Category: Education

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

NPI calls on Governor Jay Inslee to uphold our Constitution by vetoing charters bailout

by Andrew Villeneuve

Editor’s Note: Two weeks ago, Repub­­li­­can-dom­i­­nat­ed majori­ties in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Sen­ate passed a bill restor­ing fund­ing for char­ter schools and allow­ing new char­ters to be autho­rized, in defi­ance of the Supreme Court’s rul­ing in League of Women Vot­ers v. State of Wash­ing­ton. NPI is ask­ing Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee to veto […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Washington State Legislature adjourns 2016 session Sine Die; special session needed

by Andrew Villeneuve

Not long ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture adjourned its 2016 reg­u­lar ses­sion Sine Die, fol­low­ing the adop­tion of HCR 4417 by the House and Sen­ate. Though the reg­u­lar ses­sion is now offi­cial­ly over, law­mak­ers can­not head home just yet, as their work is unfin­ished (sur­prise, sur­prise). Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee plans to call a spe­cial session […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Senate concurs with House’s amendments to charters bailout, sending it to Governor Inslee

by Andrew Villeneuve

By a vote of twen­­ty-six to twen­­ty-three, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate has con­curred in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive’s amend­ments to E2SSB 6194, Steve Lit­zow’s bill to bail out char­ter schools, which were declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court in League of Women Vot­ers last autumn. The vote was most­ly along par­ty lines, though […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

NPI to legislators: Support Washington’s kids by funding our public schools — not charters

by Robert Cruickshank

Edi­tor’s Note: This evening, the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is expect­ed to take up a bill that would restore pub­lic fund­ing for pri­vate char­ter schools, in defi­ance of the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court’s clear rul­ing in League of Women Vot­ers v. State of Wash­ing­ton. NPI is ask­ing mem­bers of the House and Sen­ate to […]

Posted inEducation

How to meet Washington’s paramount duty and end the K‑12 funding standoff

by Robert Cruickshank

Today Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee con­venes the first meet­ing of his leg­isla­tive work­group in SeaT­ac to tack­le the issue of how to meet the state Supreme Court’s order to ful­ly fund K‑12 pub­lic schools. It’s good that they’re get­ting down to work, but we should­n’t expect a quick res­o­lu­tion. The Wash­ing­ton Leg­is­la­ture is dead­locked over the […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Policy Topics

Emerald City teachers overwhelmingly ratify new contract with Seattle Public Schools

by Andrew Villeneuve

Teach­ers in Seat­tle have vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly to approve a new con­tract with Seat­tle Pub­lic Schools, which means class­es will be held as sched­uled tomor­row and in the months beyond, the Seat­tle Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion announced tonight. The agree­ment had three com­po­nents. All were rat­i­fied with large mar­gins. “Today was a great day for uni­ty in Seattle […]

Posted inBreaking News, Education, Elections, Litigation, Policy Topics

Washington’s Supreme Court strikes down I‑1240 (charter schools) in its entirety

by Andrew Villeneuve

Once again, the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court has rid­den to the res­cue of Wash­ing­ton’s belea­guered pub­lic schools sys­tem. In a mon­u­men­tal­ly impor­tant 6–3 deci­sion released late this after­noon, the Court struck down Ini­tia­tive 1240, a char­ter schools mea­sure vot­ers nar­row­ly passed in 2012, as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in its entire­ty. The deci­sion means that Wash­ing­ton’s exper­i­ment with […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics, Public Service

Governor Jay Inslee appoints 48th LD’s Ross Hunter as new Director of Early Learning

by Andrew Villeneuve

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ross Hunter (D‑48th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Belle­vue, Med­i­na, Clyde Hill, the Points com­mu­ni­ties) will soon be leav­ing the Leg­is­la­ture to join Jay Inslee’s admin­is­tra­tion as Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Ear­ly Learn­ing, the gov­er­nor’s office announced in a late-morn­ing press release. “With land­mark invest­ments this year, Wash­ing­ton state is poised to be a […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Governor Inslee rebukes Senate Republicans: Let’s do our jobs, not fight the Supreme Court

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee had strong words for Sen­ate Repub­li­cans this after­noon after a major­i­ty (but not all) of the cau­cus pub­lished an open let­ter urg­ing the Leg­is­la­ture’s oth­er cau­cus­es to join them in insti­gat­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis by retal­i­at­ing against the state Supreme Court for its recent McCleary order. “Today I con­vened a call […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Supreme Court fines state $100,000 a day for failure to comply with McCleary orders

by Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court, in a land­mark order that will turn heads and shoul­ders across the Ever­green State, ordered the state to begin pay­ing a $100,000 fine for each day that it fails to adopt a plan for ful­ly com­ply­ing with Arti­cle IX, Sec­tion 1 of the state Con­sti­tu­tion (“It is the […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Economic Security, Education, Live Coverage

Netroots Nation Panel: Student Debt Crisis

by Rennie Sawade

This pan­el dis­cuss­es the issues around stu­dent debt. The pan­elists are Robert Cruick­shank, Natalia Abrams, Melis­sa Byrne, Angela Peo­ples and Kay­la Wing­ber­muehle. Some of the main issues: Wealth trans­fer prob­lem. Wealthy stu­dents can afford col­lege, not go into debt, and not have to work a part-time job, so they can con­cen­trate more in class­es, do better, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Lake Washington teachers latest to walk out in protest of inadequate education funding

by Andrew Villeneuve

Teach­ers in the Lake Wash­ing­ton School Dis­trict — which serves 26,700 stu­dents in NPI’s home­town of Red­mond along with the neigh­bor­ing cities of Kirk­land and Sam­mamish — have vot­ed to walk off the job on Wednes­day, May 6th in protest of the Leg­is­la­ture’s com­plete­ly inad­e­quate response to the Supreme Court’s McCleary deci­sion, and its refusal […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Washington’s Senate Republicans pass bill transferring education funding to highways

by Andrew Villeneuve

Prov­ing once again that their Fund edu­ca­tion first rhetoric is noth­ing but a false front, Repub­li­cans today pushed a bill through the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate that trans­fers sales tax rev­enue col­lect­ed on trans­porta­tion projects out of the state’s gen­er­al fund and into its high­way fund. Since the gen­er­al fund prin­ci­pal­ly pays for our schools and […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

LIVE from Bellevue: Governor Inslee unveils plan for investing in Washington’s schools

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good evening from New­port High School in Belle­vue, Wash­ing­ton. I’m here with sev­er­al dozen oth­er activists, reporters, and cit­i­zens to par­tic­i­pate in a town hall on edu­ca­tion with Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee and his staff. The gov­er­nor is using the event to unveil his plan to strength­en Wash­ing­ton’s schools, which his office is call­ing the most […]