Let’s see some serious talk on schools plan

No one expected the Washington Education Association to love the recommendations of a task force looking to remake public education.

The report of the Basic Education Finance Task Force called for a new way of paying and promoting teachers, the first foray into performance pay and for limiting the money flowing from local levies to salaries – issues of concern to the teachers union.

But it also had lots the union should like, especially a proposed 54 percent increase in state support for schools with a good chunk going toward increased teacher pay.

It also would add all-day kindergarten for parents who want it, provide 10 professional training days, provide more-generous, more-certain and legally defensible funding to districts and make early learning part of the constitutionally protected definition of basic education. It likely would lead to higher pay for teachers in high-cost-of-living districts.

Did I mention a 54 percent – at least – increase in state funding? That’s $3.53 billion more each year for K-12 education.

All that was enough for the League of Education Voters, Stand for Children, the American Association of University Women, the superintendents of the big Puget Sound-area school districts, the chairwoman of the state School Board, early learning advocates and many parents to give the proposal enthusiastic support.

One parent said the bill contains “once-in-a-generation building blocks” for quality schools.

Other education groups had concerns but said they wanted to work with the Legislature to fix the bill.

Certainly the pledge of dramatically increased funding for schools is just that – a promise. That’s as much practical as strategic. Implementing the changes will take several years and the state’s fiscal mess means little new money would flow this budget period anyway.

But the sponsors of the legislation implementing the task force report say approval would change the legal definition of basic education and would put political and legal pressure on future legislators to follow through.

Understandably, the lack of certain funding gives some in the education community pause. But there are so many gains in the plan that qualified support would be expected, right?

Well, no. WEA President Mary Lindquist – testifying in between parents who gushed over the proposal – said the union opposes Senate Bill 5444 and House Bill 1410.

“We face unprecedented perilous economic times,” she said. “It is a time when we should be focused on that crisis and should be working together. This bill, however, offers a distraction. It’s divisive. It’s complex. It derails us from the conversation we should be having about critical funding.”

The Mercer Island social studies teacher called the proposal to phase in funding by returning basic education to 50 percent of the state budget – from 41 percent now – “a promise, perhaps by 2012, with no means to pay for that promise.”

The next day, the WEA delivered letters to each lawmaker that perhaps explains the real reasons for opposing the plan. It is change, and for some it is scary. It would pay teachers more but expect more in return. It would reward good results but force changes when schools fail to improve.

The WEA prefers its own bill that makes relatively small changes to school structure in exchange for a sizeable increase in state support paid for with a hike in property taxes. Even that bill doesn’t approach the increases contained in the task force plan.

Perhaps the sticks in the task force plan are more certain than the carrots. But the task force plan offers a 54 percent increase in funding at a time when inadequate funding has been the WEA’s major complaint for decades.

That should make teachers want to sit down and talk about it, not reject it with a wave of the hand and a heavy dose of rhetoric.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

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