarter of high school freshmen don’t graduate on time. Among black and Hispanic students, that number is even higher: 40 percent.

To be competitive globally, Gregoire said, Washington must overhaul its schools, from early learning programs for toddlers through college.

“It’s time to get to work,” the governor said in a letter included in the report.

“It’s bold, and there’s a lot of work to be done,” said task force member Amy Bragdon, a retired Spokane teacher and principal. “We’re just starting.”

Two key aspects of the effort, however, remain up in the air. Monday’s report doesn’t include the accountability and performance measures that Gregoire says are essential. Nor does it detail how much – or how – Washingtonians will pay for the reforms. Those recommendations will come out over the next two years, Gregoire said.

“It is absolutely premature to talk about how much it will take,” she said.

She did say, however, that her 2007-2009 budget recommendation next month will include significant “down payments” for reforms and pilot programs.

The unanswered questions had one task force member rolling his eyes.

“After 25 years of concerns, at least 17 previous legislative studies, 18 months of additional investigation by Washington Learns costing $1.7 million,” state Rep. Glenn Anderson wrote in a letter to the governor, “… this Committee owes the public more than good rhetoric and a list of vague policy options that do not address the fundamental issues about education finance in our state.”

Anderson, R-Fall City, said education should be the first funding priority for the state. And to prevent economic downturns from hurting schools, he wants the state to set aside a constitutionally protected “rainy day fund” for critical state services like education.

The panel was supposed to come up with ideas for funding reforms. But it quickly became clear that major reforms will take more study, task force members said. The new schedule: recommendations on learning performance measures next fall. Recommendations about funding are due in Dec. 2008 – a month after the next gubernatorial election.

Without ways to pay for changes, Senate Republican Cheryl Pflug said, the recommendations are little more than public relations.

“We need solutions and we’re getting sound bites,” said Pflug, R-Maple Valley. “It’s insulting.”

But Gregoire said it would have been a mistake to start throwing money at the system without first developing measures for what works. And she repeatedly said that she’s not going to let Washington Learns suffer the shelved-and-forgotten fate of many blue-ribbon government reports in Olympia.

She’s backed by some powerful allies, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Gates – an education evangelist through his philanthropy and criticisms of less-than-stringent standards – was the keynote speaker at Monday’s unveiling of the report.

Washington’s schools, he said, are failing many of the state’s students.

“The statistics are grim enough, but when you look at the human side of it, it’s just tragic,” he said.

Gates said Washington has the third-lowest college entrance rates in the nation. In a survey of kindergarten teachers two years ago, he said, the teachers said fewer than half their students start school ready to learn.

Gates – who is not part of the task force – suggested several changes. He touted the success of some charter schools, said the state should be able to take over failing schools, and that great teachers should get performance bonuses.

Washington Learns stopped short of recommending charter schools, which twice have been rejected in statewide votes. But Gates, Gregoire and the task force report all agreed on several things: math and science education must be much better, performance-based pay is a good idea, and better accountability standards are needed.

Gregoire said she’d also like to see all-day kindergarten and more standardized curriculum standards so that students transferring from one school to another don’t find themselves lost in unfamiliar material.

The heads of the business group Washington Roundtable, the Association of Washington Business, some chambers of commerce and technology groups are also lending their voices to the calls for reform. In a letter to lawmakers Friday, they called for better early-learning programs, better math and science education, and better support for Washington State University and the University of Washington. The state teachers’ union also praised Gregoire’s call for investments in public schools.

Gregoire said that whatever the final cost of the reforms, taxpayers will save money in the long run. Better education early, she said, can stem later problems like unemployment, abuse, neglect, crime and teen pregnancy.

And she said that Washington should start measuring itself not against other states, but against the global competitors that business faces.

“I am tired – I am tired – of comparing Washington state to 49 other states who are mediocre,” Gregoire said.