History

How did Washington get to where we are today?

The Washington State Constitution says, “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all students....” The State has a duty to provide for adequate funding for public education.

In the mid-1970’s, state funding for education slipped so far that in 1978 the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that the state’s education funding at that time was constitutionally insufficient and that forcing local school districts to pay for the state’s paramount education obligation is unconstitutional.

In 1983, another court decision reiterated that the state’s responsibility to fully fund basic education also included special education, bilingual education, remedial assistance, and transportation.

In 1993, the state passed the Education Reform Act, which created rigorous performance-based standards for the basic education that every child in Washington is to be provided. The Act also required high school students to pass a test to prove they had mastered those new standards in order to graduate. But, despite these high stakes, the 1993 Act did not restructure the state funding system to pay the increased cost of providing students with the education necessary to meet those higher standards.

State funding has continued to erode to the point that, today, local school districts are being forced to provide more and more of the necessary money to educate our state’s K-12 students.

For decades, legislators and governors have danced around this issue instead of solving it. They have formed countless task forces, attempted piecemeal projects and made band-aid patches. The time has come for real change that ensures a stable and dependable state funding system for Washington public schools.