Senate OKs education reform bill

OLYMPIA -- The Senate on Thursday approved reforms to the state's basic education system, despite objections that the proposals amounted to an unfunded mandate on school districts.

House Bill 2261 passed 26-23, with several Democrats crossing party lines to oppose the bill because the state doesn't have the money to implement reforms.

The Legislature is wrangling with an estimated $9 billion deficit for the 2009-11 biennium. That has resulted in significant cuts to K-12 education in the Senate budget proposal, including money taken from funding for a voter-approved initiative to reduce classroom sizes, and from levy equalization funding, which is intended to help property-poor school districts.

The bill as amended Thursday would:

* Expand the definition of basic education to include all-day kindergarten, transportation to and from school, increasing instructional time from 1,000 hours per year to 1,080 and the opportunity to complete 24 credits before high school graduation.

* Rewrite funding formulas to follow a prototypical schools model to specifically identify what each school needs to provide a quality education, including staffing levels.

* Create a new system to analyze detailed data from schools across the state to identify research and policy questions, analyze new funding models and identify shortcomings in the system.

* Require the Professional Educator Standards Board to set new teacher performance standards and recommend changes to teacher certification requirements.

Republicans were critical of the lack of a price tag attached to the version of the bill that reached the Senate floor Thursday.

Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, speculated the bill could cost $6 billion to implement.

"We're already $8 billion in the hole and haven't seen any strategy yet with nine days left in the session ... and now we're going to pass a bill today to add another $6 billion to that," Benton said. "It's a disservice to the citizens of this state."

Bill proponent Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, defended the potential costs.

"What we're offering in this bill is about the future," Haugen said. "Sure, it's gonna cost money. It's gonna cost a lot of money. But don't forget the pioneers who came to this country built schools before they built city halls."

Democrats who voted against the education reforms were Sens. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, Claudia Kauffman, D-Kent, Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, Chris Marr, D-Spokane, Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, and Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch.

Marr said he thought the reform bill contained good ideas, but he feared they would turn into empty promises. He noted that the Washington Education Association did not support the bill, speculating it was because they'd seen promises from the Legislature broken in the past.

Sheldon also said he feared the reforms represented false promises the Legislature couldn't fulfill given the massive state deficit.

"We all want to improve our schools," Sheldon said. "We have to buy only what we can afford today. ... My constituents want to see government pay as you go. If you can't pay for it, you can't have it."

The bill now returns to the House to consider the amendments.