Secession talk a split from reality

Fiery talk of secession is in the air. Usually it’s safe to ignore this annual cry of protest, as it typically comes from just a few symbolically aggrieved lawmakers in far-flung places.

But this year the secession bug has infected a few Seattle legislators, too.

As regular as the seasons, some lawmakers from the Tri-Cities and Spokane want to split The Evergreen State in two, making one dry state east of the mountains and one wet state west. They’re weary of our liberal ways and they demand, oddly, “equality in funding for state programs and infrastructure.”

“I think it’s great because the tax dollars should stay over here on our side of the mountains,” a local resident told a Pasco TV station, approving of the east-west breakup.

It never ceases to boggle how parts of the state or the country most propped up with government help are the least able to acknowledge it. In this state, King County generates far more in tax revenues than it gets back in state services — to the tune of $2 billion per year, according to state finance data. We export that money to needier “recipient counties,” mostly on the dry side.

I’m OK with that; it’s how a community is supposed to work. But many getting this money seem oblivious or outright resent it. It’s tempting to just agree with them: “You’re right, secession is a great idea, go for it!”

Except now some Seattle legislators are going down this same blinkered road to push a different divorce: splitting off from the local schools.

Reps. Eric Pettigrew and Sharon Tomiko Santos, both of the 37th District in Central and South Seattle, want to split the Seattle school district in two. They don’t pick a boundary, but for transportation purposes in our tall skinny city there’s only one split that makes much sense — north and south. Their bill adds that it’s an emergency.

Pettigrew said the district has gotten too remote to pay attention to all its schools. He sent his kids to Catholic school because he doesn’t trust the public ones in his area.

“When I looked at Seattle Public Schools, I wasn’t willing to take the risk,” Pettigrew told The Associated Press.

That can be a problem in the 37th District (where I live, too). So presumably if we cleave off the North End schools, the South End ones will get better? One thing’s for sure, we’ll get a second bureaucracy. Will the new bureaucrats be more in tune than the admittedly bungling ones we have now?

The trouble is Seattle’s South End is basically Eastern Washington. According to the district’s budget, Rainier Beach High School and Rainier View Elementary, both in the south, get nearly $10,000 per student in funding. Ballard High School and Queen Anne Elementary, in the wealthier north, get $6,000 per student. It’s a myth the south schools are ignored financially.

Again, this is fine — it’s how community works. It’s crazy to wall off the resources of the north. This divide is undoubtedly as annoying to Seattle’s south as it is to the state’s east, but it’s tea-party logic to break away out of pique.

Seattle schools have plenty of problems, but one of the biggest right now is, believe it or not, their popularity. They’ve added about 7,000 students in the past six years, wiping away decades of decline. That’s a lot of customers “willing to take the risk.” Compared to other urban districts, Seattle schools are rolling — in rising test scores and in enrollment.

Shaking it up now is like being about to score but inexplicably throwing a pass from the one-yard line (sorry, too soon?).

Secession is the smack talk of politics. It feels great to say “We’re outta here!” But it would probably end up hurting those who split the most.