2009 April 01 | League of Education Voters

Washington’s kids need your help

Posted on 01. Apr, 2009 by admin.

More than 6,000 parents, educators and students have signed the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition.

Now more than ever, we need to speak up in support of public schools and for re-defining basic education to include all the essential programs our children need to succeed in school and life.

This week, our state lawmakers released budget proposals that would make devastating cuts to public schools. We need your help to show Senate and House leaders and the Governor that minimizing cuts to public education is a top priority for Washingtonians.

Please sign the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition today. Our goal is to reach 10,000 signatures by this Friday.

Reaching our goal will send a loud and clear message that we want our lawmakers to protect education programs that are essential to children and schools, such as:

Initiative 728, which provides funding for up to 5,000 teachers statewide;
Levy equalization, which help the poorest school districts in the state; and
Early childhood education and funding to lower K-4 class sizes, which research shows is important for the success of young children.

Also, please ask two friends to join you in signing the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition today.

Thank you for your support.

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Washington’s kids need your help

Posted on 01. Apr, 2009 by Kelly.

Thank you for signing the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition. With your help, we have surpassed 6,000 signatures from parents, educators and students.

Now more than ever, we need to speak up in support of public schools and for re-defining basic education to include all the essential programs our children need to succeed in school and life.

This week, our state lawmakers released budget proposals that would make devastating cuts to public schools. We need your help to show Senate and House leaders and the Governor that minimizing cuts to public education is a top priority for Washingtonians.

Please ask two friends to sign the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition today. Our goal is to reach 10,000 signatures by this Friday.

Reaching our goal will send a loud and clear message that we want our lawmakers to protect education programs that are essential to children and schools, such as:

Initiative 728, which provides funding for up to 5,000 teachers statewide;
Levy equalization, which help the poorest school districts in the state; and

• Early childhood education and funding to lower K-4 class sizes, which research shows is important for the success of young children.

Please help us reach 10,000 signatures by Friday. Ask two friends to sign the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition today.

Thank you again for your support.

Lisa Layera Brunkan and Susan McBurney, Fund Our Future Washington
Kelly Munn, League of Education Voters
Shannon Campion, Stand for Children
Laura Bay, Washington State PTA

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Budget cuts would devastate education

Posted on 01. Apr, 2009 by admin.

Washington’s schools, like families, have been tightening their budgets, while doing everything they can to ensure kids continue to grow and thrive.

This week, the Senate and House released their 2009-2011 budget proposals, which close a $9 billion shortfall with cuts and federal stimulus dollars. Although legislators prioritized children and education, both budgets would cut early learning, public schools and higher education by more than $1.3 billion.

The Senate and House make tough choices in their education budgets. Here’s our overall view of how the budgets would impact the future of our state’s children, schools and colleges.

Early Learning

Access to high quality early learning is the key to dramatically improving outcomes for young children and families. We appreciate that the Senate and House prioritized and protected early learning in their budgets. Despite modest cuts, both budgets would largely maintain access to preschool programs for children from low-income families through our state’s Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) by preventing 1,000 cuts to enrollment slots. Although, we prefer budget writers had make cuts elsewhere and fully funded this essential program.

K-12 Public Education

Although public education is the state’s paramount duty, the budget only protects a narrow, legalistic definition of “basic education.” Education programs that are essential, but are not technically part of basic education, have either been eliminated or deeply cut such as Initiative 728, levy equalization and funding to lower K-4 class sizes. The loss of I-728 alone could mean between 3,000 and 5,000 teachers would lose their jobs.

If we had a robust definition of basic education, children would not be faced with the prospect of losing their new teacher and not getting the help that they need to be successful in school and life.

We applaud the House budget for including funding to implement education reform legislation. We are concerned that the Senate relied heavily on federal stimulus dollars, which are one-time funds, to pay for basic education.

Higher Education

Our children are counting on being able to afford and enroll at one of our state’s colleges or universities to learn the skills necessary to earn a living wage. Unfortunately, both budgets make devastating cuts to our state’s higher education system. Up to 10,000 students may be denied access under the Senate budget. The House attempts to maintain current enrollments by implementing greater tuition hikes and deeper cuts in faculty and courses.

Click here to view the Senate and House operating budget summaries.

Help ensure a bright future for children in our state

The education budget represents our investment in our children’s future. We have a responsibility to our children to take care of them first because they are counting on us to help them achieve their dreams in life. Unfortunately, the proposed cuts will mean the future prospects of children across Washington State will be dimmed.

We have the ability to break this cycle of cutting school budgets during downturns and filling in the holes when our economy improves by taking bold action now. Now is the time to redefine basic education and adopt systemic reforms and accountability measures and tie them to a responsible implementation schedule. If we do so, we will be able to hold our state lawmakers and ourselves accountable for providing our children the kind of education they need to succeed in good economic times and in bad times. We would also better position Washington State to receive federal stimulus dollars and other funds tied to President Obama’s call for innovation in our public schools.

You can take action to make a difference for children and education by:

• Urging your legislators to support revising the definition of basic education to include what our children need to succeed in school, college, job training and the workforce.