|
On Wednesday night, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education
held a work session and public hearing. State Superintendent Terry
Bergeson was given a considerable amount of time to thoroughly review
her 2008 K-12 Supplemental Operating Budget request. The request, a
somewhat modest $256 million in requested policy enhancements
(compared to the governor’s requested $6.3 million requested reduction
in K-12 policy items), includes funding for major items such as:
teacher salaries; professional certification and National Board
certification bonuses for teachers; enhancements for career and
technical education; school safety; and support for English language
learners. Following Superintendent Bergeson’s presentation, education
stakeholders and others provided comments about Gov. Gregoire’s and
Superintendent Bergeson’s budget proposals. Most stakeholders provided
compliments to legislators for their work on education in the 2007-09
Operating Budget, but most were also reticent to provide supportive
comments to the Governor's Supplemental request. The comments on
Superintendent Bergeson’s proposal were generally supportive. WSSDA
tried to explain that school directors understand that “more money” is
not the ultimate solution to K-12 education’s problems; however school
directors remain very concerned that as education expenses continue to
increase, student needs and costs continue to increase, unfunded
mandates continue to increase, and expectations of schools continue to
increase there have not been similar increases in funding for K-12
education. We explained that we were disappointed in the Governor’s
requested reduction in K-12 policy items, especially given the
continued underfunding of the current obligations of the state’s
constitutionally mandated paramount duty. We also argued that while
Bergeson’s budget is not perfect, it includes many of the supports
necessary to assist schools — and seems to be a reasonable investment,
given the state’s nearly $1 billion surplus.
This morning, the House Education Committee held a work session and
received an update on the Class of 2008 from OSPI and the Washington
State Institute for Public Policy. Since the math WASL graduation
requirement was delayed last session, many more students are in line
to graduate with the required Certificate of Academic Achievement this
year — the first year the Certificate is required for graduation. It
is interesting that with all of the focus on whether or not students
have passed the reading and writing sections of the WASL, many have
neglected to focus on the many other graduation requirements. There
are a significant number of students who appear to be short of the
required number of credits to graduate — which would make them
ineligible to graduate whether they passed the WASL or not. The issue
of WASL as a graduation requirement — and a new focus on credits —
will continue to be a hot topic this session.
The Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee also held a
meeting this morning. Its first order of business was to move to
executive session to take action on a bill. SB 6449, similar to
legislation introduced last year, would provide free speech
protections for student newspapers. The bill was referred to the
Senate Judiciary Committee without a public hearing — and without a
recommendation — from the Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee.
The remainder of the Committee’s time was taken up with: a review from
OSPI on a pilot program to improve reading literacy in high schools;
and a public hearing on a bill to create programs to improve reading
instruction. The bill, SB 6538, requested by Superintendent
Bergeson, would create the Adolescent Reading Program to develop and
implement a comprehensive statewide program providing teachers with
the tools, skills and knowledge to successfully teach struggling
adolescent students to read. The program includes a school-based
assistance program; coordination and technical expertise from OSPI;
reading specialists housed at each regional Educational Service
District; and training for school district curriculum directors.
On Thursday
afternoon, the Senate Ways & Means Committee held a work session to
review Gov. Gregoire’s 2008 Supplemental Operating and Capital
Construction Budgets. The Committee also held a public hearing on the
two budgets. |
