President Mead's statement on Senate deal

The state Senate finally wrapped up its work today, with what is being described as an agreement on testing that allows them to settle the budget deal. Testing. Not smaller class sizes. That’s because the legislature failed students and voters on the issue of class sizes, determining without even debate or discussion that it’s OK for:

• Nine year olds to sit in some of the most crowded classes in the nation simply by virtue of being in the 4th grade.
• A middle school science student to be in a class of 35.
• Or high school sophomore in a high poverty school to be crowded into a math class with wall to wall desks.

We appreciate the late stand some Senate Democrats made in trying to bring attention to I-1351. As a frustrated Senator Frockt noted in his floor speech on July 1st, “We never really had a discussion about it [I-1351]. It was just assumed that we didn’t want to do any of it. We didn’t talk about phasing it in, we didn’t talk about looking at additional research that’s come out.”

So it seems fitting that they end the way they began – ignoring the will of the voters. Senator Cyrus Habib may have said it best, “We only had one spending mandate from the people, and yet we put it at the back of the line – we put it after all the other things we wanted to do. To me the will of the people ought to come first.”

Most politicians said there wasn’t enough money to fund all the needs. Yet Senate Republican leaders balked at several new revenue proposals that would have not only provided the funds needed to meet obligations, but would have improved the fairness of our tax system, widely identified as the most regressive in the country.  Those options included a capital gains tax on the wealthiest Washingtonians, a tax on carbon pollution and resetting the poorly structured B&O tax businesses pay.

Changing the tax system so that everyone pays their fair share is not an easy lift. We know that, and that is why WEA will continue to work with progressive allies and elected officials to find a way to fully fund education including smaller classes.

We are already hearing politicians say this is the best education budget in years, but it falls short not only on class sizes but also on educator pay, two key issues that are part of basic education, and the state’s paramount duty.

Let’s be clear.  A COLA is not a raise, it is an adjustment to help keep up with the cost of living, treading water at best. A temporary COLA is less than that.

After a six year COLA suspension and five years without health care assistance, the small amount provided in this budget will result in tens of thousands of educators earning less money next year than they did last year.

The legislature found a way to provide a permanent 4.8% COLA for state employees and, let’s not forget, an 11% raise for themselves.  They also managed to increase health care support by over $200 a month for themselves and state employees (versus $12 for educators). We support these improvements to pay and benefits for state employees and don’t think educators should receive less.

The legislature is being held in contempt of court for failing to amply fund education, and specifically was ordered to make significant progress in providing competitive, professional wages for educators. It is not only perplexing how the lawmakers in this situation can provide less to educators than they do for themselves and state employees, it is unfair.

The budget funds many good programs, which WEA supports. But things like early learning, and tuition cuts are not the state’s paramount duty. Legislators pushed their personal interests ahead of the state’s paramount duty and let political expediency force them into wrong choices about the state’s priorities.  They put the state’s paramount duty on the back burner, deciding to wait for four more years to address this critical need.

WEA remains committed to improving educator pay and working with parents and voters to ensure that their votes are not ignored and that our kids don’t have to wait to learn in less crowded classes.