McCleary Crime Scene: Help Unscramble Governor Inslee and House Speaker Frank Chopp with this Fun Worksheet.
Here at the temporary Olympia branch of TRAP Headquarters, nothing makes our eyes roll like politicians giving lectures on the value of compromise and the McCleary decision.
What Governor Inslee and House Speaker Frank Chopp fail to grasp is that students, parents, and teachers have been compromising for years – and our patience is running out.
Preaching compromise works best when you walk your talk. Does Inslee’s and Chopp’s lectures on compromise include corporate tax breaks or pleasing lobbyists?
Let’s take a look at the evidence.
Since September of 2012, the Legislature has been in contempt of the State Supreme Court, refusing to do their Constitutionally mandated job of fully funding public education.
Did Inslee and Chopp push the legislature to work hard and solve the problem? Not really. Instead, they allowed lawmakers to dawdle, make excuses, and promise to do the work next year.
However, while the contempt ruling was in place, there were two issues – which directly impacted education funding – where both Governor Inslee and House Speaker Frank Chopp refused to compromise.
The first example is Boeing’s unprecedented $8.7 billion tax break. Unlike fully funding public education, it took just three days of debate for the Legislature to approve that boondoggle.
The second example is when both Frank Chopp and Governor Inslee betrayed their own McCleary Crime Scene: Help Unscramble Governor Inslee and House Speaker Frank Chopp with this Fun Worksheet. | Seattle Education: