The House is debating a bill to try to qualify for Race to the Top money and implement the new funding formula for schools over time.

“We’re no longer talking about Race to the Top, Mr. Speaker, we’re talking about race to the middle,” Rep. Skip Priest said. He said the provisions in the bill are not enough to win the federal grant money. But, he said, it’s critical to pass the bill — with the funding and Race to the Top provisions — now to keep the state moving forward.

Rep. Marcie Maxwell said she met with children from her district this morning. “I just want to strongly support it and say that every one of those kids is worth it,” she said.

Rep. Bruce Dammeier: “I am one that wishes it were bolder, that wishes we were moving a little stronger to the Race to the Top areas. We have an opportunity here and I wish we were taking advantage of it.“  He said the bill has a significant fiscal note, but he’s voting yes.

Rep. Mark Miloscia said he works as a substitute teacher. “I do appreciate a lot of the elements of this bill, I’m going to be a reluctant no… we don’t many times actually have true reform that actually has real accountability,” he said, and this bill doesn’t hit the mark.

Rep. Tim Probst said it’s a bill he’s proud to vote for. “We talk a lot about education and taking care of our kids … last year we had a major education reform and one of the things that we talked about is usually we do reform and we don’t follow it with funding and how that’s no way to make things happen,” he said, “And here we are keeping the promise.”

Rep. Reuven Carlyle said he’s torn and that the state is so much more than what its become. “If we were designing state government today with the depth of our Constitution’s commitment to public education, what would state government look like?” He said it would likely look different — with bigger commitments to education and public health.

Rep. Gary Alexander: “There is no money, Mr. Speaker, no money to address this requirement.” He said they’re setting up obligations in future budget periods that the state will not be able to pay for. “Don’t tell me about the fact that we funded it because we put it in the fiscal note,” he said. “I am just as dedicated to the education of our children as anybody on this floor, but until you show me the money — show me the money in the budget — I can’t vote for this.”

Update: The House passed the bill 76 to 22.

Tags: education, Reform

The bill to combine state Parks and the Department of Fish and Wildlife with the Department of Natural Resources is up for its first hearing right now. It’s live on TVW. And here’s what the sponsor, Sen. Rodney Tom, said about it yesterday.

Rex Derr, director of state parks, said the cost savings are largely unknown. He said his department put together the fiscal note last week and there were a lot of questions. He also said the bill calls for parks to create a plan for closure during their two busiest months of the year.

Sen. Kevin Ranker asked what the cost savings would be. Committee staff said the bill calls for a plan for closure by July, so there is no way to know yet. Here is the fiscal note.

“We view this bill as being consistent with the Governor’s recommendations on natural resources reform,” said Lenny Young with the Department of Natural Resources. He said they’re requesting an amendment so that the plan wouldn’t be due until Dec. 31 — as opposed to July 1, 2010. He also said they need more time to implement the plan.

Mark Quinn with Washington Wildlife Federation said the Department of Fish and Wildlife, despite its problems, is an important agency. “We are in a war to protect our natural resources and we need to fight it on several fronts,” he said — not by banking all natural resources agencies together.

Tags: DFW, DNR, parks, Reform

The Impact tonight is full of previews - a preview of the state’s September revenue forecast, a preview of possible reform efforts in the natural resources area of government, and a special sneak preview of TVW’s upcoming education series.

We start off with the quarterly Economic Revenue Forecast, due out Thursday, September 17.  Joining us is State Representative Ross Hunter, Chair of the House Finance Committee and Governor Gregoire’s Legislative Director Marty Brown. The governor’s supplemental budget is due out in December and the legislature will likely have to deal with a budget shortfall when it returns to Olympia in January.  Both Hunter and Brown offer their insights into the impact of this week’s revenue forecast on the budget and how soon Washington’s economy might recover.

Governor Gregoire spoke about it in her Inaugural address this past January – three scientists from three different agencies doing the same work in the same stream. This week a natural resources group working with the Governor’s office released its list of 26 different ideas to reform the natural resources area of state government. It includes streamlining the state’s permitting process and consolidating the work of many agencies to just two or three.  Now it’s your turn to weigh in on the ideas. Public comment runs through October 28. Joining us is the Governor’s Natural Resources Policy Advisor John Mankowski.

Finally, we’ll show you a sneak peak of TVW’s upcoming education series -  The Quest for Quality: The Debate Over Education Reform & Funding.  The special will air in two parts next Wednesday, September 23 at 8pm and Thursday, September 24 at 8pm.

Don’t miss The Impact, airing tonight at 7pm & 10pm on TVW and online: tvw.org.

Tags: Budget, education, natural resources, Reform, Revenue forecast

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed two substantial reform bills into law today. One would redefine basic education and the other will change the way child welfare systems are administered in the state.

But first: Neither bill is quite as robust as it started out this session.

The education reform bill began as the product of an interim, bipartisan task force aimed at making the first changes in education in 30 years. The resulting bill came with a $9 billion-or-so price tag — though in the ending bill, most of the costly pieces have been delayed. Here’s a good cross-section of Senate debate on that bill.

Similarly, the child welfare bill began as a complete retooling of the system. What remains is a partial retooling that is nonetheless significant: It will require the transition to “performance based” contracts. Adam Wilson has a good blog post about it here.

Gregoire vetoed sections of the basic education bill that would make preschool part of “basic education” for at-risk children. That would effectively guarantee funding for at-risk preschool programs. Gregoire said in vetoing the bill that preschool is important for all children and should be addressed as such. Peter Callaghan at The News Tribune has a bit more here.

Rep. Ross Hunter, who worked on the task force, said the bill signing was “bittersweet” because Gregoire didn’t sign the bill as they’d envisioned it.

“I am disappointed the Governor vetoed the early learning portion of the bill. I understand her concerns about singling out one population of students, but we already do that with many of the current elements we consider basic education, such as the English Language Learners program and Learning Assistance Program. These are services necessary for children to successfully take part in our state’s basic education system,” Hunter said in a release.

Tags: basic education, child welfare, education reform, Reform

Sen. King has offered a couple more amendments. Debate has been fast and the amendments have so far failed.

“Here is a good little amendment for you. It adds the task to the technical working group to review the current spending on K-12 education,” he said, of his third amendment. “All this amendment does is say, let’s look at that $14 billion we’re already spending,” he said, and look for efficiencies.

Sen. Eric Oemig: “I urge you to reject this amendment… it’s redudant … if this were just a paragraph that said ‘Do good things,’ that’d be one thing, but it’s a rather expensive paragraph.”

On a roll-call vote, the amendment failed.

Sen. Joe Zarelli on a new amendment: “Currently in statute it says that children can reside in (the bilingual program) for three years … what the underlying bill does is completely remove that statutory requirement so it deems that a child can stay in that program through early learning, high school … the problem is, it’s one of the fastest growing caseloads,” he said, and is growing at 10 times the rate of enrollment. “What we ought to be doing is looking at moving kids in the classroom with their peers, unfortunately there’s an incentive for keeping kids in there,” he said — some $900 per student.

Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe: “The current language is no longer needed under No Child Left Behind … this language is no longer needed.”

That amendment failed after a lengthy debate.

Tags: education, Reform

Sen. Tracy Eide said every single school district is going to have to cut. “This is tough,” she said.

On the government reform portion championed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, Sen. Brown said “There’s definitely structural reform that is occuring (in the budget) as well. Some of that is going to occur over the interim,” she said. One example: The Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development will become the Department of Commerce.

On another question on taxes, Brown said “I don’t think it’s any secret that many of us here thing this goes too far, that the cuts are too deep,” she said. But that doesn’t mean raising more money through taxes is popular with voters, who are faced with cutting their own budgets, she said.

Tags: Budget, Reform, tax

First, a question for you: Governor Gregoire has proposed changes to consolidate state government. If you could ask one question to lawmakers on this topic, what would it be? What does “reinventing government” mean to you? E-mail your questions to theimpact@tvw.org.

And now: Do you have a question for Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown? If so, e-mail us. Quickly. We’re headed to her weekly media availability at 3:30 p.m. today. If you have a question, send it now: nikis@tvw.org.

Tags: Governor, Reform, Senate

Gov. Chris Gregoire — done with her jury duty call this morning — is now doing her press conference on “government reform.”

She said she wants 153 boards and commissions eliminated. She said she can do 54 of those herself through executive order. The state has more than 470 boards and commissions, Gregoire said.

“We need to retool how we serve Washingtonians. We need to reboot,” she said. She wants to combine several agencies, too, she said.

She also said she’ll close more than two dozen small licensing offices. They’ll be replaced by kiosks.

“We’re going to eliminate outdated programs,” she said. “We’ll be making many changes immediately.”

Update: Here’s the plan.

Community, Trade and Economic Development, she said, is up for big changes: “We need to focus on a Department of Commerce.” That department would focus on cultivating, keeping and attracting commerce to Washington.

Watch live on tvw.org. now. Refresh your page and click for more… (more…)

Tags: Governor, Reform

Here’s the House Education Committee Work session earlier today, during which Superintendent of Public Instruction-elect Randy Dorn, a former lawmaker, talked about his plans over the next four years:

He said 1209, the education reform bill passed in 1993, included high standards (which he liked), but that the goals changed over time. The school system, he said, should strive to educate all types of students, not just those on track to attend a four-year university. (What’s that mean? FFA, for example. Some students, he said, stay in school just for programs like the Future Farmers of America.)

He said the key to reforming the WASL is to make it shorter, include more diagnostic-type questions, and be more user-friendly, so parents, students and teachers can better understand what the results mean.
His other goals include decreasing drop-out rates, increasing early childhood education (which, as he pointed out, isn’t part of his office’s duties) and improving career and technical education.

Tags: Reform, Schools, Washington Legislature, WASL