Opinion: K-12 Washington state education funding overview

Larry Roe and Dick Rylander explore how K-12 education funding is structured in Washington state, from state budgets to local levies.

Dick Rylander and Larry Roe offer the first in a series of three columns exploring the topic of funding in public schools

Larry Roe and Dick Rylander
for Clark County Today

This is the first of a three-part series. In Part 1, we explore the topic of funding in public schools. In Part 2, we’ll dig into the topic of “mandates.” Finally, in Part 3, we review legislative and RCW aspects.

Washington state has always had and valued public schools and the educators who teach our children; the U.S. Congress required our state constitution to contain a charter for public schools (WA Constitution, Article IX). The right to a basic education, the sources of money for a school fund, and freedom from partisan, religious, or philosophical control or influence within the schools were the initial guidelines for our K-12 education. (See our 2 part series on “What’s Basic Education in Washington State”)

In addition to the state money, local school districts have levied money to augment the programs in their school districts. The Washington legislature has been increasingly active in passing laws that define a K-12 education. These laws can be thought of as mandates (things that must be done) for each school district in the state.

The most recent significant increase in school district funding was the result of a court decision (McCleary v. Washington). This 2012 ruling by the Washington Supreme Court reviewed the constitutional and subsequent legal work on education, the amount being spent by the school districts to provide their interpretation of an education, and the amount of money provided by the state to those school districts. Funding was found to be lacking.

Most of the definition of education in state law originates from a lawsuit brought against the Seattle school district based on the failure of a local school district levy (1970’s). The courts held that the state was responsible for the inadequacy of the public school fund to satisfy the constitutional mandate, in the absence of local levy support, and needed to rectify the funding gap. The legislature chose to first define education in law, then measure the funding level against school performance.

The framework of the McCleary decision is based solely on section 1 of article IX of the Washington Constitution. It focused on the concept of “ample” funding for education as the paramount duty of the state. The justices deferred to the legislature on the definition of the components of education. They reviewed all of the legislative bills on these components of education and the testimony of people that they believed could provide them with a non-sectarian view of education, then they presented a coherent review.

The critical focus of the supreme court’s review was an assessment that the state was failing to meet the constitutional mandate because three specific appropriations were insufficient: for staffing, transportation, and materials/supplies/insurance. These were judged to demonstrate that the state needed to raise more money for the school system. Also of note were two other statements from the court: the educational outcomes of individual students could not be controlled by educators (there are too many important factors outside of the educators control) and that school district funding levies are unreliable because they represent the “whim of the electorate”.

The Supreme Court finally determined that the Washington Legislature was amply funding a basic education in 2017.

The state provides school district funds primarily based on the number of students enrolled in each district. Adjustments are made to this funding level based on several factors that impact the efficiencies and local costs for individual districts. Federal funds are provided to deliver specific services and additional accounting is required to demonstrate that funds have been used as instructed. Local levies are often flexible; the wording allows the money raised to be used for many different purposes.

The flexibility in the allocation of local levy funds has enabled the vast majority of Washington school districts to satisfy the increasing expectations caused by the Washington Legislature’s ongoing expansion of the definition of “a basic education”. This has resulted in school districts that perform more and more services for our communities. However, most of our districts have spent reserves and much of the local levy money, to achieve this expansion and are now back in the position of having insufficient revenue to fund operations.