On October 7 2015, Bill Gates gave a speech at a US Education Learning Forum in Bellevue Washington. Considering that Bill is the richest man in the world, his numerous mis-statement of the facts during this speech was truly frightening. In this article, we will examine only a few of the most glaring distortions of…
On September 24 2015, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a motion with the Washington State Supreme Court asking them to reconsider their decision that the billionaire funded charter school initiative 1240 violated the Washington State Constitution. Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Randy Dorn, issued a statement agreeing with Bob Ferguson. In this…
Some Seattle School District administrators and school board members have claimed that they do not have money to pay Seattle teachers fairly. In this article, we will look first at the decline in school funding in Washington state compared to the national average during the past 20 years. Second, we will review the related decline…
On July 27 2015, the legislature filed its required report to the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to lift the Contempt citation imposed on September 11 2014 after the legislature had ignored years of demands by the Supreme Court to come up with at least a plan to fully fund our public schools. The…
Beginning at 9 am on Tuesday, July 21, 2015, leaders of the State legislature will hold an all day meeting at Room 1 of the Bellevue Public Library to discuss how to convince the Supreme Court not to levy sanctions against them for failing to comply with a 2012 Supreme Court Order to make adequate…
On July 11, 2015, the Washington State Democratic Party Progressive Caucus held a special meeting for the purpose of considering an endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. Members of the Progressive Caucus, including members from legislative districts and congressional districts all over Washington state, voted unanimously in favor of the…
There are two Common Core high stakes high failure rate tests, called SBAC and PARCC. Both are paid for with more than one hundred million of dollars in tax payer “development funds†but also cost states hundreds of millions of additional dollars every year to administer. Just 5 Originally, there were 45 states signed up…
The mainstream media have done such a terrible job of describing the challenges in Olympia that it is time for a more accurate analysis. We will look at two bills both of which require a super majority to pass. These are the $16 Billion Transportation Budget Bond bill (Senate Bill 5989) and the bill to…
In recent articles, we have pointed out that Washington state is 46th in the nation in school funding as a percent of income. Washington state is also 46th in the nation in class sizes. It would take several billion dollars per year in additional funding to restore Washington state to the national average in school…
On June 2, 2015, the US Census released the latest in a series of annual reports called Public Education Finances. These reports are issued about 2 years after the school year they are reporting on. So this latest report is for the 2013 school year. These annual reports can be difficult to find. So at…