With your support and advocacy, we achieved important victories for kids and schools this legislative session. In the face of the worst recession since the 1930s, lawmakers adjourned last night after balancing the state budget and raising $800 million in new revenue to support education and other critical services.
Here’s a brief summary of what we fought for and achieved during the 2010 legislative session:
• Protected vital education programs: Thanks to your emails to lawmakers, we protected funding for vital education programs that students need to succeed in school or attend college. Lawmakers closed tax loopholes and raised taxes on some services and discretionary items like cigarettes, candy, pop and beer to prevent even more drastic cuts to education. View a budget comparison chart of education programs.
• Created a plan to improve basic education funding: We held lawmakers accountable to fund more of the basic education costs that are currently paid for through local levies, beginning in the fall of 2011. This will be the first down payment in a multi-year plan that will dramatically increase state funding for basic education through 2018. (House Bill 2776)
• Moved education reform forward: We worked with a broad coalition of parents, educators and business and community leaders to pass reforms that will improve Washington’s public schools and help our state win a federal Race to the Top grant. The reforms will help our teachers and principals be more effective and turnaround consistently low-performing schools. (Senate Bill 6696)
• Protected early childhood care and education programs: We helped protect funding for 35,000 low-income families so they can afford child care in order to work or attend school. We also helped establish an early learning program that will cover all three- and four-year-olds from low-income families by the 2018-19 school year. The state will also consider making early learning part of basic education. (House Bill 2731 and Senate Bill 6759)
• Helped preserve financial aid programs for college students: The State Need Grant, which helps more than 70,000 students attend college, received no cuts and the majority of the State Work Study program was saved. However, higher education budgets were cut by 6% at 4-year universities and 3.5% at 2-year colleges, which will result in fewer course offerings and student support services.
These victories are important for the future of our public school children. But this year, schools and colleges will face more budget cuts. Although new revenue softened the impact, lawmakers passed a state budget that cut an additional $200 million from Washington’s preschools, public schools and colleges. That’s on top of the $1 billion cut last year. These cuts will mean class sizes will swell as teachers are let go; and college tuition will rise.
That’s why LEV has remained committed to achieving meaningful reforms in addition to ample funding for education. Our dollars must work harder and better to educate our kids for a competitive economy. We will continue to work with you and policymakers to implement reforms and the funding necessary to help every child succeed in school. Thank you for all of your work on behalf of our kids this session.
