Washington Liberals

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 delay (and kill) the Class Size Initiative 1351 (House Bill 2266).

For the transportation bill, bonding bills have always required a 60% majority due to the fact that is it long term debt. The Initiative 1351 delay bill requires two thirds because this is a provision in our state constitution.

The Transportation bond bill is supposedly being blocked by Republicans in the House and the bill to kill the Class Size Lowering Initiative 1351 is supposedly being blocked by Democrats in the Senate. Neither bill was able to pass during the early morning hours of July 1^st leading both the House and Senate to suspend the voting for a one week cooling off period.

We can assume that this week off is being used to threaten or otherwise manipulate rebelling legislators to cave into the House Democratic Leadership and/or the Senate Republican leadership proposals. However, having spent 20 years teaching courses in Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution at Bellevue College, I would like to explain the underlying causes of these two conflicts and propose that the best way to break the gridlock in Olympia is to listen to the concerns of those who voted against the agreements made by the House and Senate leaders.

Underlying Cause #1: There are more than just two groups in the legislature!
The common assumption that all Republicans are the same and all Democrats are the same is false. The deal on killing the class size initiative and the deal on the transportation bond was made between House Democrats and Senate Republicans. This left out two crucial groups – House Republicans and Senate Democrats. This works as long as just a simple majority vote is needed to pass a bill. However, it does not work when a super majority vote is needed. We have known during the entire session that a 60% majority would be needed on the Transportation Bond (59 votes in the House) and that a 67% majority would be needed in the Senate to delay or kill Initiative 1351 (Two thirds means 33 Senators would need to vote yes on House Bill 2266 to kill Initiative 1351).

Here are the current breakdowns in the Washington State House and Senate:

Obviously, the House Democrats needed at least 8 House Republicans to pass Senate Bill 5989 and the Senate Republicans needed at least 7 Senate Democrats to pass House Bill 2266. Each bill failed to achieve a super majority by about 5 votes. This should serve as a warning to all Washington voters that a super majority is almost impossible to obtain in Olympia. It is hard enough just to get a simple majority on any bill. Requiring a super majority to pass any legislation would lead to certain gridlock in Olympia and completely paralyze our state government.

Nevertheless, everyone knew at the beginning of the session way back in January that there would be a need for super majority votes this year – but the House and Senate leaders then proceeded to ignore the very people whose votes would be needed. Senate Republican leaders assumed that Senate Democrats would go along with House Democrats. And House Democrat leaders assumed that House Republicans would go along with Senate Republicans. These were bad assumptions. Here is the issue: The Senate is completely different from the House!

So the negotiations on each of these bills should not have been between two groups of people but at the very least between four groups of people. Democratic Senator Hargrove complained on the Senate floor at 5 am on Wednesday morning that he followed the instructions he had been given by Senate Democrats and he felt betrayed when they failed to vote for House Bill 2266. But the truth of the matter, as Senator Frockt said moments later, was there had been no real discussion on how to fund Initiative 1351 during the entire session. There should have been a discussion about Initiative 1351 or at least a hearing on bills that would have funded 1351, such as Senate Bill 6093, and perhaps this impasse could have been avoided.

In the same manner, House Democrat leaders failed to consider how much House Republicans did not like the Transportation bill, Senate Bill 5989, which raised gas taxes in Washington state to among the highest in the nation at nearly 50 cents a gallon. Had more House Republicans been more involved, perhaps a more acceptable Transportation bill could have been agreed to.

Underlying Cause #2: There are more than just four groups in the legislature!
In reality, the situation is more complex than merely Republicans and Democrats in the Senate being much different from Republicans and Democrats in the House. The truth of the matter is that even within each of the four caucuses, there are dramatically different groups of people.

What this means is that instead of having four groups involved in the negotiations, what was really needed were at least 8 groups to represent the various factions within the four caucuses. To see why this was so important, let’s first look at the failure to pass the Senate Transportation Bond bill in the House. While the bond bill has yet to be brought to a vote, there was a related transportation bill brought to a vote that confirmed the House was several votes short of passing the bond bill.

Senate Bill 5987 passed the House 54-44 (failed by 5 votes). Here was the vote:

54 Voting Yea:Representative Appleton, Bergquist, Carlyle, Clibborn, Cody, Farrell, Fey, Goodman, Gregerson, Hudgins, S. Hunt, Hunter, Hurst, Jinkins, Johnson, Kagi, Kirby, Kochmar, Lytton, McBride, Moeller, Morris, Moscoso, Muri, Nealey, Ormsby, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Peterson, Pettigrew, Pollet, Reykdal, Riccelli, Robinson, Rodne, Ryu, Santos, Sawyer, Sells, Senn, Springer, Stambaugh, Stanford, Stokesbary, Sullivan, Takko, Tarleton, Tharinger, Walkinshaw, Walsh, Wilcox, Wylie, Zeiger, Mr. Speaker

44 Voting Nay:Representative Blake, Buys, Caldier, Chandler, Condotta, DeBolt, Dent, Dunshee, Dye, Fitzgibbon, Gregory, Griffey, Haler, Hansen, Hargrove, Harmsworth, Harris, Hawkins, Hayes, Holy, G. Hunt, Kilduff, Klippert, Kretz, Kristiansen, MacEwen, Magendanz, Manweller, McCabe, McCaslin, Orcutt, Parker, Pike, Schmick, Scott, Shea, Short, Smith, Taylor, Van De Wege, Van Werven, Vick, Wilson, Young

The 7 bold names in the Nay vote are all Democrats. The primary reason 7 Democrats joined the Republicans in voting no was that the bill contained a “poison pill” preventing Governor Inslee from dealing with the Climate Change issue. Many Democrats and even some Republicans believe that Climate Change is a major issue that must be addressed. Just look at the drought affecting California and even affecting parts of Washington state. While the Republican Senators got the leaders of the House Democrats to cave on the Climate Change issue, what they failed to understand was that the Poison Pill was just too much for many House Democrats to swallow. These House Democrats should have had a seat at the table and maybe a compromise could have been found to allow the bill to pass. It is completely wrong for the main stream press to blame the Republicans in the House for failing to pass the $16 B Transportation bill. What really happened was that not all voices were considered during the negotiation and thus the “deal” fell apart during the actual vote in the House at 3 am in the morning of July 1st.

A similar problem occurred with the Initiative 1351 killer bill (House Bill 2266) in the State Senate a couple of hours later at 5 am in the morning of July 1^st. Here is the vote on House Bill 2266:

27 Voting Yea: Senator Angel, Bailey, Baumgartner, Becker, Benton, Brown, Dammeier, Dansel, Darneille, Hargrove, Hatfield, Hewitt, Hill, Hobbs, Honeyford, King, Litzow, Miloscia, Mullet, O’Ban, Padden, Parlette, Pearson, Rivers, Schoesler, Sheldon, Warnick

17 Voting Nay: Senator Billig, Chase, Cleveland, Conway, Fain, Fraser, Frockt, Habib, Hasegawa, Keiser, Kohl-Welles, McAuliffe, McCoy, Nelson, Pedersen, Ranker, Roach

5 Excused: Senator Braun, Ericksen, Jayapal, Liias, Rolfes

The names in bold above are all Republicans. So it is not just Democrats who voted against House Bill 2266. It appears from the above that House Bill 2266 failed to get the 33 super majority needed by 6 votes. But in fact, Senator Fain voted No just to preserve the right for a re-vote on this bill next week. So the actual vote was 28 yes, 16 no and 5 excused. This was still 5 votes away from the 33 votes needed to pass this bill.

Was the cause of the Rebellion in the Senate House Bill 2214 or Initiative 1351?
Senator Nelson stated that the reason she voted against House Bill 2266 was to protest the failure of the Senate to pass House Bill 2214- which Nelson and the main stream media claim is a bill to help 2000 more students graduate in 2015 – but is in fact a bill to accelerate the SBAC test monopoly – and thus place the graduation of 50,000 students at risk in June 2016. However, if you listen to the 5 am Floor Speeches of the Senators who voted No on this bill, you will reach an entirely different conclusion. Every Senator who gave a speech on why they were voting no stated clearly that the reason was the failure of the House and Senate leaders to even have a discussion about how to fund Initiative 1351. They all pointed out that there were more than 20 days left in the 3^rd Special Session and they wanted at least one day to be used to have a discussion on how to at least partially fund Initiative 1351.

Here is a link to the debate:
http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_tvwplayer&eventID=2015060096
Debate on EHB 2266 delaying 1351 debate begins at 4:18 to 5 hours.

Here are summaries of quotes from the floor speeches offive Senators who voted to oppose delaying Initiative 1351:

Senator Chase: “We have the third highest class sizes in the nation at our elementary schools. Our middle schools have the second highest class sizes and our high schools have the second highest class sizes. At the same time, Washington is number one in the US for the most unfair tax structure. We were sent here by the voters to fix tax system or lower class sizes. But we did not fix the tax system and we did not fix the class size problem.”

Senator Hasegawa: “We have cut $12 billion out of maintenance level of the budget since 2008. There are loopholes we can look at. If we can pass a $9 billion tax break in 2 days for Boeing, we can eliminate $9 billion in tax breaks in 2 days for lower class sizes for one million students.”

Senator McAuliffe: “This is not about budgets. It is about one million children who are already in crowded classes. Large class sizes lead to more children failing end of course exams. This session is supposed to go 30 days. We have time to talk about a solution. We should at least phase in the initiative by lowering class sizes down to 5^th grade.”

Senator Habib: “I want to touch on three issues. First, after 3^rd grade, small classes still make a difference. If Lakeside can have smaller classes in all grades, then all kids should have smaller classes in all grades. Small classes allow more individualize learning. Second, I oppose four years of delay and not even trying to find the funding for Initiative 1351. Third, Initiative 3151 was the will of the people. The will of the people should be the first thing we consider – not the very last thing we consider. Instead, we congregate here at 5:30 am, when no one is watching us, to take away the will of the people.”

Senator Frockt: “We never even had a discussion about 1351 at any point during this legislative session. My daughter has 35 kids in her 6^th grade math class. We should at least have a discussion about how to fund lower class sizes for all grades.”

Not one of these five Senators mentioned House Bill 2214 during their floor speech. Instead, they all mentioned the importance of lowering class sizes, and honoring the will of the voters to at least have a discussion about how to fund Initiative 1351. So one way to resolve this impasse is for Senate Republican leaders to allow a hearing on bills that could fund Initiative 1351 such as Senate Bill 6093. The hearings could occur in this 3^rd Special Session or heard in a later special session or even heard in the 2016 legislative session. It could be that the Supreme Court will force the legislature to increase funding by ordering the legislature back into session. So education funding bills should be on the table – especially since Washington state has near the lowest school funding in the nation as a percent of income.

Alternately, the Republican caucus could let the 2,000 biology EOC kids graduate from high school this year – but not pass the rest of House Bill 2214 – by passing a simple Biology test waiver bill. This appears to be what Republican Senators offered to do at 3 am on July 1^st: Here is a quote from Senator Nelson:

“At around 3 a.m. Senate Republicans finally said they would essentially grant a waiver for the 2,000 kids who failed the biology test, but only on the condition of yet another onerous change to the testing system.”

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2015/07/02/3899046_senate-democrats-had-reason-for.html?rh=1

However, Senate Republicans described the impasse in a much different manner. Here is a quote from Senator Schoesler in a Crosscut article: On Tuesday, the Senate Democrats told the Republicans some of them might vote to delay I-1351 if they could get the stalled assessment bill passed. That infuriated the Republicans. “An ultimatum on the final day of the session is not the way to get a surgical fix,” said Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville. Schoesler contended the Republicans were ambushed with the proposed vote swap, and they should have received more time to figure out how to tweak the assessments bill. Schoesler called the Democrats’ proposed bill swap “extortion.” At 3:15 a.m. today, the Republicans offered one tweak on the assessments bill to enable the 2,000 kids who failed biology to graduate. http://crosscut.com/2015/07/legislature-stumbles-on-classroom-size-initiative/

So apparently, there may be room for a possible deal on killing Initiative 1351 in trade for short simple bill to let 2,000 more kids graduate this year. Or maybe there isn’t enough votes for this and they will need to allow Democrats to have a hearing or a committee or something on options to fund Initiative 1351. We will find out more about this when the Senate reconvenes on Wednesday July 8^th.

In the House, Republicans may also have to yield on the Poison Pill issue. Either that or they are going to have to find about 5 more Republicans to vote to increase the gas tax to the highest in the nation. Given the opposition of House Republicans to the Gas Tax and the opposition of House Democrats to the Poison Pill, this could be an even harder challenge than killing Initiative 1351. If there is no deal, there might not be a transportation package. We will find out more about this when the House reconvenes on Wednesday July 8^th.

My hope is that House and Senate leaders learn from these two impasses that it is important to listen to and consider the views of all Senators and all Representatives when a super majority of votes is needed to pass important legislation. It is not enough for the leaders of the House and Senate to agree on a bill. What is needed is a bill that even the minority can accept.

 

Originally published at Coalition to Protect our Public Schools

Sunday I attended a meeting of the Legislative Action Committee of the King County Democrats.  Representative Tana Senn of the 41st LD spoke, followed by Senator Cyrus Habib of the 48th LD.

During discussion of the budget it became clear that there is unlikely to be a capital gains tax. Nor will Governor Inslee get the carbon pricing plan that is central to his advocacy for clean energy.

Furthermore, the transportation plan agreed to in the senate contains an obnoxious “poison pill” according to which funding for public transit and bike lanes would be cut if carbon pricing is later instituted.

Negotiations on the budget seem to be favoring the Republicans.

Yesterday I got email from Jaxon Ravens, the state Dem chair:

If Senator Andy Hill and the State Senate GOP don’t come to the table and work with Democrats to strike a deal on our budget, then 25,000 workers — about half of the state’s workers — will be sent pink slips. Important services like state parks and supervision of former inmates will be shuttered.

Democrats are doing their part to reach a deal. Governor Inslee and House Democrats have dropped key parts of their initial proposal, like a capital gains tax. Their compromise goes 77 percent of the way toward filling the gap between the initial budget proposals.

State Senate Republicans? They’ve budged only 2 percent.

Basically, the message I hear from the legislators and from Ravens is that the Republicans out-maneuvered the Democrats.  By various budgetary gimmicks, unreasonable projections, and postponements, and thanks to an increase in revenue due to economic growth, the Republicans get to maintain their “no new taxes” pledge. The Democrats fail to raise revenue, fix our regressive tax system, or make clear progress on clean energy and transportation.

On the topic of transportation, Habib said that the senators chosen to negotiate with the Republicans were Senator Steve Hobbs and Senator Marko Liias.   Habib said the pair agreed to the Republicans’ transportation plan and left the other Democrats on the committee in a quandary.   The infamous “poison pill” in the plan  was anathema to many Democrats. But it was hard to reject the recommendation of the “bipartisan” leaders.

And the Republicans were able to split Democratic constituencies: the Senate transportation plan has decent support for public transportation but is bad on carbon and climate change.  Public transportation advocates and many mayors and cities councils are thus happy with the plan, while environmentalists are mostly opposed.

The Republicans even get to trumpet their plan to lower college tuition by 25%, though Tana Senn pointed out the reductions exclude community colleges and are paid for by eliminating scholarships and by lowering pay for faculty. (See GOP proposal to slash college tuition puts House, Senate at odds.)

So it seems the Republicans are winning.

Negotiations aren’t finished, and maybe the Republicans will be forced to agree to eliminate some tax exemptions (e.g., for oil).  Habib said Republicans already have been forced to agree to cost of living adjustments for teachers and other pay raises for state workers.  But the Republicans seem willing, perhaps eager, to shut down state government to get their way. Is the reason they keep winning just that they’re unscrupulous?

Habib said the Dems didn’t sell their tax increases well to the public. He gave the analogy of shopping for clothes. If you walk into a store the salesman doesn’t start off asking you to give him $100 up front. Instead, he shows you a nice shirt, tempts you, and says, “Isn’t it nice?”     The Dems should have held a carrot in front of the public and said, for example, “If you want decreased class sizes, as the voters approved in the ballot initiative I-1135, then we can fund it by raising taxes on the rich.”

Republicans raise taxes on the poor and the middle class

In fact, the Republican talking point that there are “no new taxes” is mostly empty rhetoric, because the Republicans have agreed to raise taxes — on the middle class and the poor. The Senate transportation plan raises the regressive gas tax.  But even Habib at one point in the meeting repeated the Republican talking point that they passed a budget that didn’t raise taxes. I repeatedly said to Habib and Senn that the Dems need to emphasize the fact the Republicans do want to raise taxes.  Habib said that it’s not smart for Dems to oppose tax increases, even if the taxes are regressive, because the state needs revenue.

Habib pointed out that businesses were in favor of the increase in the gas tax, because without good transportation infrastructure their businesses will suffer, but they don’t want to pay for it.

So, the Dems were out-maneuvered and allowed the Republicans to control the messaging. Republicans are also spending money on media ads touting their budget. Understandably, Dems didn’t want to spend money on counter-ads, because they can’t afford it.    The GOP has deep-pocketed benefactors.

But I suspect there’s another reason the Dems keep losing:  the system is rigged. One of the two Democratic senators chosen to negotiate with the Republicans on the transportation package is a centrist/corporate Dem, Steve Hobbs.  Hobbs  is a long time Road Kill caucus member.  The other Democratic negotiator, Marko Liias, used to be quite progressive (see Who’s progressive in the Washington State House?) but in recent years has moved to the right. (“Liias voted against the budget because it did not include the continuation of tax incentives that benefits technology companies. ” source; and Liias was a sponsor of the Money Tree bill that would have aided the loan shark industry source).

And the person chosen to lead the budget negotiations in the House is Ross Hunter, who is also a centrist Democrat and who has been a leader in promoting tax breaks for his former employer, Microsoft.

Governor Inslee, on the other hand, took the lead in pushing for the $8.7 billion in tax breaks for Boeing.

Corporate Dems dominate the Democratic Party nationally; hence the many sellouts of the Obama presidency, including the selection of Senator Max Baucus as the lead Senate negotiator for the Affordable Care Act and the apparent success of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Were the Dems just out-maneuvered by the clever and ruthless Republicans?   Or is the deck stacked in Olympia against progressive policies, the way it’s stacked in D.C.?

Let’s hope the Republicans are forced to eliminate some major tax breaks. But don’t hold your breath.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.boldprogressives.org/images/Big_Ideas-Polling_PDF-1.pdf

In recent articles, we have pointed out that Washington state is 46^th in the nation in school funding as a percent of income. Washington state is also 46^th 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 funding. One of the goals of restoring national average school funding is that it would allow us to hire tens of thousands of teachers needed to lower class sizes in Washington state down to the national average.

Sadly, there are many misleading claims made by those who oppose restoring school funding to the national average. For example, some claim that class sizes are not that high in Washington state. Others claim that reducing class sizes would not help improve student outcomes. In this article, we will clarify how to properly measure class size. We will then compare class sizes to other states and other nations. Finally, we will summarize the research on the significant long term benefits of lower class sizes.

Why Actual Class Sizes are Much Larger Than Student to Teacher Ratios
The most common mistake made when discussing class size is to confuse class sizes with Student to Teacher Ratios. The Student to Reacher Ratio is determined by dividing the total number of students in a school or a state by the total number of professional staff at the school or the state. For example, if you go to the Washington State OSPI website and click on Apportionment, then Publications, then Personnel Summary Reports, then select a year, then click on Table 46, you will get a report called “Ratio of Students to Classrooms.” This is actually the Student to Teacher Ratio. For the 2014 school year, this ratio was 18.2 students per teacher. http://k12.wa.us/safs/PUB/PER/1415/tbl46.pdf

This type of statistic might mislead one into believing that the class sizes in Washington state are only 18 students – which would mean Washington state has the lowest class sizes in the nation and in the world. Yet if you walk into any real classroom at any real school in Washington state and count the actual students, you will see about 30 students in the real classroom. Many classrooms will have 35 to even 40 students! Why is there such a huge difference between the Student to Teacher ratio reported by OSPI and the number of students in real classrooms? The problem is that OSPI uses an extremely broad definition for classroom teacher. Many so-called classroom teachers are actually administrators and counselors. Using Student to Teacher ratios therefore misleads the public and even legislators into thinking that class sizes are not that bad when in fact class sizes in Washington state are among the highest in the nation.

A better estimate of classroom teachers comes from a national survey of classroom teachers in which teachers are asked how many students are in their average classroom. This survey indicates that for Grades 1 through 6, the national average class size is 21 students and the average class size in Washington state is 24 students. For Grades 7 through 12, the national average class size is 27 students and the average class size in Washington state is 30 students. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.30.asp

Here is a distribution of class sizes showing which states have low, average, above average or extremely high class sizes:

However, even this survey of teachers under-reports the actual class sizes in the nation and in Washington state because it includes Special Education teachers who often have classes of under 10 students. Excluding Special Education classes, the typical or median class size in the US is likely close to 29 students and in Washington state, it is likely close to 32 students.

Even within Washington state, there is a wide range of school funding and class sizes. For example, the Snoqualmie Valley School District in East King County is funded at a rate that is 10% below the state average. This results in class sizes in the Snoqualmie Valley School District being about 10% above the state average. It is not uncommon to have classes of 35 to 40 students – with some classes climbing as high as 100 students!

If the Class Size Initiative 1351 were fully funded, it would lower class sizes in Washington state down to 17 students in elementary school and 25 students in high school. However, even this would still be considered a high class size in many developed nations. For example, in Finland, the average class size for both elementary and secondary school is 20 students per class. http://www.oecd.org/edu/skills-beyond-school/48631144.pdf

Why are there conflicting claims about the benefits of small class sizes?
It should seem obvious that student to teacher interaction would improve with smaller class sizes. This benefit show be most obvious with struggling students who would be more likely to get the help they need to catch up with their peers.

Yet despite the importance of this topic, there has been only one large scale double blind scientific study comparing smaller to larger classes. This was the STAR study involving nearly 12,000 students in Tennessee from 1985 to 1989. Elementary school students at 79 elementary schools were randomly assigned to either a small class of 13 to 17 students or a normal size class of 22 to 26 students beginning in Kindergarten and continuing through 3^rd Grade. This study confirmed that smaller classes helped students and especially low income and minority students in a variety of important ways with benefits that lasted all the way through high school and into adult life. We will discuss this study in a moment.

Sadly, numerous so-called experts have the audacity to claim that small classes would not help students! For example, a report for the Washington state legislature in 2007 concluded that smaller class sizes were not worth the added expense above the 3^rd Grade. http://leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/EDU/Documents/BensCosts_EdPolicies.pdf

The problem with this study is that it gave equal weight to 38 studies – none of which were large scale random studies. In addition, the metric being used to determine whether smaller classes were effective was high stakes test scores. These test scores are based on tests that are known to be unfair, unreliable, invalid and a complete waste of time and money. In sort, the conclusion that small class sizes does not matter is based on junk science. Other educational outcomes such as student engagement, teacher grades and graduation rates are much more reliable than test scores.

Academic Benefits of Smaller Class Sizes
Smaller classes meant that teachers were better able to give individual attention o struggling students. Students in smaller classes learned to engage confidently with their teachers in asking questions to get help they needed. This success and confidence carried all the way through high school – many years after the experiment in smaller classes ended and the students were returned to normal classes.

As the following chart shows, low income students who were lucky enough to have four full years of smaller classes were much more likely to graduate than their peers who only had zero to three years in the smaller class sizes:

Source: Finn, J. D., et. al. (2005). Small Classes in the Early Grades, Academic Achievement, and Graduating From High School. Journal of Educational Psychology.
http://www.classsizematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Small-Classes-in-the-Early-Grades-Academic-Achievement-and-Graduating-From-High-School.pdf

Economic Benefits of Smaller Class Sizes
A 2011 study summarizing the life academic and economic outcomes of students in smaller classes in the STAR study compared to their peers who had normal class sizes found that “The effects of class quality fade out on test scores in later grades but gains in non-cognitive measures persist.” Put in plain English, high stakes test scores are not an accurate predictor of future student performance. However, student engagement is. Here are just some of the adult outcomes for these students 20 years later of being in a smaller class in elementary school: Students were significantly more likely to graduate from high school, attend college, start a savings account, buy a home, get married and stay married. Students were less likely to commit a crime or go to prison. Much of this information was obtained from federal tax returns of 95% of the nearly 12,000 students involved in the study.
Source: Chetty, R., Friedman, J.N., Hilger, N., Saez, E., Schanzenbach, D.W., & Yagan D. (2011). How does your kindergarten classroom affect your earnings? Evidence from Project STAR. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4), 1593-1660.
http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/STAR.pdf

In a separate analysis, Alan Krueger, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, estimated that every dollar invested in reducing class sizes yielded about $2 in long term economic benefits. https://etec511.wikispaces.com/file/view/economic+considerations+and+class+size.pdf

Conclusion… Smaller Classes Lead to More Successful Students
Wealthy private schools understand the importance of small class size. For example, at Lakeside Private School in Seattle, average class sizes are 16 students. http://www.lakesideschool.org/aboutus

If class sizes of 16 students is considered ideal for the children of the wealthy, these class sizes should also be available to all students in Washington state.

 

Given the huge academic and economic benefits of smaller class sizes, it is appalling that the Washington state legislature continues to deprive our public schools of adequate funding and deprive our students of the reasonable class sizes they need and deserve. In does not have to be this way. Senate Bill 6093 would increase school funding above the national average and lower class sizes below the national average merely by repealing a 1997 tax break used by billionaires to avoid paying their fair share of state taxes. In the next article, we will review how many new schools and classrooms would be needed to restore national average class sizes here in Washington state. We will then look at how to build a grassroots campaign for passing Senate Bill 6093 here in Washington state.

Originally published at Coalition to Protect Our Public Schools

It’s a good time to talk about money, who has it and who doesn’t, especially with the Legislature at loggerheads about the budget. Why? Because the taxes that fund our state’s budget come largely from the money we all spend.

Notice I said “money we all spend,” not “money we all make”? In most other states, taxes come from money people make, whether by working for a paycheck or watching the stock market go up, but not here. Half of our state’s revenue comes from sales taxes. So in Washington, when we spend less on taxable goods, state revenue for things like higher education and K-12 education takes a dive.

The years 2001 to 2011 were an excellent demonstration of this. Our state’s general fund revenues fell from more than $6,000 per capita to $4,000. How did we make up the difference? By shorting our kids — and by extension, our collective future. We now are 46th among the 50 states for K-12 investment as a percent of personal income. We increased tuition at the UW from $5,000 to more than $12,000. We starved public parks, closing some and running the rest on a shoestring.

This is no way to keep up with the demands of a 21st-century economy that depends on things produced by the government, like transit, roads, parks, and, yes, an educated citizenry.

Taxable retail sales — that is, the tax you pay when you buy pants at Fred Meyer — have plummeted in the past two decades, as a percent of total state income. Such sales used to equal more than 50 percent of total GDP in our state; now they make up about one third. Consumer spending by people between the ages of 35 and 55, who should be at the height of earnings and family expenditures, actually dropped between 1989 and now by $7,500 (adjusting for inflation).

We can’t run public services on a stream of revenue that is turning into a trickle. So where can we find the revenue for public services? We simply need to follow the money. Seattle, Bellevue and the rest of the Eastside have one of the biggest concentrations of six-figure households in the country. When we consider seven and eight figure incomes, we are near the top… of the world.

But we in Washington don’t tap into any of that income, and not by accident or act of nature. The celebration and enhancement of the wealthy while public services for the vast majority of citizens are starved is the result of quite clear public policy. One result of these decisions is the pulling apart of the middle class, with the majority of families falling down the income ladder, and a small minority rising up. And with the shrinking of public services, we have effectively pulled the rungs out from under the people falling down the income ladder to climb back up.

Just-released IRS data shows that for the top 1,000 households in the U,S,, income doubled from about $80 million in 2003 to more than $160 million in 2012 (these figures are inflation-adjusted). Families between 97 percent and 98 percent of the income pile saw their income go up $23,000 to $253,000. Families between 80 percent and 90 percent got a $647 gain. But for all taxpayers below the 80 percent threshold — making up 4 out of every 5 families, income fell. For families in the bottom 50 percent, their average income fell almost 20 percent, by more than $3,000.

In our state, the 30,000 families at the top of the income heap contribute very little of their income — 2.4 percent — to help finance the state’s schools, colleges, mental health facilities, the State Patrol or our court system — while the middle class contributes 10 percent and families under $20,000 contribute 17 percent, primarily via sales taxes.

The choice confronting all of us (because the legislators are very likely to kick the can down the road for another year) is a moral one: Do we invest in our state, our children, our infrastructure, and our future — or do we allow this fiscal crisis just to grind us down? So far, it has been grinding us down. But when we consider that democracy is supposed to present opportunity for all of us, it makes sense to tax some of the wealthiest in our state (and, indeed, the world) to finance a stronger future for everyone.

Original: Everett Herald »

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 the end of this article, I have provided 15 links to all 15 years of reports I used to create the following chart. Here is the link to the latest report for 2013:
http://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/econ/g13-aspef.pdf

The above chart is based on Table 12, Column 6 of each of the annual reports since 1996. There are some rather startling things about this chart. First, it shows that Washington state school funding as a percent of income plunged rather dramatically between the years 2011 and 2013. This is despite a court order and a commitment by the legislature to increase school funding. As of 2013, Washington spent 3.1 percent of income on pubic schools. In 1996, Washington State spent 4.3 percent of income on public schools which is also about the national average (which is the blue line in the chart above). The difference between 3.1 percent and 4.3 percent is about one to two billion dollars per year. The above chart does not include school construction and repair funding like some of my past charts. Had this been included, the total national average spending would have risen to about 5% of income and the total difference between Washington state and the national average would be about $2 to $3 billion per year.

Add in the one billion per year that is unconstitutionally being spent on Basic Education by local school districts through local levies and the total State funding shortfall to comply with the Supreme Court order is $3 to $4 billion per year or $3,000 to $4,000 per pupil per year. (This is also the conclusion of the attorneys for the NEWS Coalition McLeary lawsuit). This is also about the cost to fully fund Initiative 1351 passed by the voters in 2014 and currently being ignored by the State legislature in 2015.

Why is the historical national average funding level of 4.3% important?
I want to be clear that when I am referring to national average school funding, I am not referring to the shockingly low level of national funding that occurred between2011 and 2013. 3.7 Percent is simply a sign that there is something deeply wrong with our entire nation right now. 4.3 Percent of income (or 5% of income when adding in school construction and repair funding) is important for several reasons. First, it is impossible to have national average class sizes without national average school funding. Smaller class sizes in turn are related to higher graduation rates because struggling students are more likely to get the help they need to pass courses. National average funding is important for another reason as students in Washington state will have to compete with students from other states to get into a good college. It is unfair to for our students to be subjected to some of the lowest school funding and highest class sizes in the nation as it will adversely affect their entire future. Finally, the historical national average reflects the combined wisdom of legislatures all across America over a period of many years. In fact, it had been a very stable measure until 2011 when it suddenly dropped from 4.3% of income to 3.7% of income. To understand how shocking this drop was, using Washington state as an average sized state, this drop would represent about one billion dollars per state. Multiple this times 50 states and the drop in just two years was close to $50 billion dollars per year in school funding that has been diverted to some other use and is no longer going to public schools.

How does Washington State School Funding Compare to a State with a Similar Economy?
Because Washington state has a stronger economy than most states, what is more appropriate than just the national average is to compare Washington state to an economically similar state such as New York. The difference between Washington state and the State of New York (the green line in the chart above) is about $8 billion per year – or $8,000 per pupil per year. All of this makes the $600 per pupil per year kicked in by the Washington State legislature this year look pretty pathetic. It does not even cover the cuts to school funding made in Washington state in recent years.

Look closely at the Washington state line (the red line in the chart above) and you will see two plunges. The first occurred between 1997 and 2000 and the second occurred between 2011 and 2013. In another article, we will discuss the 1997 to 2000 plunge (which was related to a 1997 tax break for the rich). Notice that the 1997 plunge happened only in Washington state and did not affect the rest of the nation or the state of New York which actually spent more on public schools at the same time Washington state was gutting funding for public schools.

Here, we will look at the most recent plunge in school funding as this plunge is likely still occurring. Look closely at the circle on the right side of the above chart and you will see that this new plunge in school funding is not just happening in Washington state. It is happening in the national average of all states and it is happening in New York. This means that there is a major national problem that began or got worse in about 2011.

Here is my explanation: The income of the super wealthy and major corporations has been skyrocketing since 2011 with record profits going to a few billionaires. But thanks to the billions of dollars in tax exemptions, these billionaires are not paying any taxes on all of this new wealth and therefore there is no money to fund the public schools. I will supply more evidence to support this theory in my next article showing that there has been a very sharp rise in the wealth of billionaires in the past few years. But first we need to understand how the above chart is different from other charts you may have seen on school funding here in Washington state.

Why Use “Percent of Income” for School Funding Rather than “Per Pupil Cost”
Billionaires and their political agents in Olympia love to fool us with charts showing that Per Pupil funding for public schools has gone up in Washington state almost every year. After all, it went up $600 per pupil this year. So there is no school funding problem right? Why is everyone complaining?

There are at least four major problems with using a simple Per Pupil chart to compare school funding from one year to the next or to compare school funding in one state to another state. First, Per Pupil funding completely ignores the rising cost of living and expenses such as food, transportation, health care and everything else from one year to the next. You can increase Per Pupil funding by 4% per year. But if the real inflation rate is 5% per year, then there was a one percent reduction in school funding not a four percent increase. This is just simple math. But apparently the legislature has a hard time understanding this – or maybe they just want to pretend that inflation does not exist.

Second, Per Pupil funding ignores the cost differences from one state to another state. The dollar goes a lot farther in states with a lower cost of living than it does in states with a higher cost of living.

Third, some states have a better economy than other states. States like Washington and New York have a better economy than other states because both of these states have major ports and a lot of wealthy people. It is easier to raise revenue in a state with a good economy and that is perhaps the most important reason to use Percent of Income (Table 12 in the annual education reports) rather than Per Pupil spending (Table 11 in the annual education reports).

Fourth, per pupil funding is not related to class sizes – but school funding as a percent of income is related to class sizes and class sizes are what really matter to the future of our students. For example, in the latest report, Washington state is 29^th in the nation in school funding using the misleading “Per Pupil” funding. But Washington is 46^th in the nation using the more accurate “Percent of Income” funding. According to the National Center for Education Statistics Schools and Staffing Survey (Table 8), Washington State has the third highest class sizes in the nation for elementary school, the second highest class sizes in the nation for middle school and the second highest class sizes in the nation for high school. http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass1112_2013314_t1s_007.asp

Only after doing the calculations as Percent of Income is it appropriate to convert the numbers to Per Pupil funding. As just one example, a difference of one percent of income converts roughly to one billion dollars per year in Washington state. (In New York, one percent of income would be a completely different number). Because Washington has one million students, one billion dollars per year converts into $1,000 per pupil per year.

This is a far more accurate method of telling how far Washington state is below the national average than just using Per Pupil costs which ignore all of the above factors. For example, Table 11 of the latest education funding report claims that national average Per Pupil funding is only $10,700 and Washington state Per Pupil funding $9,672 – only about $1,000 per pupil below the national average per pupil funding. This would lead to the erroneous conclusion that it would only take one billion dollars per year to restore school funding in Washington state to the national average.

At the same time, Per Pupil funding in New York is $19,818. School funding in Washington state is more than $10,000 per pupil less than school funding in a comparable state. It would take more than $10 billion per year (or $20 billion per biennium) to bring school funding in Washington state up to the same level as per pupil funding in New York state! This is why School funding as a Percent of Income is much more accurate than Per Pupil School Funding.

Why Current Education Spending is More Accurate than Education Revenue
Within Table 12 on the Education Funding reports, there are two options. You can use Column 1 which is “Education Revenue as a percent of income” – or you can use “Current Education Spending as a percent of income.” In the past, I have used Education Revenue. However, I now realize that was a mistake. The problem with revenue is that State legislatures and particularly the Washington state legislature has gotten very good at budget tricks to make it look like they are increasing school funding when in fact they are gutting school funding. For example, one trick was to transfer a couple hundred million dollars from the school construction account to the school operating budget account. They then claimed that they increased school funding by $200 million when it was really robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The revenue bait and switch games and creative accounting tricks have gotten so ridiculous in Olympia (and probably other state legislatures) that it became apparent that the only solution was to change my charts to Table 12 Column 6 – which is actual current school spending as a percent of income. This means the money that was actually spent on schools hiring teachers and buying books and all the other stuff that goes into a school. It is much harder to play games with the actual money because the actual money was actually spent and can be accounted for. This yields a slightly different chart than my past charts. But I think it will be more accurate moving forward. It will not matter what crazy games the legislature tries to pull. We will simply track the amount of money schools actually spend in the current year.

This is all we have time for in this report. In my next article, I will explain why school funding in Washington state plunged by billions of dollars per year between 1997 to 2002 and how Senate Bill 6093 can help us get these billions of dollars per year back simply be altering a 1997 tax break for the rich. Below are the links to the reports that were used to create the graph in this article.

Regards,
David Spring M. ED.
Director Coalition to Protect our Public Schools
spring for schools (at) aol (dot) com

LINKS:
Public Education Finances 2013 was released on June 2 2015
http://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/econ/g13-aspef.pdf

Public Education Finances 2012 was released on June 1 2014
http://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/econ/g12-cg-aspef.pdf

Public Education Finances 2011 was released on June 1 2013
http://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2013/econ/g11-aspef.pdf

Public Education Finances 2013 was released on June 2 2015
http://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/econ/g13-aspef.pdf

Public Education Finances 2012 was released on June 1 2014
http://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/econ/g12-cg-aspef.pdf

Public Education Finances 2011 was released on June 1 2013
http://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2013/econ/g11-aspef.pdf

Public Education Finances 2010 was released on June 1 2012
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/10f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2009 was released on June 1 2011
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/09f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2008 was released on June 1 2010
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/08f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2007 was released on May 2009
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/07f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2006 was issued on April 2008
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/06f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2005 was issued on April 2007
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/05f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2004 was issued on April 2006
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/04f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2003 was issued on March 2005
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/03f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2002 was issued on April 2004
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/02f33pub.pdf

Public Education Finances 2001 was issued on April 2003
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/01fullreport.pdf

Public Education Finances 2000 was issued on April 2002
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/00fullreport.pdf

Public Education Finances 1999 was issued on April 2001
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/99tables.pdf

Public Education Finances 1998 was issued on April 2000
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/98tables.pdf

Public Education Finances 1997 was issued on April 1999
http://www.census.gov/prod/gc97/gc974-1.pdf

Public Education Finances 1996 was issued on April 1998
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/96tables.pdf

Originally published at Coalition to Our Public Schools

Rep. Suzan DelBene is apparently going to vote in favor of trade promotion authority (“fast track”) for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, unlike Reps McDermott, Smith, and Heck.

A friend called DelBene’s office and an aide said she is voting for fast-track.

Last fall I spoke to her and asked her to oppose it. She was very polite but said that progressives aren’t the only people she represents. She is not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Instead, she is a New Democrat (a centrist Dem).

Furthermore, according to this Seattle Times article from January of this year, President Obama named DelBene to the Export Council. This is an indication that Obama is confident of her support for TPP.

Microsoft would benefit from TPP. DelBene is an ex-Microsoft executive, as is her husband Kurt. Could her support for TPP be related to their ownership of Microsoft stock?

According to ThinkAdvisor.com, DelBene is the 10th richest member of Congress and is worth $37.8 million. “DelBene’s wealth, which increased $14 million over last year, comes from the sale of Microsoft stock. She and her husband, Kurt, were both executives at the software behemoth. Besides investments, they own a home worth $5 million, which was purchased in the last year.” It doesn’t say whether they still own Microsoft stock.

KUOW reported in 2012: “According to DelBene’s financial disclosure reports (PDF), she and her husband have a net worth of between $23 and $83 million (candidates are not required to report the exact amount of their assets). DelBene’s husband Kurt DelBene is president of Microsoft’s Office division. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show Kurt DelBene owns 635,693 shares of Microsoft stock.” Other than #1 Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.(net worth $357 million) and #2 Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas ($117.5 million), the other eight richest members of Congress are Democrats.

Here is her filing with the SEC.

My question is: do DelBene and her husband still own stock in Microsoft? If so, shouldn’t she recuse herself from voting on the issue, since it is a conflict of interest?

A facebook friend posted a Washington Post article 50 hospitals charge uninsured more than 10 times cost of care, study finds. A discussion ensued. Bret Benson told this story:

I had a $3,600 bill after going to the emergency room for a gash in my head over and above what my insurance covered. Devon told me to write them for an itemized list of what I paid for. I not only did that, I added some crap about how I was going to pass it on to my cousin who worked for KTLA News because they were doing a special on hospital billing. No kidding. 3 days later I got a bill for $650, no explanation. About a year later our accountant at work came to me with a similar situation. Asked me if I was serious about the letter I wrote and if I could write one for him. Told him I had it on my computer, changed the name and a few things and they called him the same day they got it and lowered his by about 75%. While getting my deviated septum done they sent me in for an CAT scan of the side of my head after all this other stuff they had me do that wasn’t completely covered. Was about $2,500 above what the insurance paid. I threw a fit, said I’ll live with how it was. They said they would lower it to $400 if I paid cash. What a frickin’ scam they have going. Yeah, and the free market will solve this?

When I changed jobs a few years back and the company provided funds for us to buy our own healthcare I got a real shock. My ex was denied because 5 years earlier she had a pea size totally benign cyst that the doctor figured he might as well remove. Think he did it for the money was all. But at any rate, she had paid in probably 100k over the years and taken very little out. Pure as the driven snow healthy lifestyle yet no matter what we paid no one would insure her. Luckily CA adopted the part of the no denial act earlier than 2014 and she only had to go 6 months with no coverage. That’s a broke system. Something could have happened that would have broke us and had a bad economic ripple throughout effecting our lives and our son’s.

Almost everyone knows the health care system is badly broken. Ripoffs and injustices are the norm. The Affordable Care Act was at most a minor improvement.  More people are covered, but there was little control of prices and middlemen that add little or no value remain in the system.

The free market doesn’t work well for medical care because people don’t feel in a position to bargain or price-shop. If you need a heart transplant, would you go to the cut-rate clinic? But almost all medical care is like that: it seems inappropriate to negotiate.      Doctors should be like Marcus Welby, not like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.

Many health care providers realize that predatory capitalism is not an appropriate model for medical care.  Doctors and hospitals shouldn’t be in it to make a killing.  Single payer health care similar to Medicare for All would be a fairer and more humane system.

Not just the bankers, but also the medical care predators need to chased with pitchforks.

Why aren’t people protesting in front of hospitals and health care specialists?