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Policy Today podcast: McCleary Part 2 – Tax Revenues

Today’s episode covers the new tax revenues in the recently passed K-12 basic education funding law, which the State of Washington hopes will fulfill its obligations in the Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling. Click here to read our Special Report on the new K-12 basic education law.

A technical point about the regionalization factor that increases salary allocations for some school districts

In a Seattle Times column yesterday, Donna Gordon Blankinship asks, “Why can’t school funding be fair?” She argues, “The state needs ample enough funding — as the Washington Constitution requires — so every child has the same opportunity to succeed in life, no matter what ZIP code they live in.” She uses Yakima as an […]

Will voters keep approving school levies?

Since at least the 1970s, when the state Supreme Court ruled on the precursor to the McCleary case, the use of maintenance and operations (M&O) levies has been limited to enhancements to basic education. In practice, they were sometimes used for basic education purposes, which was part of the problem identified in the McCleary decision. […]

What do school districts mean when they say they’ll be worse off under new funding system?

Several school districts have expressed concern about the state’s new method of funding public schools (as enacted in EHB 2242; here’s our report on the bill). As Melissa Santos reports in the News Tribune, District officials in Tacoma, Olympia and Seattle say they’ll face budget deficits under the state’s new school funding plan, with some […]

Policy Today podcast: McCleary Part 1 – Policy and Funding

Today we’re discussing the K-12 education funding bill passed by the state Legislature, in response to the state Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling on basic education. In this episode we cover funding and policy changes; in the next episode we’ll cover tax revenues. To read our Special Report on the McCleary bill, click here.

New special report: Has the State Finally Closed the Book on McCleary?

In a new special report, we dig in to EHB 2242, the education funding bill passed by the Legislature this session. Briefly: The Legislature has enacted EHB 2242 to continue its response to the McCleary decision. From 2011–13 to 2017–19, state funding for public schools has increased by $8.419 billion (62.1 percent). In 2019–21, the […]

Legislature, AG to Court: McCleary response is complete

Yesterday the Legislature submitted what could be its final report to the state Supreme Court on its progress in responding to the McCleary decision. The Attorney General (AG) also submitted the state’s memorandum outlining why the state believes “the Court should dissolve its order of contempt against the State, relinquish jurisdiction, and terminate this appeal.” […]

As the Legislature begins its second special session, OSPI offers a new K–12 plan

Yesterday the Legislature began the second special session of the year, because the Legislature has not come to an agreement on an operating budget or an education plan to comply with the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision. As the Seattle Times reports, Gov. Inslee said yesterday that neither the property tax levy swap in the […]

School-siting bill clears state House, heads to governor's desk

Legislation long sought by overcrowded school districts to grant flexibility for building new schools cleared its final legislative hurdle this week. The state House Tuesday approved changes made by the Senate last week to House Bill (or as it’s now known as, Engrossed Substitute House Bill) 1017, which allows school districts – in some circumstances – to build […]

Our education funding comparison table has been updated

Yesterday we posted a policy brief comparing the various education funding proposals. After publication, we received additional information from the Office of Financial Management that allowed us to fill in some of the holes regarding Gov. Inslee’s proposal. Also, we changed the first row of the table to show the full NGFS+ policy change for […]