2024 push to divert more funding to charter schools in Washington fizzles at fiscal cutoff

A pair of bills that sought to divert more pub­lic funds to unac­count­able, pri­vate­ly-run char­ter schools in Wash­ing­ton appear to have fiz­zled out after nei­ther received a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion from the fis­cal com­mit­tees in their respec­tive cham­bers pri­or to today’s cut­off for leg­is­la­tion with a fis­cal impact.

Sen­ate Bill 5807, prime spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Mark Mul­let (D‑5th Dis­trict: East King Coun­ty) and House Bill 1897, prime spon­sored by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lar­ry Springer (D‑45th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Sam­mamish, Duvall) sought to  make char­ters eli­gi­ble to apply for state grants on the same basis as a school dis­trict. The leg­is­la­tion also would have required the Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion to dis­trib­ute to each char­ter school a per-pupil enrich­ment grant in the amount of the state local effort assis­tance thresh­old as defined in state law.

Both bills received hear­ings late last week. SB 5807 was heard Fri­day in the Sen­ate Ways & Means Com­mit­tee, while HB 1897 received a hear­ing in House Appro­pri­a­tions. SB 5807 had pre­vi­ous­ly been heard in the Sen­ate Edu­ca­tion & Ear­ly Learn­ing Com­mit­tee, and it reached Ways & Means with the sup­port of Mul­let, Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tor Lisa Well­man, Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tor Claire Wil­son, and the com­mit­tee’s three Repub­li­can members.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tors T’wina Nobles, Sam Hunt, and Jamie Ped­er­sen signed the minor­i­ty report rec­om­mend­ing that the bill not be passed.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Wash­ing­ton Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion and Wash­ing­ton’s Para­mount Duty tes­ti­fied in oppo­si­tion along with leg­isla­tive can­di­date Kris­tiana de Leon, a Black Dia­mond city coun­cilmem­ber. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the right wing Wash­ing­ton Pol­i­cy Cen­ter (which has an edu­ca­tion pri­va­ti­za­tion agen­da) tes­ti­fied in favor along with stu­dents from sev­er­al char­ter schools.

A fis­cal note pre­pared by the Office of Finan­cial Man­age­ment esti­mat­ed that the leg­is­la­tion’s require­ment to imple­ment local effort assis­tance for char­ters would require $9,611,790 in the 2023–2025 bien­ni­um, $20,522,589 in the 2025–2027 bien­ni­um, and $21,559,865 in the 2027–2029 biennium.

Mul­let and Springer both rep­re­sent por­tions of East King Coun­ty in the Leg­is­la­ture, and have pre­vi­ous­ly advo­cat­ed for char­ters to get more tax dollars.

How­ev­er, Mul­let, who is run­ning for gov­er­nor rather than seek­ing reelec­tion to the Sen­ate, has curi­ous­ly been por­tray­ing him­self as a cham­pi­on of pub­lic schools.

For instance, he opened a Decem­ber 13th cam­paign email with these words: “I believe that pub­lic school teach­ers, employ­ees, and stu­dents deserve our full sup­port, and I’m proud not only to be the hus­band of a pub­lic ele­men­tary school teacher, but to be the father of six pub­lic school students.”

“The con­trast between Bob Ferguson’s views and mine are stark,” Mul­let added. “Bob will proud­ly share that he is the son of a pub­lic school teacher – but what he won’t say is that he him­self attend­ed pri­vate school, as do his children.”

“I believe our next Gov­er­nor should walk the walk when it comes to pub­lic edu­ca­tion,” Mul­let’s email went on to say. It then asked: “Do you agree that our pub­lic school sys­tem should be good enough for the Gov­er­nor’s family?”

Leg­is­la­tors were remind­ed dur­ing the con tes­ti­mo­ny that school dis­tricts across Wash­ing­ton are grap­pling with big fund­ing short­falls right now, with admin­is­tra­tors con­sid­er­ing or imple­ment­ing plans to lay off staff and close schools.

Sad­ly, rather than work­ing to help those dis­tricts — some­thing our pub­lic opin­ion research shows vot­ers want law­mak­ers to focus on — Mul­let has been expend­ing ener­gy try­ing to divert more dol­lars to pri­vate­ly-run char­ter schools.

That left many pro­gres­sive activists shak­ing their heads.

“In a tight bud­get year, I can­not imag­ine why this give­away to pri­vate, essen­tial­ly for-prof­it enter­pris­es that edu­cate selec­tive­ly can pos­si­bly out­rank hous­ing, men­tal health and treat­ment for sub­stance use dis­or­der as pri­or­i­ties for our youth,” wrote long­time activist Sara­jane Siegfriedt, a for­mer co-chair of the King Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee’s Leg­isla­tive Action Com­mit­tee, who penned a let­ter to Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers urg­ing them to drop the bill.

House Appro­pri­a­tions lead­er­ship oblig­ed the request and Springer’s HB 1897 was not cho­sen as a can­di­date for exec­u­tive ses­sion before cutoff.

Mul­let hap­pens to be one of the Sen­ate Ways & Means Com­mit­tee’s vice chairs, with respon­si­bil­i­ty for the cap­i­tal bud­get. He thus was in an excel­lent posi­tion to try to secure a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion for the Sen­ate ver­sion before the cut­off. And he did man­age to get SB 5807 sched­uled for exec­u­tive ses­sion today.

How­ev­er, Ways & Means Chair June Robin­son did not bring the bill up. And as a con­se­quence, its sta­tus was updat­ed to read “Exec­u­tive ses­sion sched­uled, but no action was tak­en in the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Ways & Means at 10:00 AM.”

It is pos­si­ble for bills that don’t sur­vive cut­off to be res­ur­rect­ed, but it seems unlike­ly that is going hap­pen to this effort, giv­en the stri­dent oppo­si­tion the idea faces from many Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers on both sides of the rotun­da and from cham­pi­ons of pub­lic edu­ca­tion across Wash­ing­ton State.