Here’s a more detailed story about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a lower court’s ruling that pay disparities between school districts violate the state Constitution. An excerpt and link to the story is below. LEV will have more analysis on this ruling on Monday…stay tuned.
State Rep. Skip Priest, a Republican from Federal Way who served on the state’s Basic Education Funding Task Force, said he was more than surprised by the ruling.
“I’m not sure that surprised sums up my feelings,” Priest said. “Unbelievable disappointment would be closer.”
Priest said the court’s ruling is “superficial and appears to me to miss the point of the lower court ruling” – that if there are differences in funding between school districts, there needs to be a rational basis laid out by the Legislature for those differences.
Priest took special issue with the Supreme Court’s assertion that because Federal Way students do relatively well on statewide tests, they cannot claim unequal funding adversely affects them.
Federal Way schools Superintendent Tom Murphy said the Supreme Court essentially decided that treating children unequally through disparities in school funding is OK.
“I find that hard to believe,” he said.
“I’m extremely disappointed with their decision,” Murphy said. “I’m disappointed because apparently the Supreme Court does not believe that the constitution of the state provides equal protection for the children of the state.”
Click here for the full story.
