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OPEN LETTER November 12, 2004
Dear Terry: Research recently conducted by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) and KIRO 7 News discovered that some teachers are using fake degrees to cheat taxpayers by obtaining undeserved pay increases. EFF strongly recommends you take immediate action to remedy these abuses. In your recent re-election campaign, you stated you were committed to high education standards; your attention to this problem would help demonstrate your intentions. When we began our investigation earlier this year, we learned the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) does not keep track of the degrees claimed by teachers. This is disconcerting as your office is responsible for allocating tax dollars based on the state's salary schedule for teachers. OSPI instead suggested that we seek this information from the Education Service Districts, which in turn referred us to the individual school districts. Article 3, Section 22 of Washington's Constitution clearly states: "The superintendent of public instruction shall have supervision over all matters pertaining to public schools...." Because of this Constitutional requirement, we were surprised to hear OSPI assert that it is not responsible for overseeing the degrees claimed by teachers. Despite this statement, we now learn from KIRO 7's ongoing investigation that your office conducted a feasibility study to create a clearinghouse for the degrees being claimed by teachers for advance pay, yet OSPI failed to implement this system! Equally disturbing, approximately 75 percent of the state's school districts did not provide the information regarding teachers' degrees requested by EFF and KIRO 7. To remedy this situation, EFF requests that you order all districts to immediately conduct a review of the degrees claimed by their teachers and forward the information to KIRO 7, the State Auditor and your office. We, like the Democratic Leadership Council, believe that this problem can be avoided altogether by scrapping the current "time in the seat and degree on the wall" teacher compensation model and instead paying teachers based on their actual effectiveness in the classroom. High quality teachers should be paid exceptionally well and ineffective teachers need to be removed from our classrooms. Our children deserve nothing less. We are happy to work with you to bring about this needed change to improve Washington's public schools and the education of our children. Cordially, Bob Williams cc: Chris Halsne, KIRO 7
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1 Part Honesty; 2 Parts Arrogance At a March 23, 2005, House Appropriations hearing on a bill to gut the voter-approved I-601 spending limit, Rep. Jim McIntire (D) asked a supporter of I-601’s two-third supermajority requirement for the legislature to raise taxes the following question: "Can you name a time when we [legislators] have actually not just set it [supermajority requirement] aside by majority vote? I mean, this is in many respects a procedural motion that has no bearing. It’s a statutory constraint that cannot constrain any legislature that chooses as a majority to set it aside . . . have we ever used a supermajority [to raise taxes]?" - Rep. Jim McIntire (D - 46) Despite the arrogance of some state officials, Washington's constitution is clear: "All political power is inherent in the people..." |
