Seattle education activists are holding a contest and you can enter! 📚
It is a coloring contest.
It is about a very important court decision, the McCleary decision, in which the state’s highest court ordered the legislature to fully fund the public schools attended by 1,070,000 children. The legislature hasn’t acted.
However the state senate passed a bill to help Bill Gates’ charter schools, attended by about 800-900 children. He loves those charters so much he should pay for them and let the legislature do their duty to the state’s children.
http://www.king5.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/23/parents-raise-awareness-education-funding-through-coloring-contest/79216580/
More at https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/the-color-of-money-mccleary-crime-scene-coloring-contest/.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Can someone elaborate more on what “fully funded” means. I know in Tennessee there is the Basic Education Program, and there are real ways folks can point to schools and districts not being fully funded. Thus, districts are suing. But can someone clarify what it means in either other states or nationally. Does it mean increase funding? Are schools being shorted money already owed (like TN)? It seems a little fuzzy to me.
Washington State does not fund to even the national average (we’re about 46th.) Couple that with one of the highest class sizes in the country and we wonder how our legislators/big business can complain about not closing the opportunity gap.
Our state has had several studies on what “fully-funded” education would look like and, as well, the legislature has passed several bills on this issue.
The Supreme Court ruled, more than three years ago, that the state was not fully funding public education as direct – in a very specific manner – in our state constitution. The legislature has, naturally, been dragging its feet because it’s a lot of money. And, in the intervening time, we passed a lower class size bill (also a lot of money.)
This lack of funding affects over 1M+ Washington State students
But, as Diane noted, our legislature DID find the time to rejigger the unconstitutional charter school law (also about three years old) to fund THOSE schools.
Many of us are furious at the legislature AND the Governor (who’s up for re-election this fall) and are trying to get them to get this done.
So yes, this is very much about increasing the funding to our schools. (Also to note, we have no income tax so our taxes come from property tax, levies, etc. We have been named the most regressive state in the union. So the issue isn’t just school funding; it’s how we fund our entire state.)
The Ohio DeRolph case focused on certain academic indicators, funding methods, and facilities. That was 1997 the SCOO ruled Ohio’s funding approach unconstitutional. The ruling was ignored. Kasich has further cut education and there’s no end in sight with a major blow being a tangible property tax elimination but no replacement revenue. Ohio now posts over 3 years of job growth below the national average. Strategic development is not the Republicans’ strong point in Ohio. With schools and infrastructure crumbling and brain drain accelerating, the joke here is we are becoming Alabama with ice (sorry Alabama).
Evidence that the majority of the state legislature in Washington belongs to Bill Gates. Did any reps vote against the charter bill?
Business Insider ranks the WA economy 1 out of 50 states. Why isn’t basic education funded? Can’t blame the economy.
http://www.businessinsider.com/state-economy-ranking-q4-2015-2016-1
Great point!
Why can’t we redistribute the money collected from property tax so that high schools work on a similar budget? That way it solves the education problem without having to try and pry more money from the state government which has very little money to begin with.
Why can’t we redistribute the money collected from property taxes? By doing this, poorer school districts will be able to afford more materials for their classes and this could help bridge the achievement gap.
https://www.change.org/p/reform-public-education-in-the-u-s
The Washington Senate is trying to fund Charters ($19,378,000 for 2 years from its $845,497,000 budget that services many grants, scholarships, research and education) through the “Opportunity Pathways account” that is largely funded by the state lottery. No word yet on elected Boards, teacher quals and open books.
It is at least treating these schools more as private schools and not robbing the public schools of funding. Charters passed narrowly by the voters a couple years ago. Many voters–like me, had no idea what the ramifications would be. I sound the alarm often and I pass on several of Diane’s best articles to my legislators who have voted for Charters. Presently, 1,200 students have been affected and just a small handful of schools.