Washington lawmakers scrambling for education cash
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| Where is Bill Gates when you need him? |
Lawmakers are making their holiday school funding wish list and it's a short one: please send cash.
They need the money to give every child free all-day kindergarten, to pay for bus service for about a million school children and to take the pressure off local tax levies that help pay for basic education.
A down payment on all of that will cost at least a billion dollars in the next biennium to answer the Supreme Court's orders to pay for the Legislature's own education reform plans by 2018.
The court's January decision in the so-called McCleary case — that the state is not fulfilling its constitutional obligation to amply pay for basic public education — will shape nearly every action of the Legislature this year and for years to come.
The school funding lawsuit brought by a coalition of school districts, education and community groups as well as parents sought to force the government to fulfill its obligations to the state's schools.
In the past decade, education spending has gone from close to 50 percent to just above 40 percent of the state budget, despite the fact that some education spending is protected by the constitution.
Facing a $900 million deficit
With the court decision hanging over them, lawmakers will face an even greater