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January 5, 2012 in News
WA Supreme Court: State underfunding basic education
SEATTLE — The Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state isn’t meeting its constitutional obligation to amply pay for basic public education, but the justices gave an endorsement to the reform work the Legislature has already started.
The 85-page opinion said, however, that the judiciary would keep an eye on lawmakers to make sure they fully implement education reforms by 2018.
“The court cannot idly stand by as the legislature makes unfulfilled promises for reform,” Justice Debra Stephens wrote in the majority opinion. She notes that deadlines for reforms keep getting moved back and if left up to the Legislature, the court expects the delays would continue.
“The ruling confirms what I have been saying for many years: education funding has not been adequate, and further cuts are out of the question,” State Superintendent Randy Dorn said Thursday.
Lawmakers, who convene next week for a 60-day session, will also need to focus on what to do about a nearly billion dollar budget shortfall.
A coalition of school districts, parents, teachers and community groups won a lawsuit in King County Superior Court in February 2010. Judge John Erlick ruled the state was violating its constitution by not fully paying for basic education.
The state appealed, saying Erlick reached beyond the high court’s previous ruling on this issue in 1978.
The Supreme Court held a lively public hearing on the case at the end of June. Many of their questions concerned whether the Legislature had made any progress lately in improving the way the state pays for education.
In the strongly worded conclusion of the ruling issued Thursday, the court outlines the ways the Legislature has failed to meet its obligations — by talking about reform but cutting school funding at the same time.
The court does not lay out a plan for maintaining that oversight, and Stephens acknowledges that work won’t be easy.
“While we recognize that the issue is complex and no option may prove wholly satisfactory, this is not a reason for the judiciary to throw up its hands and offer no remedy at all,” she wrote.
In a partial dissent, Chief Justice Barbara Madsen disagreed with the majority on the issue of who should make sure the court’s decision is carried out.
“We have done our job; now we must defer to the legislature for implementation,” she wrote, noting the Supreme Court set a precedence of having the Legislature do this work when it ruled in a 1978 decision on a similar case.
“The means of compliance are firmly within the realm of legislative power,” Madsen wrote. She said the majority claims that the judiciary will “facilitate progress” by maintaining authority over the case but then fails to say how it will do that.
© Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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The_Seer on January 05 at 10:33 a.m.
I don’t know what rubric the justices employed to arrive at their decision, but as a public school teacher I think they are out of their minds. We are getting plenty of money to do the job. It just needs to be allocated entirely towards instructional programs rather than diverted to athletics and administrators.
This move would have a two-fold effect. We’d get to see how many of the coaches are there to actually teach and eliminate the waste of time and energy initiatives being constantly implemented by administrators with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too much time on their hands.
Notapatriot on January 05 at 11:06 a.m.
That previous post came from a teacher? There may be hope after all.
polistra on January 05 at 11:27 a.m.
The legislature ought to call the bluff of these monsters.
Appropriate $900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 for next year’s education budget.
The monsters will then predictably declare that $900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 is not nearly enough.
Nothing less than $900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 is just scratching the surface, just barely enough to fulfill the basic needs of education. It’s a baby step.
oneanddone on January 05 at 11:52 a.m.
I think few elementary and secondary educators don’t see the worth in athletics. Only a fool would think you could stick a kid in a chair and try to force feed them facts and understanding all day long. Athletics promotes mental and physical health and likely doesn’t cost that much on a continuing basis. However, beyond high school, athletics are a complete farce. How many millions are wasted at UW or WSU. And don’t tell me it pays for itself. Administrators would be worthwhile as well if they did more to enhance the quality of teacher ability. The problem there is that the reason they’re administrators is because they could not teach, so how could they possible train new or borderline educators. If the goal is superior education for our kids then reallocate funding to that end, and that’s not dump more funding on teachers. Design a evaluation process and pay superior teachers to intervene. And for God’s sake get rid of intercollegiate sports.
william1977 on January 05 at 12:05 p.m.
The problem is the union, not the funding. Bust the union- and get good teachers in. things will immediately get better.
Every job i know is performance based in the real world- except for teachers, government and utilities.
Bust the union.
mtharves on January 05 at 12:27 p.m.
william1977,
Massachusetts is recognized by most as the best performing school system in the country. They also have the strongest teachers’ union. Go figure. Look at the states on the bottom of the education list, no unions. Go figure. Read Diane Ravitch’s book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.”
She has the facts to show how school reform works and doesn’t work in the country.
william1977 on January 05 at 12:42 p.m.
mtharves…
Last time i checked- washington state was darn near the bottom Bottom 15 to be exact) Unions need to be dissolved. all they do is remove the competitive element in a job that makes people do their best. They had their place in time- but today?
Washington is 35th out of 50. how is that showing that a “union element” is working?
The_Seer on January 05 at 1:14 p.m.
oneanddone: Less than half of students in the U.S. participate in interscholastic athletics. If you really believe your claim athletics improves academic performance then please explain why nearly every country that is whooping the U.S. in student performance don’t have interscholastic sports programs?
Europe has a private club system for athletics that seems to work just fine and for the better part they are creaming the U.S. in overall student achievement. I see exchange students all the time who simply have better academic habits than their even their best U.S. counterparts.
mtharves on January 05 at 1:36 p.m.
william1977,
You are right, it does’t and that is the main point in Ravitch’s book. There really isn’t much of a positive correlation between unions and good or poor educational results. So let’s find out what the real problems are and quit the union bashing.
GSLFan16 on January 05 at 1:44 p.m.
Seer, are you really a public education teacher? If so, how do you have so much time to post on here during the school day? Just curious…
Less than 50% participate, where is that statistic from? I would like to look it up. Not denying it, just curious.
Good read for the benefit of athletics:
http://www.osaa.org/osaainfo/08CaseForHSActivities.pdf
If anyone has one for the negatives, I’d love to read it.
What percentage of a school district’s budget goes to extra-curricular activities?
I think information, backed up with statistics, speaks much louder than blanket statements made by uninformed people.
The_Seer on January 05 at 2:01 p.m.
william: Students from Washington have scored first in the nation nine consecutive years.
http://www.k12.wa.us/Communications/pressreleases2011/SATScores.aspx
From the release: “New Hampshire had the second highest average score of 519.6, followed by Massachusetts (516), Oregon (513), Vermont (512.6) and Connecticut (511.6). Washington had the nation’s highest score in math (529), was tied for first with New Hampshire in reading (523) and was fourth in writing (508) of states with 50 percent or more participation.”
All of the states at the top of this list are closed shop, teacher union states. It isn’t a coincidence. Unions simply help drive market forces which move better educators to states/districts with higher pay/benefits which results in better overall student performance.
The_Seer on January 05 at 2:31 p.m.
wow: I am currently in Calgary negotiating the sale of a film I’m producing and on personal leave today and tomorrow.
http://www.nfhs.org/content.aspx?id=3505
My estimate of 50% was slightly off. 45% of students don’t participate in high school athletics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading
ALL of the nations outpacing the U.S. in academic achievement DON’T have interscholastic sports programs.
There is generally a positive correlation between athletic participation and academic performance. What is often ignored with this observation is that the improved academic performance of student athletes over their non-athlete peers is that the improved performance of athletes is coerced. It is made a condition for participation. This incentive does not exist for other students.
dumfolks on January 05 at 2:46 p.m.
Basic education does not include extracurricular activities, those are generally funded by local levies that the communities vote on. Basic Ed covers general Ed, special Ed , transportation, vocational Ed, learning assistance programs and juvenile detention Ed programs.
Just like athletic budgets for universities do not come from state government, it is generated through other sources.
dumfolks on January 05 at 3:19 p.m.
All the nations outpacing the US are not educating every student. Public schools are using scores of all students, of all ability levels from all programs not just students who they deem qualified for their secondary education programs.
Students who don’t participate in athletics should out perform student athletes since they aren’t “wasting” their time training and competing.
MikeA on January 05 at 3:29 p.m.
This is about the fourth time in my lifetime that the Supreme Court has slapped the Legislature for not fulfilling their Constitutionally-mandated duty. Instead the legislature in their partisan political party-blinders wisdom keep dumbing down the definition of ‘basic education’ so that they can spend more on high-visibility items that help them get re-elected. No one wants to invest in the foundation or the plumbing of the mansion — its a lot more fun to choose the paint and furnishings.
My wife and I both graduated from a Washington public school system that was and is very sub-par. Fortunately I was able to make up for the significant deficiences in college and beyond without too much damage or cost (but considerable expense) and by being fortunate enough to get hired by progressive employers. But now my daughter is going to graduate (soon I hope!) from a public system that in some very important ways is probably more broken now that it was fifty years ago…I wonder how she can possibly ever make up the gap which is much wider for her than it was for me.
Good luck to the class of 2030 – about the time that any “reforms” with a deadline of 2018 will finally bear fruit!
Pigrobin on January 05 at 4:32 p.m.
“My wife and I both graduated from a Washington public school system that was and is very sub-par.”
Compared to what? If you are really that concerned why didn’t you move or put your kid in a private school? I tire of the complaining when we really have it pretty good in this state.
ericdx on January 05 at 4:58 p.m.
Everyone squawks about the cost of education. WHAT ABOUT THE PARENTS? Whe do they get held accountable. I volunteer with teachers that try everything they can to get the message across to the students, but when the parents don’t give a damn, the students usually don’t either. Occasionally one will, but most of the tiem, the parents just want to drop the kid off at school, and don’t care what happens.
SCHOOL IS NOT DAYCARE, but many parents treat it that way. As long as the parents are not engaged, the students will not be, and $1 million dollars, or $1 Billion dollars, the money won’t matter. How about some parents and students start taking some of the responsibility, because teachers are, by and large, doing everything they can, and not getting any help with it.
Just like in a dance or in sex, it takes 2 to tango; a willing teacher (and there are a lot of them) and a willing learner with proper support (and there do not seem to be nearly as many of them.)
mrd on January 05 at 6:55 p.m.
Washington has it made compared to the rediculous funding Idaho provides. But when you consider the background of most Idaho legislators, no surprise.