By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

This Thursday, education advocates of all ages – students, parents, grandparents, other community advocates – will bring the “Billion-Dollar Bake Sale” to Olympia, hoping to convince legislators to increase funding for public schools, to save them from budget-slashing.

Last Thursday, a prelude to that journey brought dozens of community members to the West Seattle High School Theater for a lesson in “Understanding Our School Funding Crisis and Doing Something About It.”

PTSA presidents Holly Rikhof of WSHS and Michelle Riggen-Ransom of Chief Sealth International HS introduced the event; their organizations co-presented it. PTSAs are keenly aware of what it takes to fund schools, Riggen-Ransom observed; their organizations and counterparts raise $4 million for Seattle Public Schools every year for needs that the basic funding doesn’t cover.

Here’s what that goes for – Riggen-Ransom said they even had a request last year to fund a wheelchair. “We’re doing a lot more with a lot less.”:

Rikhof said that aside from that fundraising, “advocacy is the mission of the PTSA. … We’re fighting for kids. It’s our job.” And if you don’t have a PTSA, “you lose your voice.” Together, the organizations comprise a “collective voice.” They then made way for the voices of their guest speakers.

State Board of Education member Mary Fertakis was the first speaker, launching with “Washington’s Broken K-12 Funding System: How We Got Here.” She’s been on the state board for five years and spent more than 20 years on the school board in Tukwila. She warned that stoday’s situation can’t be understood without the historical context. “This is not a new problem. … Equity has never been a funding focus in Washington.” Our state, she explained, is one of only six in the country that has a “resource-based” funding system, known as the “prototypical school-funding method.” Consider, she said, the factors that were affecting Washington when it became a state in 1889, like this Thomas Jefferson quote:

The language of that quote reflected the fact that they were really worried about schools being accessible to everyone. She read the “paramount duty” section of the State Constitution – which declares that “it is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.” Despite that, she noted, in the 2023-25 biennium, school funding is 43.9 percent of the state’s expenditures.

Before 1977, the state did have a “student-centered funding formula,” Fertakis said. Then came the “Doran Decision,” a “recognition that the state Legislature was not fully funding basic education.”

Levies were supposed to be for extras, she continued, but then came a need to standardize school-staff salaries in order to flatten out some disparities. Eventually a state salary schedule resulted, as well as rules that encouraged educators to get masters’ degrees.

More recently, what about the “McCleary Decision“? It didn’t really “fix” anything, Fertakis declared. There were hopes districts could reduce their reliance on levies – which, she said, were supposed to comprise about 10 percent of districts’ funding, but instead were up to about 25 percent by McCleary. Inequality worsened because of the differences in property values around the state – any solution must address that, said Fertakis, moving on to a critique of the current system, which she contends leads to “highest needs schools staffed by teachers with fewer years of experience and fewer advanced degrees” resulting in “a lower state funding allocation to support school staffing and programs.” She discussed all the ways people’s value is evaluated – with funding as a result not focusing on what a school needs. So a variety of gaps have grown.

She recommends “community-centered advocacy” as part of the solution, and advocates for a coalition called FUND WA. She suggested that people have “tinkered around the edges” of the school-funding challenge because they don’t fully understand the problem: “I just don’t beieve it when peole say we don’t have the resources – we do … there’s some significant work that needs to happen, and we all have to do it together.”

She was followed by Oliver Miska from the Fund Our Schools Coalition, groups that “came together and said we want to be organizing events together.” One of the groups is the People’s Big 5, a wheel of advocacy for these five goals: “Fully Fund Special Education, Fulfill K-12 Transportation Needs, Pass Progressive Revenue Legislation, Reform School Funding Allocation for Equity Statewide, Address Inflation.”

He cited a study saying Washington is at or near the bottom in school-funding equity, and said his coalition’s contention is that we should be investing 4 percent of Gross State Product in education rather than 50 percent of the state budget, “because it reflects the capacity of our state’s growing wealth.” Right now the state is at 3.17 percet.

Miska said it’s a myth that “there are rich school districts.” Instead, he said, “Even Bellevue is underfunded by our state’s prototypical model. Especially special education. … Our districts are underfunded and ineuitably funded.”

He mentioned “progressive-revenue” ideas – taxes on “wealthy individuals” and “large corporations,” removing the cap on employer payroll taxes – and said legislators seemed to have little interest until the state’s “gloomy forecast.” And he said there’s hope for the “levy lid lift.” As for local levies, he said Seattle taxes are actually lower than other districts such as Bellevue and Lake Washington.

So what kind of action does he advise? A letter-writing campaign for one. Wear red to school on Wednesdays, which his coalition has dubbed “Wealth Tax Wednesdays.” Get involved in events such as this Thursday’s Billion-Dollar Bake Sale, the Statewide Day of Action on March 5, and “Tax the Rich Day” on April 15. The coalition’s involvement links are here.

Finally, you might say the presentation had an expert witness – teacher/librarian Amy Vattuone, also a parent of two SPS students, who made it clear that she was NOT speaking as a representative of Seattle Public Schools, but rather as someone with a cautionary tale. SPS is currently discussing cutting middle- and high-school librarian jobs to half-time, she said, explaining that would mean the libraries would be open only 2 1/2 days a week. The idea was floated in August, she said, with a possible savings of $2.7 million. More recently, she said, the night before this event, SPS Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones had presented two budget options to the board, basically “if we get (extra) funding (from the Legislature) and if we don’t.” The latter could mean more than $28 million in staff cuts, possibly including librarians and assistant principals, Vattuone said.

Libraries are about more than books, she said. They’re the “community center of the school” and provide students with academic support, social-emotional support, “a real safe haven … a place you can get away from places that don’t seem safe to you.” Having a full-time librarian increases student outcomes, she declared. If you want to advocate against librarian cuts, she suggested, email Dr. Jones at bjones@seattleschools.org and tell him “save the library.” Also tell the school board why you want to save the library – she had warm words for students who had come to the board meeting the night before to make their case to the school board.

The event concluded with some Q&A for and from the speakers. Fertakis said yes, contacting legislators and other decisionmakers really does make a difference – they assume that for every person who contacts them, there’s 100 others who feel the same way. And remember that regardless of what you hear about various bills’ status, “nothing is dead until the end of the session” – a “dead” proposal might get tacked onto something that’s still alive, for example.

One intriguing question – what other state does education funding right? Fertakis suggested Massachusetts, ‘coming out number one year after year – Boston Public Schools and Seattle Public Schools have so many parallels. But, she said, consider that “Boston’s budget is 1 page – Seattle’s is 14.” Our state doesn’t have a “vision for education, but “we don’t have to invent anything – there are so many great examples out there – when you see it’s working someplace, you could say, with a little adjusting, that could work here.”

Overall, a sense of optimism prevailed at the end. Fertakis declared, “They can’t ignore us any longer.”

WHAT’S NEXT: Postcards 4 Democracy will write for education funding Tuesday (January 28), 10:30 am-noon at C & P Coffee (5612 California SW; WSB sponsor), as previewed here … Thursday is the Billion-Dollar Bake Sale Day of Advocacy in Olympia – follow that link to see how to get involved in that.