Funding Education in Washington
I’m a School Board Director for the Lake Stevens School District, a medium-sized district thirty miles north of Seattle. I am one of five locally elected board members responsible for overseeing the direction and operation of the district. There are 295 school districts in Washington, each of which has five directors (except for the Seattle School District, which has seven). I serve as our school board’s current President, and previously served as Vice President and as Legislative Representative. Although I’m not officially the Legislative Representative any more, I still advocate for education-related issues to legislators locally and across the state, and communicate with them about bills and issues important to education.
All school board directors are members of WSSDA, the state school directors’ association. WSSDA has an internal structure, elected from its membership, which includes a president, president-elect, vice president, a regionally representative board of directors, a legislative committee, a federal relations chair, and other important contributors. WSSDA also has a full and capable staff tasked with furthering the mission of the association.
I’m an active member of WSSDA. I have been elected to the WSSDA Legislative Committee, which helps craft, hone, and champion the WSSDA legislative agenda. I’m a Coordinating Member for the Federal Relations Network (FRN), which means I advocate for education to Congress, and interact with our Congressmen and Senators, both here and in Washington D.C. I’m an elected member of the WSSDA Board of Directors.
Finally, I’m involved in the working groups responsible for working through the details of the redefinition of education in Washington, as enacted in ESHB 2261 - the bill that set redefining education in Washington state into motion (I also pushed very hard during legislative session to get Education Reform passed). I represent WSSDA on the Funding Formula Technical Working Group; the first working group convened to tackle the details of redefining basic education in Washington, tasked also with figuring out how to implement the changes.
While much of that education work takes me down to Olympia, throughout the state, or across the country, I’m still firmly grounded in my local Lake Stevens School District, and dedicated to making it the best learning and growing environment for the students in my community.
Why Redefine Basic Education?
Let’s start with the basics: in Washington, the constitution requires the state to fund basic education. School districts may enhance their education offering with local levies. Over the past three decades - a generation, really - the cost of basic education has increased, but state funding hasn’t kept pace... leaving local levies to bear the burden.
The culprits are not necessarily obvious: increasing mandates, expensive compliance laws, soaring health care costs, and federal regulations all stick their straw in the education glass, sucking out their share before anything gets to the classroom. As if student learning sits at the end of the table, we pass ‘what’s left’ to her, hoping there’s at least a sip remaining. When the state fills the glass just a smidgen over half full, local sources can’t add enough to quench modern students’ thirst. Yet we tighten her shoes and cinch her belt, then send her out to do her best in today’s heated competitive environment.
How do we fix it? How to we fill that glass, and send our students out fully prepared for the world? The state only pays for what falls within its definition of basic education; when we redefine basic education with a scope that prepares our students for today’s world, we redefine what the state funds. What would go into that redefinition? Things like technology; or learning assistance for kids who need extra help; or best-practices professional development for teachers who want to become better at what they do, but their districts don’t have the training funds to help them get there. Things like full-day kindergarten to teach those little one how to learn, and set them up for success instead of frustration in their elementary years; things like reasonable classroom sizes, current textbooks, and buildings that can’t be connected to a tow-truck and hauled away. For all districts, all students, across the state.
So the first step is to redefine basic education. That will give the state a mandate to pay for it. But... there’s a catch. Just like you, the state’s checkbook has only so much money, and must live within its means. So if we’re going to ask for all these education-related things, I think we should also suggest how to pay for them, in a way that doesn’t require a magic wand, or winning the federal lottery. I have an idea about how the state should do this.
Better yet, I have a plan.
So... who am I, exactly?
Times have changed.
We live in a world where the competitive landscape has evolved and expanded. Our students are expected to know, do, learn, create, produce, imagine, and interact... more.
Unfortunately, our education system hasn’t kept pace with those expanding challenges.
Don’t despair... the news is not all bad. Our students, and those who care deeply about enabling them, have a powerful innate ally: creativity.
The Washington State Legislature passed a bill last session that redefines and expands basic education, and that’s great news for anyone who cares about our future. The tricky part: how to pay for it during a revenue-spiraling recession.
That brings us back to creativity. In this website, you’ll find a five-point plan I’ve envisioned to fund basic education, with some very specific boundaries and fiscally efficient premises front of mind - what I call the plan’s guiding principles.
Whether you like the ideas I’ve presented or not, I feel that it’s important to put our ideas on the table, force the issue and discussion with legislators and the public, and take action to see this through.
I hope you find this plan compelling and interesting. And if you have ideas to make it better, I’d love to hear them. Thanks for caring enough about education, and our future, to visit.
Sincerely,
David Iseminger
