How WA governor candidates would fix our schools

Editor’s note: The Seattle Times editorial board video-recorded interviews with the four leading gubernatorial candidates. You can watch what the candidates had to say about their approach to education, too:

Jump to videos: Semi Bird | Bob Ferguson | Mark Mullet | Dave Reichert

Education used to be a backwater beat. In many newsrooms, it was not seen as sexy or important like coverage of crime and city hall. This remains true for big-ticket politics. In presidential and gubernatorial elections, public schools still attract little more than lip service. 

But in Washington the microphone around education is on high volume, perhaps because student attendance, academic performance and enrollment in college and career training are lower than at any time in recent memory — even as the state is spending more than ever. Right now, Washington devotes about $39 billion to public schools, 43% of its total budget for 2023-25.

With numbers like that, education must be a major topic in the 2024 governor’s race. Yet the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction operates outside of the governor’s purview, entirely unaccountable to whomever is sitting in the mansion in Olympia. 

No doubt, many governors have appreciated the arrangement since it shields them from responsibility for a system that often looks like political quicksand, a quagmire of labor pressures, societal realities and endless debates about funding.

So it’s refreshing to see at least one candidate, Democratic Sen. Mark Mullet, with significant experience navigating public school policy as a longtime member of the Legislature’s Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee. Another candidate, Republican Semi Bird, was a school board member in Richland and offers strong views on increased accountability for outcomes. 

The two front-runners — Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, and Republican former Congressman Dave Reichert, a Republican — say the schools chief should be appointed by, and crucially, answerable to the state’s top official as a member of the governor’s cabinet. 

“We need a greater focus on education at the highest levels of state government,” says Ferguson, who happens to be the son of a special-education teacher (though he sent his own kids to private school).

Reichert has no direct experience in education, except as a parent of three children, but he told The Times’ editorial board that inequities in school funding are one of the “most critical issues” facing Washington voters.

Scratch the surface, and Reichert’s positions on education look more like a hodgepodge. He says Washington schools don’t have money problems but, rather, spending issues. In the next breath, he asserts we should be devoting at least 50% of the budget to education, which would be millions of dollars more than we do now. 

Reichert also believes families should be able to take some of that money and carry it away in education “backpacks” that follow each child to the private school of their choice.

This sounds suspiciously like a voucher system with a new, kid-friendly name. Bird, who has secured the Washington Republican Party’s nomination for governor, proposes something similar. In his plan, families would have “Educational Service Accounts” — again, public money they could use as they wish, for tutoring or private school tuition.

Whatever label Reichert and Bird prefer, the notion of taxpayer dollars going to private schools hasn’t gained much traction in Washington. But there have been attempts — so far, unsuccessful — to get a voter initiative for vouchers onto the ballot.

If our state schools chief were part of the governor’s cabinet — like the bosses of corrections, child welfare, transportation and employment security — the position would have more sway. It also would put Washington in line with 39 other states whose public schools are consolidated under an appointed chief. But such a shift would require a constitutional amendment, starting with approval from two-thirds of the Legislature. Mullet, the longtime state senator, says it doesn’t have the votes.

Of course, that’s part of a governor’s job, persuading lawmakers to support important initiatives. Mullet, apparently, does not think this one rises to that level. More effective, he believes, would be enforceable guardrails ensuring state education money benefits students at the local level with more programs and smaller class sizes, rather than merely boosting existing salaries.

“I think our ultimate challenge is we’re a local-control state,” Mullet told the editorial board, describing some of his frustration from a legislator’s point of view. “We pushed the money out. How do you make sure the money is being invested in programs that are going to change kids’ lives?”

He added a not-so-veiled swing at local school districts: “Is that money going to end up going to increase paraeducator pay? Or is it going to end up going to backfill, you know, deficits that were created through other people, maybe not making smart financial decisions?”

Among the four candidates, Mullet surely has the most technical expertise in education. As a legislator for the past 12 years, he knows the math. Last session, he sponsored a bill that eliminated fees for students taking College in the High School classes. And during the pandemic he reached across the aisle to work with Republicans in an attempt to open schools in areas where rates of COVID-19 were low. He also has the perspective of a parent who sent six children through the Issaquah public schools, and his wife is a schoolteacher.

Another point in Mullet’s favor: He isn’t afraid of the politically unpopular — for example, his ongoing push to ensure the state’s public charter schools get the same access to local levies as traditional public schools. Whatever one feels about charters, nearly 5,000 Washington children are enrolled in them now, and they are not getting the same level of public funding as kids in other schools, though Mullet was able to secure an increase this year.

Reichert doesn’t speak to such fine points; he just wants more avenues for school choice. He also wants to give $500 to the parents of every student to cover private tutoring. With 1 million children in Washington’s K-12 system, that adds up to a $500 million hit — from the guy who says we don’t need to spend more. 

Readers of The Times know this newspaper focuses intense attention on public education, so it’s no surprise that the candidates spoke to this when sketching their top issues. But if you squint, it’s still possible to get a sense of where their hearts lie.

Bird, who was recalled from his school board seat after less than two years for holding an illegal meeting (and was dinged three times for failing to pay child support several decades ago), devoted just 92 words to education on a Times questionnaire about the candidates’ thinking around major issues. Notable was his proposal to tie school funding to student performance. So, if kids fail courses and exams, their districts get less money? It’s hard to see how that would help.

Which brings us back to Ferguson, who typed out more than three pages — single-spaced — in response to education questions from The Times. He vowed to abolish caps on the number of students with disabilities who can qualify a school district for additional funding.

That’s encouraging. But I can’t help wondering where this full-throated defense of special-needs kids was in 2022, when a Times investigation revealed that the Northwest School of Innovative Learning took in more than $38 million of taxpayer money to educate kids with special needs and instead sent them home traumatized.

Ferguson often touts his record as an aggressive protector of civil rights. But he was curiously restrained on the matter of Northwest SOIL and its victims. Though the Attorney General’s office defended state education officials’ move to prevent new students from enrolling at Northwest SOIL after the Times’ investigation, Ferguson initiated no legal action against the school. His activity regarding charter schools has been similarly limited. Ferguson’s staff defended the voter-initiated law allowing them to operate in Washington, despite his personal lack of enthusiasm for these schools.

To summarize: Republicans Reichert and Bird like vouchers by sunnier names. Mullet, the technocrat, wants guardrails governing how districts spend their money and equity for charter schools. Ferguson shows an appetite for wading into the quagmire and overhauling the governance of our public education system, though his silence in some areas is perplexing.

None of the candidates are perfect on education. But as the saying goes, voting is not a marriage; it’s more like public transit. You’re not choosing “The One.” You’re looking for the person who gets closest to where you want to be. And for the first time in many years, Washington has candidates for governor who could make a real difference in the journey to better public schools.

Editor’s note: This column has been updated to reflect Attorney General Ferguson’s work with OSPI regarding the Northwest School for Innovative Learning.

Watch: Semi Bird’s approach to education

“The prototypical model is ineffective. It’s broad and not specific. And I’m a fan of specificity.”

Watch: Bob Ferguson’s approach to education

“Since that time (McCleary reform), there has been a backsliding on the investment for kids and the challenges.”

Watch: Mark Mullet’s approach to education

“How do you make sure the money is being invested in programs that are going to change kids’ lives?”

Watch: Dave Reichert’s approach to education

“It’s not a revenue problem. It’s more of a spending issue. And I think we really need to evaluate where the spending within our education system is being applied.”