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Basic ed task force ends debate, drafts bill

Wednesday, December 10, 2008 1:44 PM PST

By Donna Gordon Blankinship
The Associated Press

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SEATTLE — A task force formed by the Washington Legislature to figure out how to improve the way the state pays for education spent its last day of debate Tuesday refining its proposal and discarding some ideas, including statewide collective bargaining for teachers.

The next stop for the task force proposal — which would ask for more state money to pay for things like a longer high school day and smaller classes in the younger grades — is the state Legislature, where budget cuts, not program enhancement, are expected to be a dominant theme when the 2009 session begins next month.

The plan approved Tuesday in Olympia after about 18 months of deliberation takes the current state economy into consideration. It calls for a six-year phase-in and recommends making changes one-by-one as money becomes available.

The task force was made up of eight lawmakers, two school district superintendents, a school board member, the superintendent of public instruction, a member of the governor’s staff and a former legislator.

They were charged by the 2007 Legislature with refining the state definition of basic education, examining current state spending on education and finding a way to equalize school employee pay among school districts — all while keeping in mind the changing demands on public schools over the past few decades, such as new technology and student diversity.

The final proposal will not offer specific suggestions about how the state should find more money to pay for this new understanding of basic education.

The state uses sales, business and property taxes to pay 84.3 percent of what it costs to educate Washington’s 1 million K-12 school children. The other 15.7 percent comes from local levies and some federal money, primarily for education of special-needs children.

Most of the state dollars go to teacher salaries. The state also matches local bond money for school construction. About 40 percent of the state’s general fund goes to education.

Among the recommendations the task force will take to the 2009 Legislature are these:

• Paying teachers different amounts, comparable to regional wages paid to non-school employees in their communities.

• Defining basic education as the schooling needed to help students meet new high school graduation requirements adopted by the state Board of Education, and Washington’s college admission standards.

• Increasing instructional time, particularly for high school students, and therefore paying teachers more.

• Decreasing class sizes in kindergarten through third grade.

• Paying teachers for a set number of training days outside of the 180 days of instructional time and strictly reserving all instructional days for education.

• Equalizing the ways school districts pay district employees in their central office.

• Setting minimum support levels for special education, bilingual education, vocational programs and gifted education.

• Giving more money to schools with more low-income students.

• Providing money for technology, libraries, utilities, teacher training and other costs.

The task force seriously considered moving teacher contract negotiations from the local district level to a statewide system but removed that idea from the proposal on Tuesday.

The state currently spends about $15 billion on K-12 education in each two-year budget cycle. The proposals from the task force could cost as much as $2 billion more each biennium, task force member Rep. Glenn Anderson, R-Fall City, predicted earlier this month.

Task force members expect the plan will be amended in the Legislature, but they expressed confidence that they had made a good start on something many people said could not be done effectively.

“It’s not like this report is going to be carved on stone tablets and delivered to the Legislature,” task force member Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, said with a smile during Tuesday’s meeting.

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TDN Bad Boy wrote on Dec 10, 2008 9:41 AM:

" It will be interesting to see how the Liberals in the legislature react to the no statewide collective bargaining. That would give the Teacher's Union way too much power. And well since the Liberals are pretty much bought and paid for by the teacher's union, it will be interesting if they follow this. I do believe that teacher's should be paid what their community norms are, and not by a statewide systems where they all make the same at the basic level. That would mean Longview teachers should be paid the same as those in Seattle. And the cost of living in Longview is much less. That's good for the local districts. But once again the issue of tying pay to class performance is not recognized. Some of the pay for each district should be tied to how the students perform on the WASL. Let's see, we make the WASL a requirement for the students, but we don't make the results a requirement for teacher pay. I think we could really improve the system if we did. But then again when will a union ever agree to pay based on performance results? Not going to happen with the Liberals in charge in Olympia. "

Viewpoint wrote on Dec 10, 2008 10:13 AM:

" Targeting school employees' salaries, out of all the state employees, to adjust based on comparable regional private sector wages is a very bad idea no matter how you slice it. It panders to Puget Sound interests that believe their salaries should be higher based on higher cost of living. An interesting idea would be to bargain teacher contracts at the state level instead of in the individual districts. It might provide a better opportunity to align salary with state mandated educational outcomes and ensure equity across districts, especially as salaries are increasingly supplemented by local levies. It could improve accountability for cost control. However it erodes local control and could affect the ability to adjust the local workforce to specific district needs and variables. Any ideas requiring more money will evaporate like a morning mist when the harsh sun of fiscal reality rises on the next legistlative session. "

TDN Bad Boy wrote on Dec 10, 2008 11:10 AM:

" Viewpoint, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Of course if you are a member of the union than you would support that idea. But that puts too much power into the hands of the union. Locality should play a role in salary because it does cost less to live in Longview than in Seattle. Giving the union that type of power would lead to a statewide strike by teachers. We certainly don't need that. And, it gives control to the bigger districts. The Longview School District would have absolutely no say because it is dwarfed by many districts that are much bigger and have more teachers. Those bigger districts would always control the issues. So you want Longview teachers to ride the coat tail of the Seattle District and others. I certainly don't. "

Viewpoint wrote on Dec 10, 2008 12:03 PM:

" TDNBB, So glad I could get your heart pumping but I'm not a union member. Even if the Seattle District controlled state bargaining, the state would still have to come up with a way to pay for the contract for teachers across the entire state. As it is now the property rich districts in Puget Sound can afford better compensation for their employees at lower levy rates than the poorer districts in our area with higher levy rates. The union can more easily sweeten their contracts by approaching districts piecemeal. "

TDN Bad Boy wrote on Dec 10, 2008 12:33 PM:

" Totally disagree with you. We would be subject to teacher strikes every year because of what the bigger districts do. We really don't need that. And teachers in Longview should not be making the same scale as teachers in Seattle. Still, this report falls short in that in no way does it tie teacher pay into classroom performance and the WASL scores. It is going to take a very strong governor to win that right and that's just not the case now. The teacher union owns the governor as the recent campaign contributions show. And as long as that is the case, our education system will never reach the levels it could or should. "

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