Category: Education

Posted inBreaking News, Education, Elections, Policy Topics

Manka Dhingra says yes to simple majorities for school bonds, Jinyoung Englund says no

by Andrew Villeneuve

In a mat­ter of weeks, vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton’s 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict will be decid­ing which polit­i­cal par­ty con­trols the state Sen­ate in 2018. By elect­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Man­ka Dhin­gra, vot­ers in the 45th could oust Repub­li­cans from pow­er and put the Sen­ate under Demo­c­ra­t­ic man­age­ment for the first five in five years. On the oth­er hand, […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

House Democrats unveil “Families First” budget proposal, embrace capital gains tax

by Andrew Villeneuve

Law­mak­ers rep­re­sent­ing Wash­ing­ton State’s House Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty took the wraps off of their bud­get this after­noon, offer­ing a stark­ly dif­fer­ent plan for the next bien­ni­um than the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans did last week. “Our approach to the bud­get is ‘what’s best for kids?’ This bud­get and our [edu­ca­tion fund­ing] plan is what’s best for kids,” the caucus […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Washington State House of Representatives sends revised “levy cliff” rescue bill to Inslee

by Andrew Villeneuve

Leg­is­la­tion that would res­cue school dis­tricts in Wash­ing­ton State from the so-called “levy cliff” is on its way to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee fol­low­ing an over­whelm­ing vote of approval in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. By a vote of eighty-sev­en to ten, the House vot­ed to give its assent to Engrossed Sen­ate Bill 5023, originally […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Washington State Senate passes Republicans’ school levy swipe scheme on a party-line vote

by Andrew Villeneuve

Thanks to the arrival of new­­ly-mint­ed Sen­a­tor Shel­ley Short (R‑7th Dis­trict; north­east Wash­ing­ton) and the return of Doug Erick­sen from the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, Repub­li­cans in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate were today able to pass the school levy swipe scheme they intro­duced late last week with no votes to spare. Sub­sti­tute Sen­ate Bill 5607, con­cern­ing education […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy, Party Politics, Policy Topics, Public Service

Badly-behaved Senate Republicans are an embarrassment to the State of Washington

by Andrew Villeneuve

It’s only been ten days since the six­­ty-fifth Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture con­vened for its long ses­sion, but already, the bad behav­ior of Sen­ate Repub­li­cans sug­gests it’s going to be very dif­fi­cult for the state’s law­mak­ing branch to get much of any­thing done before the ses­sion is sched­uled to end on April 23rd. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have a reasonable […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Education, Events, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Join us tomorrow at the Rally for Student Civil Rights and Amply Funded Schools!

by Andrew Villeneuve

It is the para­mount duty of the state to make ample pro­vi­sion for the edu­ca­tion of all chil­dren resid­ing with­in its bor­ders, with­out dis­tinc­tion or pref­er­ence on account of race, col­or, caste, or sex. – Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion, Arti­cle IX, Sec­tion 1 Read­ers! Do you believe in the Con­sti­tu­tion of Wash­ing­ton State? Do you believe that all of […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Why isn’t Stuart Elway asking about revenue fairness when he polls on funding education?

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, just in time for the 2017 leg­isla­tive ses­sion, poll­ster Stu­art Elway released new results from a recent sur­vey in which his firm asked Wash­ing­ton vot­ers about how and whether we should invest in Wash­ing­ton’s K‑12 schools, which have been bad­ly under­fund­ed for years in defi­ance of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion. The Supreme Court has […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Go Jay Inslee! Governor proposes $3.9 billion in new revenue for our K‑12 public schools

by Andrew Villeneuve

Declar­ing that we have a duty to fol­low our Con­sti­tu­tion and pro­vide a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion to every child in our state, Gov­er­nor Inslee today unveiled a bold plan to ful­ly fund our state’s K‑12 pub­lic schools and end the McCleary lit­i­ga­tion. “We face an oppor­tu­ni­ty — and an oblig­a­tion — in this upcom­ing ses­sion to […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman pal Michael Baumgartner prefiles amendment to repeal “paramount duty” language in Washington State Constitution

by Andrew Villeneuve

In a fair­ly bla­tant attempt to get some atten­tion for him­self and steer pub­lic dis­course away from ful­ly fund­ing our pub­lic schools, extrem­ist right wing Sen­a­tor Michael Baum­gart­ner of Spokane has pre­filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that would repeal the mem­o­rable open­ing words of Arti­cle IX of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion (“It is the para­mount duty […]

Posted inEducation, Elections

Chris Reykdal set to become Washington’s next Superintendent of Public Instruction

by Andrew Villeneuve

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Reyk­dal (D‑22nd Dis­trict: Olympia, Tumwa­ter) is set to become Wash­ing­ton State’s next Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion after fresh results show it’s become math­e­mat­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble for him to lose. “We are up over 28,000 votes with less than 18,000 to count in our race. We have achieved a math­e­mat­i­cal vic­to­ry,” Reyk­dal not­ed in a […]

Posted inEducation, Litigation, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman continues attack on state Supreme Court, misquotes Orwell’s “Animal Farm”

by Andrew Villeneuve

With no ini­tia­tive on the bal­lot to sell this year, scan­­dal-plagued ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman has turned his atten­tion to launch­ing attacks on indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions he does­n’t like, name­ly the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court, Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates for office at all lev­els, and Sound Tran­sit. This after­noon, Eyman sent out yet anoth­er mis­sive exco­ri­at­ing the […]