Blog

Public charter schools play important role in improving education

Last week, a coalition of education reform groups filed an initiative to allow public charter schools in Washington. The coalition including the League of Education Voters, Stand for Children and Democrats for Education Reform has until July 6 to collect nearly 250,000 valid voter signatures. In my column this morning, I write about the success of […]

New Brief: Repealing I-728, Grading Teachers, and Other 2012 Education Reforms

The legislature passed several education reform bills this year, which we consider in this policy brief. Significantly, as part of the budget compromise, legislators finally repealed I-728. By doing so, they helped clear the way for basic education funding needs. They also improved the 2013-15 fiscal situation by removing I-728 from the maintenance level. In […]

Senate Reforms: Consolidated School Employee Benefits

Another of the reforms in the Senate’s proposed 2012 supplemental is SSB 6442, which would establish a consolidated purchasing system for public school employee health benefits. (It was passed by the Senate Ways and Means Committee Feb. 23.)

Senate Reforms: Education Funding

As I mentioned yesterday, the newly proposed Senate supplemental includes several reforms.  These include SB 6618, which would repeal Initiatives 728 and 732.  (The bill has seen no action in the legislature so far.)

Seattle Times, Microsoft executive urge action on higher education

Sunday’s Seattle Times carried a strong editorial page call to action. “Losing kids on the path to prosperity” charts a course from early learning through higher education. Editorial page editor Kate Riley explains the urgency. The state of Washington’s education system — and by system, we mean the ways we educate our citizens from birth […]

Moving ahead with education reform despite state budget challenges

Last Friday, I noted that education reform dominated the first week of the legislative session. A good op-ed by Dean Allen, CEO of McKinstry Co. and current chair of the Washington Roundtable, explains the urgency. By 2018, two out of three family-wage jobs in our state will require post-secondary education or training. Yet, on average, […]

Education reforms top first week of legislative session

The first week of the 2012 legislature draws to a close this cool Friday the 13th of January. Encouragingly, education reform has found substantial bipartisan support. In the Seattle Times, Brian Rosenthal has a good overview of yesterday’s action. Declaring that traditional methods have failed, a bipartisan group of lawmakers formally introduced a pair of […]

Microsoft & Boeing announce $50 million scholarship fund

Today, coincident with the governor’s signing higher education bills, Boeing and Microsoft pledge $25 million each to fund scholarships for students in high-demand fields. This is very good news, as the governor points out. …our colleges and universities must have the resources to educate and train the next generation of engineers, scientists and workers. Tuition […]

Update on Higher Education Tuition

Last week, we posted a policy brief comparing the House and Senate budgets’ treatments of higher education. Both budgets propose significant tuition hikes on state-resident undergraduate students, with the increases in the Senate budget somewhat greater than those in the House budget (11–16 percent vs. 11–13 percent). These proposals are now irrelevant, however. Early this […]

New Brief on Higher Education in the 2011-13 Budgets

We have posted a new policy brief on higher education in the House and Senate budgets, titled “Higher Education: State Funding Down, Tuition Up.” It is available through this link. Briefly: Under the House budget, NGFS+ funding for higher education would be $2.81 billion, while under the Senate budget it would be  $2.84 billion. Either […]