Governor Gregoire weighs in on Basic Education Finance

Courtesy of Seattle Weekly Publicly, the governor has remained relatively silent on Washington’s attempts to reform basic education finance. That was, however, until yesterday. Putting her stake in the ground, Gov. Gregoire sent a letter to Speaker of the House Frank Chopp and Senator Lisa Brown broadly outlining her support for certain components of the House and Senate basic education bills (HB 2261 and SB 6048). Regardless of where you stand these issues, having the governor weigh in on basic education finance is long overdue. Here’s a breakdown of her stance:

Raising High School Graduation Requirements: Gregoire supports phasing-in the State Board’s CORE 24 proposal. Nice.
Using a Model or “Prototypical” School Approach to Funding: Gregoire supports this approach to bring clarity to the education funding structure and, more importantly, for the transparency it provides taxpayers. In theory, this is good.
Data and Accountability: Gregoire supports using data to inform key education decisions, but does not support an accountability system tied to that data. Sad.
Early Learning: Gregoire doesn't support it being included in the definition of basic education. I can see her point, but doesn’t this fly in the face of her “Washington Learns” findings? Just saying...
Highly-Capable and AP Programs: Ditto.
Reforming Teacher Compensation: Gregoire doesn’t see clear agreement on performance-based pay, so she doesn’t support it. That’s frustrating.
Basic Education Funding Timeline: Gregoire says we simply don’t have the state dollars to begin six-year implementation of fully funding basic education during the 2011-2012 biennium, as previously suggested.

Throughout Gregoire’s letter, the effect of the economic downturn in her rational is painfully apparent, which is unfortunate, since funding basic education is supposed to be the state’s paramount duty—regardless of Washington’s fiscal status. Where's the willingness to innovatively reprioritize other state funds to make sure our education system delivers on its promises to students? Read the letter and let me know what you think.