Breaking News: Supreme Court rejects Federal Way’s teacher pay-gap claims
Posted on 12. Nov, 2009 by Jen.
(This is an excerpt from a story published in The Olympian. LEV will provide analysis on the ruling in the coming days.)
A lower court had upheld school district claims that the state’s seventh-largest school district wrongly had one of the lowest levels of per-pupil funding (No. 263 out of 296 districts). The district’s web page with background on the case said this meant $11.5 million less for the 2006-07 school year than it would have received with fairer allocations.
But the high court reversed the earlier ruling in favor of the named parties, Gov. Chris Gregoire, former state schools chief Terry Bergeson, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen in his capacity as the Senate’s presiding officer, and House Speaker Frank Chopp.
There will be more said today in the news about this case. It may be the lesser of the major school-funding cases in the courts this year. A separate case is awaiting a King County judge’s ruling in a challenge of whether the state is meeting its overall obligation to fund basic education.
Johnson’s opinion says pay disparities have shrunk considerably since 1977 and he found Federal Way failed to show the disparities violated the state Constitution. More interesting and perhaps relevant to the still-pending suit over funding, Johnson said the district did not show the state was failing to amply fund education, and during televised arguments on this Federal Way case it was noted that students performance on testing in the district was higher than in some districts that had higher funding.
Read the full article at http://www.theolympian.com/breakingnews/story/1034027.html.
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Rules Set for $4 Billion ‘Race to Top’ Contest
Posted on 12. Nov, 2009 by Jen.
(This is an excerpt from an Education Week article on “Race to the Top” rules. Note that Washington is listed in Category 3 and would possibly receive $150-250 million.)
For a good shot at the $4 billion in grants from the federal Race to the Top Fund, states will need to make a persuasive case for their education reform agenda, demonstrate significant buy-in from local school districts, and develop plans to evaluate teachers and principals based on student performance, according to final regulations set for release Thursday by the U.S. Department of Education.
Those three factors will rank as the most important to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his staff as they weigh states’ applications based on more than 30 criteria
, including how friendly their charter school climates are and how well they use data to improve instruction.
At stake for states is a slice of the biggest single discretionary pool of education money in the economic-stimulus package passed by Congress in February—a $4.35 billion prize, of which $350 million has been pledged to help states develop common assessments as part of a separate nationwide effort.
Continue reading the full article at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/11/11/12stim-race.h29.html?tkn=OZXFIe510ZyJK%2FUe9iivwVOByI2%2BPDMK%2BRw7.
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Other Voices:High Cost Of Ballot Measures
Posted on 12. Nov, 2009 by Jen.
(Other Voices is part of a series of posts by guest bloggers. Today’s post is written by Kristina Logsdon, Ballot Initiative Project Director of Win/Win Network.)
Fixing our broken ballot measure system
It’s official. Truth and equality were the winners on Election Day. Equality was preserved, not only for the LGBT community in retaining the domestic partnership law passed earlier this year, but also in preserving funding for public services such as education that allow all families to receive a quality education. Despite these obvious wins, 58% of the population voting “No” on Initiative 1033 and 53% approving Referendum 71, instigators of the ballot measures are claiming success. And in a sense, they’re right. This year’s elections highlight the fractured nature of our ballot initiative system and the need for reform.
Deception and bending of the rules
Protect Marriage Washington’s attempts to overturn the domestic partnership law have been rife was controversy. In addition to the deceptive tactics used to persuade petition signers, Protect Marriage Washington played fast and loose with the rules on who can sign a petition. Hundreds of petition signers were not registered to vote at the time they signed. The Secretary of State accepted signatures anyway arguing that as long as signers are listed in the voter-registration file by the time their signatures are checked, the actual date of registration doesn’t matter.
In addition, Protect Marriage Washington sued to block release of petition signers’ names and addresses – information that had been public before – arguing disclosure would put the signers at risk of harassment and impinge on their right to free speech.
Protect Marriage Washington campaign manager boasted:
Regardless of how the vote goes “it’s important what’s been accomplished
here,” [Larry] Stickney said, talking about the case the U.S. Supreme Court may take
up on whether to release the signatures of R-71 petition signers.
The First Amendment was an argument again used by opponents of domestic partnerships when Washington Family Political Action Committee sued to shield the contact information of campaign donors. U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton refused a request for emergency suspension of the laws, but a court case will be heard in the coming weeks. The impacts of these lawsuits could change campaign finance laws across the country.
Big business of ballot measures
The initiative process began as a reflection of the will of the people, but in the past decade gathering signatures has evolved into a moneymaking venture and not just for Tim Eyman. The group Citizen Solution was paid $510K to gather signatures to qualify Initiative 1033 for the ballot – not exactly the locally driven effort Eyman makes his initiatives out to be. In WA State, there is no law clarifying who can be hired as a signature gatherer. Anyone can be hired to collect personal information from voters including their signatures, information that could be used for identity theft in the wrong hands. In addition, because signature gatherers are not required to sign the affidavit on the back of petitions, there is no mechanism to track fraud. It is exactly these oversights that led the Ballot Initiative Strategy to grant our state a failing grade of “F” for integrity.
Other states have faced similar challenges and they have implemented commonsense solutions to protect their initiative process. Washington should do the same, starting with three simple reforms that would restore faith in our system:
· Require petition gathering firms, subcontractors, and individual paid petition gatherers to register with the state
· Prohibit paid signature gathering firms from hiring convicted sex offenders or those recently convicted of recent fraud, identification theft, or forgery
· Require signature gathers to sign affidavits on the back of the petitions attesting that all signatures were collected in accordance with state laws
This year’s events prove the time for reform is now. State legislators have an opportunity and a responsibility to take up bringing integrity to our system so that all residents of Washington can know it reflects them fairly.
by Kristina Logsdon, Ballot Initiative Project Director of Win/Win Network.
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Boost expectations to improve student performance
Posted on 12. Nov, 2009 by Jen.
LEV board member Trish Millines Dziko wrote a powerful piece for the Seattle Times on Core 24 and raising the bar on student expectations.
“Did you know our state’s low expectations for students require only two years of science and three years of math to graduate from high school? That is not enough to be adequately prepared for apprenticeships or two-year college — or eligible to even apply to a four-year college! This disparity in preparation disproportionately affects low-income students and students of color. This means we systemically enable the achievement gap and limit access to higher education and career pathways.
“This is why I applaud the Washington State Board of Education’s leadership on college and work-ready graduation requirements, named CORE 24, and urge our elected leaders to prioritize the statewide implementation of a 24-credit high-school graduation requirement to ensure every public school graduate is ready to succeed in college and careers. Currently, the requirement is only 20 credits.”
Read the whole article (and comment!) at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2010252716_guest12dziko.html.
