Budget woes failing school reform

Third grade teacher Linda Espana, center, calls on a student Tuesday during a reading assignment at Felida Elementary School. (Troy Wayrynen/The Columbian)

Third grade student Jacob Schlichting reads part of a story Tuesday during a reading assignment in Linda Espana’s class at Felida Elementary School. (Troy Wayrynen/The Columbian)

In November 2006, at a time when the state was swimming in surplus revenue generated by a prolonged housing boom, Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed a slate of sweeping education reforms designed to help Washington students compete in a global economy.

"This is a bold plan to redesign and reinvest in education over the next decade," the governor said when she unveiled her reform slate, called Washington Learns. "It offers a new way of thinking about the purpose and function of education."

Democratic legislators, who controlled both the House and Senate, went along, approving a 25 percent increase in K-12 spending for 2007-09 and a total of $2.4 billion in new spending — a 10 percent increase — for early childhood education, K-12 and higher education combined.

Now, as legislators confront a $9 billion budget deficit, many of those fledgling programs — from math teaching coaches to enriched curriculum offerings for primary school kids to after-school math tutoring — are being scaled back. The governor's own budget proposes cutting $22.5 million in pilot programs in individual schools around the state.

It's a serious setback for a governor who hoped her legacy would be a world-class education system for Washington students.

The proposed House and Senate budgets make deep cuts in programs designed to reduce the student achievement gap, improve the quality of instruction overall, and build up math and science efforts.

"It is unfortunate that many of the Washington Learns enhancements have to be reduced, but we recognize the difficulty the Legislature faces in balancing the budget," said budget spokesman Glenn Kuper. "The size of the shortfall has meant that many excellent programs have been suspended or reduced."

A new basic education reform bill passed by the Legislature late Monday would advance some of Gregoire's goals over a 10-year phase-in period. House Bill 2261 redefines the elements of a "basic education" that the state would be required to fund under its constitutional mandate.

It broadens the definition to include early learning for at-risk children; requires all students to spend significantly more hours in classroom learning; and offers high school students the opportunity to earn more credits toward graduation by taking six courses daily instead of five.

Most education advocacy groups hailed the bill's passage.

"For the first time in 30 years, we've redefined basic education to include the tools our educators need to prepare our kids for college, work and life," said Chris Korsmo, executive director of the League of Education Voters, in a statement after Monday's vote.

The downside: Unlike the governor's 2007 school reform agenda, this bill comes at a time when the state has no ability to fund it.

The Washington Education Association opposes HB 2261, calling it "a bogus education reform bill that has no money in it — just a lot of false promises."

The Washington Policy Center, a conservative think tank, predicts that implementing the reforms could cost as much as $8 billion, increase state spending on K-12 education by 50 percent and boost property taxes for Washington residents by 30 percent to 40 percent.

Revenue from a proposed temporary 0.3 percent sales tax increase that cleared a House committee Tuesday would be dedicated to restoring cuts in health care for the poor, not paying for K-12 education.

Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, voted against the school reform bill. He said he's tired of seeing the Legislature approve programs like paid family leave and the working family tax credit, then fail to fund them.

He predicts that the same fate awaits a school reform program with a price tag in the billions.

"It was silly to attempt a major reform of any program in the midst of this kind of economic slowdown," Pridemore said in an e-mail. "My prediction is that we will spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative and legal costs over the next 20 years, achieve no meaningful results, and then launch another major education reform initiative. That's what happened to the last major education reform effort in 1990."

Gregoire's reform slate came out of an 18-month process led by the governor herself. Washington Learns set forth an ambitious — some would say visionary — agenda.

It suggested that the state offer universal all-day kindergarten; develop rigorous math and science courses; provide more help for struggling students; and increase classroom seat time.

It proposed expanding college enrollment in high-demand subjects; capping college tuition increases; covering free tuition for a 13th year of post-secondary education and subsidizing a four-year college education for low-income middle school students who promised to graduate on time.

It called for overhauling teacher licensing to emphasize knowledge and skills, creating alternative routes to teacher certification, and expanding bonuses for teachers who achieved national board certification and then agreed to teach in low-income schools.

The total cost never was calculated. Funding a 13th year of school alone would have cost an estimated $150 million.

Gregoire called it "the single most important investment we can make for the future of our state."

She had traveled in China, Japan, France and Australia, and her travels had reinforced the message that the state's global competitiveness was linked to the capabilities of its work force.

Republicans and even some Democrats called Washington Learns an $800,000 waste of money, noting that it failed to address head-on the most urgent issues facing schools: full funding of basic education, which consumes 80 percent of the state education budget for K-12 schools.

It is that issue that the new basic education bill addresses.

Ann Daley, now the executive director of the Higher Education Coordinating Board, directed the Washington Learns process.

"A lot of the proposals in Washington Learns were long-term goals," she said. The governor planned to launch a number of pilot projects, give them time to prove their worth — or not — and then return to the Legislature with requests to fund additional parts of the agenda.

Now the state is poised to suspend cost-of-living raises for teachers, slash funding for a voter-approved initiative to reduce class size, cut equalization funds that help poor school districts, and stop many reforms in their tracks.

One bright spot, Kuper said, is that all the budgets fully fund the bonuses to National Board certified teachers who teach in high-poverty schools.

"This is a critical step towards addressing the achievement gap," he said. "Research shows that teacher quality plays a significant role in student achievement."

Daley has seen a number of education reform movements in her nearly 30 years in state government.

"The progress you make out of these kinds of efforts is long-term," she said. "You have to evaluate them long-term. There's no question that we are in a crisis, and it's going to be all we can do to hold on to the gains we've made in the last biennium."

But school reform movements can have long-lasting impacts that transcend budget ups and downs, she added.

"Achieving a shared vision, which is what you're often trying to do with these major plans, that's almost more important than the money."

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.