The state Supreme Court should keep the pressure on the Legislature to solve education inequities of its overreliance on voter-approved local levies.
THIS week, the Legislature will file its own progress report on its efforts to get back into the state Supreme Court’s good graces on education reform and funding.
The court would be right to take a dim view of the Legislature failing to fully fund education, fully 10 months since the court held the state in contempt. The state still relies too much on voter-approved local levies to pay for basic education.
No question lawmakers made impressive progress this year, adding about $1.3 billion in new education funding, including class-size reductions in K-3.
But the court, in its 2012 McCleary ruling, made clear the state’s reliance on local levies must stop because it creates intolerable inequities between property-rich and -poor districts. Voters in wealthier districts, such as Bellevue, lavish resources on their schools that more rural districts, such as Prosser, can only dream of.
What now for education funding?
On Monday, the Legislature will submit its education funding progress report to the state Supreme Court. The court is expected to rule on the adequacy of the reforms, which have been significant but incomplete.
In anticipation of the court’s action, The Times’ Opinion page asked lawmakers, the Washington Education Association and League of Education Voters to share their thinking on what is still needed to create a more equitable system of public education funding. Read their columns at the links below:
League of Education Voters' Chris Korsmo: Message to state Supreme Court: Be bold on education-funding fix
State Reps. Ross Hunter and Chad Magendanz: Buckle up: Levy shake-up needed to fix school funding
State Sen. David Frockt: Where is the grand bargain?
Washington Education Association's Kim Mead: Legislature did not fully fund high-quality education system
Still, the justices can find some encouragement in the herculean efforts of a bipartisan group of senators, who met tirelessly through the legislative session. They hammered out a levy-reform approach that addresses many prickly challenges, including how to equalize students’ educational quality across the state, adequately compensate teachers who work in higher-cost areas and still allow local voters to provide financial resources for things that are not part of basic education.
Such reforms could go a long way to improving disappointing outcomes. For instance, only 55.8 percent of the state’s eighth-graders passed the math portion of the Measurement of Student Progress in 2014, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The senators agreed on the price tag — about $3.5 billion — but not on where that should come from. One proposal would increase property taxes for some. Another was to impose a capital-gains tax on wealthy individuals. Because of the lateness of the agreement, the proposal never made it out of committee.
Time is short, and the state’s students cannot wait until the next legislative session begins in January. While speculation runs rampant about what penalties the court might impose, this is not the time for drastic measures that are disruptive to state government and its services.
Rather, the high court should keep the pressure on the Legislature and the governor to solve this problem in the interim — in a special session, if necessary.