COMMENTARY

June 18, 2003

Contact: Marsha Richards, Communications Director
(360) 956-3482

WEA cries "Wolf!" again

Saying it loudly won’t make it true, but apparently officials at the Washington Education Association intend to try. The union is on a public relations rampage against what it calls "the largest [public school funding cuts] in state history." The campaign is disingenuous, to say the least.

The fact is, education spending is increasing overall by 2.2 percent (or $216 million) in the new budget, not decreasing. The state spent $9.9 billion on K-12 education in the last biennium, and legislators plan to spend $10.1 billion in the next. Meanwhile, student enrollment is increasing statewide by a miniscule one-tenth of one percent, and decreasing in many individual school districts.

The spending increase is less than WEA hoped for, but dollars are limited and not many people got as much as they hoped for this time around. Some folks are facing real cuts, like the taxpayers who lost their jobs when the economy turned sour.

Getting a smaller increase than you wanted shouldn’t be an excuse for spreading misleading information.

The union’s biggest frustration is the suspension of the two education initiatives: automatic cost-of-living raises for teachers (I-732) and additional class-size reduction funding (I-728). However, in their claims that legislators have thwarted the will of the people, WEA officials have forgotten the initiatives were approved on the public assumption that the cost would be covered by surplus state funds.

The surplus is all gone . . . and then some.

That doesn’t mean some school districts aren’t facing challenges due to budgets written when surplus funds were expected. Those challenges can and will be dealt with, just as many others are meeting their own economic challenges. Crying "Wolf!" isn’t the way to do it.

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org