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Three Statewide Initiatives Test Our Commitment to Schools
By Patricia Stambor
Lisa McFarlane, co-chair of the K-12 2000 initiative campaign. |
Rain and shine, three groups of signature gatherers, some paid and some not, are trying to gather enough names on three unrelated statewide education initiatives. Working towards a needed signature count of at least 180,000 before a July 7 deadline, all three campaigns hope to make it on the November ballot.
* Initiative 728, K-12 2000, initiated by a grassroots group of parents and citizens, asks voters to require that excess funds from current revenue sources (lottery proceeds and surplus reserves) be directed to local school districts. This money will be used to reduce class size and provide more teacher training, early childhood programs, and construction funds for higher education.
* Initiative 729, WA Charter Schools, originally sponsored by Jim and Fawn Spady, long time charter-school advocates, is a much tamer version of their 1996 charter schools initiative. I-729 allows 20 charter schools per year to open over the next four years and an unlimited number of conventional public schools to convert to charter schools with district approval. Each school would receive the state allocation of education funding per student per year.
* Initiative 732, Citizens for Quality Educators, the most simple and straightforward initiative, asks voters to approve cost-of-living adjustments for teachers on a yearly basis. Frustrated with the lack of legislative support to approve wage increases for teachers, this campaign was initiated by a grassroots group educators, parents, and college students.
Although all three campaigns remain cautiously optimistic, initiative enthusiasm and signature gathering has been somewhat overshadowed by local controversies. Too preoccupied with trying to get their kids into the right schools and programs, Seattle parents are not showing the needed enthusiasm for I-728. "It's unfortunate," says Lisa McFarlane, co-chair of the K-12 2000 campaign, who fears that she will have to hire paid field staff to collect the needed signatures. "Parents are not getting behind this, especially in Seattle. Parents need to separate out their issues and look at the bigger picture--we need their support and it is important for them to realize that this funding will help solve the problems."
Concerned about the lack of support, the K-12 2000 fundraisers asked Paul Allen for a "leadership gift" of $200,000 in order to help fund the campaign. McFarlane says the gift could not have come at a better time. She gives Allen credit for "understanding the need for base-level funding...We hope that his gift, which matches the amount that we have raised up to this point, will challenge others businesses and individuals to get behind this".
Although McFarlane does not endorse I-729, she does admit that this initiative is certainly an improvement over the 1996 Spady charter school initiative that she helped to defeat.
Paul Allen recently injected $800,000 into the I-729 campaign and hired Seattle public relations firm Gogerty Stark Marriott to temporarily manage and coordinate the signature drive until campaign offices are established. Although Allen has received criticism for his business interests in promoting independently run schools (he is a minority investor in the for-profit Edison Schools), I-729 is very similar to the original of version charter school legislation that was introduced in Olympia this year.
Rich Wood, a spokesperson for the Washington Education Association (WEA), which represents 70,000 teachers and school employees statewide, points out that "this is not the version we supported in Olympia and we have not yet decided to take a position on this initiative." Some of WEA's concerns about I-729 include public accountability, collective bargaining for teachers (they would be prohibited from joining the existing teacher unions), and concerns that this initiative allows too many conversions too soon. Wood cautions, "If we are going to have charter schools, then we need to go slow and make sure they work."
To keep up with cost of living increases, I-732 is a simple and straightforward initiative that asks for commensurate yearly increases in teachers' wages. Although supporters are not happy about having to put teachers salaries to a vote, Eric Wilson, director of Citizens for Quality Educators, is hoping that voters will be more sympathetic than state legislators have been towards teachers' basic salary needs. "People are responding well to our state-wide, volunteer only campaign. They seem to understand and support the idea that in order to keep good teachers, we need to give them at least a yearly cost-of-living wage to stay in the work force."
Washington State falls below the national average for teachers' salaries and has the third highest student/teacher ratio (up to 32 students per classroom). With a billion-dollar budget surplus and a governor who says he wants to make education a priority, these three education initiatives deserve voter attention and scrutiny. I-728 and I-732 would use state tax dollars to address base-level funding needs for teachers and parents. I-729 would use state taxes to create new schools.
As with most successful initiative drives, getting the needed signatures depends not only on the merits of the initiative language but on a well organized campaign run on the energy of committed volunteers or funded with deep pockets.
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