Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, January 15, 2016

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Olympia: McCleary, Charters and Updates

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Olympia: McCleary, Charters and Updates:

Olympia: McCleary, Charters and Updates

The charter school crowd now wants to hold McCleary hostage | Seattle Education http://bit.ly/1WfRcBP

As I mentioned in another thread, Seattle Channel has one episode of City Inside/Out about this short legislative session with Rep. Reuven Carlyle, Rep. Gael Tarleton, Rep Eric Pettigrew and Senator Jamie Pedersen.  

Highlights

On McCleary:
Tarleton spoke of "hitting a wall" on the work and mentioned the levy swap and possible "disproportionate impacts" to different areas of the state. She then said something I don't quite get which is that a levy swap would give districts the opportunity "to produce levy resources."

Pettigrew (alluding to the Governor's "work group") said he hadn't "been working on that stuff" and there's something of a stalemate over the issue.  He seemed very disinterested in the topic.

Pedersen talked about the Supreme Court's ability to "blow up tax breaks" and that it would basically be a "legislative do-over" and allow the Legislature to redo the tax breaks but with "no legislative fingerprints."  He noted that the plaintiffs in the McCleary case were asking the Court to consider even more drastic measures like shutting down the K-12 school system (as they did during a summer in New Jersey when they had a similar situation) or shutting down the state budget.

Pedersen also corrected host Brian McCallhan, saying that McCleary is not solely the fault of the legislature but also of the state and voters.  He said voters 
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Olympia: McCleary, Charters and Updates: