Education Advocate June 2016

ED Advocate, League of Education Voters Newsletter, June 2016

Greetings

Chris Korsmo
Chris Korsmo, CEO

As yet another school year ends with blinding speed, work is heating up for team LEV.  The new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), replacing No Child Left Behind, gives states more leeway in a wide range of areas.  Our state is figuring out how to modify our accountability system and fully implement other parts of the law.  If you’re curious how ESSA will work here in Washington, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is holding forums around the state.  Get all the info here.

And speaking of the state Superintendent, watch for OSPI candidate forums from now until the November election.  LEV is keeping track of upcoming forums here.

Looking ahead, we’re taking a hard look at how to best fund our state education system as the McCleary debate will be front and center in the next Legislative session.  If you would like more info on what the McCleary Task Force is up to, check out our recent Lunchtime LEVinar on the topic here.

May you and your family enjoy a glorious summer.

Thank you, and thanks for all you do for kids.
Chris Korsmo signature

 

 

Chris Korsmo

ESSA Regional Community Forums

ESSA regional community forums are scheduled around the stateBeginning June 14, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is holding forums across the state to provide an overview of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) implementation in Washington. Each forum is open to the public and there is no registration required.

LEV’s Activist of the Month

Mary Fertakis is LEV's June 2016 Activist of the MonthThe work that we do to improve public education is only possible thanks to the support of our activists and advocates – the parents, community members, students, and teachers who stand up and speak up.

Congratulations to longtime Tukwila School Board Member Mary Fertakis, June 2016 Activist of the Month, who has spent more than two decades fighting for people who have been marginalized – denied opportunity by race, place of birth, or government. Read more

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Candidate Forums

OSPI candidate forums are happening now until the November electionCandidates who want to lead Washington’s school system as its next Superintendent will speak at forums around the state. Current OSPI candidates include: Robin Fleming, Ron Higgins, Erin Jones, Chris Reykdal and David Spring. Learn more

The McCleary Task Force: What to Expect

LEVinar: The McCleary Task ForceThe Washington Supreme Court is fining the Legislature $100,000 a day for not fully funding public education. During this year’s session in Olympia, the Legislature passed a bill that created a task force to determine how to end the state’s over-reliance on local levies to pay teacher salaries and other components on basic education. But will the Court be satisfied? Watch here

Get Involved

COMING UP

July 19 and 21 | Every Student Succeeds Act: What You Need to Know, Online webinar

HELP SUPPORT THE LEAGUE OF EDUCATION VOTERS FOUNDATION | Donate online


League of Education Voters

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Activist of the Month: Mary Fertakis

At the League of Education Voters (LEV), we recognize all of the hard work that you do toward improving public education across Washington state. We are pleased to announce our Activist of the Month for June: Mary Fertakis.

June Activist of the Month Mary Fertakis in Senegal with Ibrahim N'Diaye, her village father
June Activist of the Month Mary Fertakis in Senegal with Ibrahim N’Diaye, her village father

For more than two decades, Tukwila School Board member Mary Fertakis has been fighting for people who have been marginalized – denied opportunity by race, place of birth, or government.

She first became involved with LEV in 2007, when simple majority for school levies was on the ballot. Mary worked on that issue through the Washington State School Directors Association before meeting LEV co-founder Lisa Macfarlane at Tyee High School in Sea-Tac. “The key for both WSSDA and LEV’s advocacy on that issue was separating levies from bonds,” Mary explains.

Mary has seen change happen when multiple groups from different sectors have been working on an issue separately and then converge, like the spokes of a wheel. Mary saw it most recently with early learning. She says, “UW research in early childhood, brain development, and I-LABS, plus the health and early learning communities, non-profits/funders, and K-12 education leaders all got the message out. Each entity had a touch point so different audiences could connect with why it’s important.” And she saw the result in a recent, successful Tukwila School District bond measure that included a Birth to 5 center.

The education world has been with Mary throughout her life. Her father taught in the Seattle School District and her mother was a scientist, running the University of Washington’s pathology lab for years. She credits her parents for instilling values that are important to her. They discussed weighty issues, took her to the fire station when they voted (in every election), and exposed her to different cultures through travel and the UW’s international students who worked in the lab. She grew up in Seattle when social justice issues made regular headlines and her family was part of activist efforts through the faith community to re-settle Hmong and Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s.

But joining the Peace Corps to work in Senegal for 2½ years affected her most deeply. “That’s when I saw firsthand how education can break the cycle of poverty,” Mary says. She lived in a village about 2 miles from the border of The Gambia, “the middle of nowhere,” and focused on rural development. Her program’s goal was to help village communities build a self-sustaining infrastructure where none had existed. “I learned what you need for a community to become self-sustaining.”

Mary wrote 11 grants and every grant got funded, which allowed her village to build a school, dig a well, start a health hut, build fuel-efficient stoves, engage in reforestation efforts, ensure that every family compound and the school had a latrine, build a grain storage facility, and create a 1-hectare garden that improved access to food and spawned micro-enterprise, with the excess produce sold at the weekly market in The Gambia. She even brought in a millet-pounding machine, which saved village women significant time on a daily chore and was an income source as women from surrounding villages paid to use it. The combination of freeing up the women’s time and creating an income source enabled them to launch a tie-dying business. Mary says, “It could not have been more perfect.”

Transitioning back to the U.S. was hard. It took a year for her to not feel nauseated when she walked into a grocery store. “I couldn’t handle an entire aisle of cereal boxes,” Mary explains. “Senegal is a drought county. When the villagers didn’t eat, I didn’t eat. Seeing so much food was overwhelming.”

Everything she’s been able to do since that experience has been icing on the cake. Mary has had the unique privilege, by the time she was 27, of knowing that she made a difference in the world. She and her husband provided some financial support for one of her village brothers to attend college – the first person from the village to do so. He graduated and now teaches in a town with Internet access, which has given her a way to stay in touch with her village. She took her oldest son to visit when he was 5 years old, and longs for the day she can take her youngest son to meet his Senegalese family.

Living in Tukwila, Mary feels like she’s still having the Peace Corps experience. She empathizes with the challenges of many of the district’s students and their families – what it feels like to be dropped into a foreign culture and having to deal with full immersion. “It’s exhausting,” she says. “People here don’t understand how long it takes to learn another language, what the cultural norms are, and many of the basics of everyday life in a different culture.”

Mary had no idea she would still be on the Tukwila School Board more than 20 years after first running for office in 1995. She has watched the district change dramatically, shifting from a majority Caucasian, blue-collar, Boeing town to an ethnically-diverse school district where Caucasians are now the minority. She found it incredibly helpful that she had the experience of living in a Muslim country. Bosnians first arrived in Tukwila, then Somali refugees. Mary was able to help incorporate Muslim cultural issues like Ramadan, food, and health concerns into district awareness and policy.

At some point in her busy life, Mary wants to write a children’s picture book based on an experience during her time in Senegal that she shares with students when she does presentations and is explaining the concept of “world view.” In her village, which still has no electricity, nights are pitch dark with an explosion of stars. Her mother sent a book of constellations so she could learn about them. Mary told her village father that it contained drawings of what is in the sky and asked if they had something similar in their culture. When he responded, “yes” she pointed out the Big Dipper, describing it, in Wolof, as “a box with a stick coming out of it – we call that the Big Spoon.” Her father looked at it, and after a few moments, said that he saw that image – and that they call that cluster of stars the Elephant. After a few moments, she was able to see that also (the Dipper handle is the trunk, the rest of the constellation are its legs). Mary says, “So here we were, looking at the same thing and seeing something completely different based on our life experience.”

Now, when Mary gazes at the night sky in Tukwila, sometimes she looks at the Big Dipper and sometimes she looks at the Elephant.

Summary of Opportunity Gap House Bill 1541

Governor Jay Inslee signs Opportunity Gap House Bill 1541 into law, with (l-r) Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos and Rep. Tina Orwall
Governor Jay Inslee signs Opportunity Gap House Bill 1541 into law, with (l-r) Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos and Rep. Tina Orwall

Thanks to the passage of House Bill 1541, students will no longer be suspended or expelled for discretionary offenses, and better statewide data on student demographics will ensure that the system is working to keep all students on track and in school.  All students suspended or expelled will receive educational services and school staff will be provided with new trainings that are sensitive to culture and positively support all students’ growth.

Summary of 4SHB 1541

Student Discipline

• Districts must annually disseminate discipline policies, procedures and data to students, families, and community.
• Districts must periodically review and update discipline rules, policies, and procedures.
• The Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) must develop a model policy by December 1, 2016:

  • School districts must adopt policy consistent with the WSSDA model by the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year.

• The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) must develop training for school staff on discipline policies and procedures (subject to appropriations).
• School districts are strongly encouraged to provide the trainings to all school and district staff.
• Prohibits the use of long-term suspension or expulsion as a form of discretionary discipline:

  • Defines “discretionary discipline” as an action taken that is NOT in response to a weapons offense, gang activity, defacing school property, violent offense, sexual offense, drug and alcohol offense, (these offenses come with mandatory disciplinary actions), or behavior that “adversely impacts the health and safety of other students or staff.”

• School districts may not suspend educational services as a form of discipline.
• School districts must provide an opportunity for students to receive educational services when suspended or expelled:

  • Alternative settings must be comparable, equitable, and appropriate to the regular education services the student would have received.

• Expulsions may only be the length of an academic term, as defined by the school board.
• School districts must convene a re-engagement plan meeting no later than 5-days before a student’s re-enrollment after a long-term suspension or expulsion:

  • Families must have access to a culturally sensitive and responsive re-engagement plan and process.

• The Washington State Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) must produce a regular report on the outcomes of youth in the juvenile justice system.

Educator Cultural Competence

• WSSDA must develop a plan for the creation and delivery of cultural competency training to school board directors and superintendents.
• OSPI must incorporate cultural competence training into Teacher/Principal Evaluation Program (TPEP) training.
• OSPI must develop an outline for professional development and training for school staff, including classified staff (subject to appropriation).
• School Improvement Grant (SIG), Required Action District (RAD), priority, and focus schools are encouraged to provide cultural competency training for classified, certificated, and administrative staff.

English Language Learners

• By the 2019-2020 school year, all classroom teachers funded with Transitional Bilingual Instructional Program (TBIP) funds must be endorsed in either bilingual education or English Language Learner (ELL) instruction.
• OSPI will provide districts with technical assistance and support in selecting program models, instructional materials, and professional development for serving English Language Learners (subject to appropriation).
• OSPI shall identify the schools in the top 5% of schools with the highest growth in ELL populations, and notify and encourage the schools and districts to provide cultural competence professional development.

Student Data

• Beginning 2017-2018, all data collected and reported by school districts and OSPI must be disaggregated according to the federal subracial and subethnic categories, including:

  • Black students by African origin or native to US with African ancestors
  • Asian students by country of origin
  • White students by Eastern European nationalities
  • Multiracial students by the racial and ethnic combination of categories

• OSPI shall convene a task force to develop guidance on race and ethnicity reporting (subject to appropriation).
• Reduces the reportable size of a student group to 10 students, instead of 20 students.
• OSPI must develop data protocols and guidance for school districts and modify the student data system as needed.
• OSPI must incorporate training for school staff based on best practices for the collection of data on student race and ethnicity in other training or professional development (PD).

Recruitment and Retention of Educators

• To the extent data is available, OSPI must collect and make available on the Internet teacher demographic data by district.
• To the extent data is available, OSPI must collect and make available on the Internet teacher average length of service data by district.

Transitions

• The Department of Early Learning must work with OSPI to create a community information and involvement plan for home-based, tribal, and family early learning providers on the Early Achievers program.

Integrated Student Services and Family Engagement

• Establishes the Washington Integrated Student Supports Protocol (WISSP), which will (subject to appropriation):

  • Coordinate academic and non-academic supports.
  • Encourage the creation and expansion of community-based supports that can be integrated into the academic environment of schools.
  • Increase public awareness that academic outcomes are the result of academic and nonacademic factors.

• The WISSP will include:

  • Needs assessments for all at-risk students to identify the academic and non-academic supports needed.
  • Schools and districts must develop close relationships with providers of academic and non-academic supports and community partnerships.
  • Tracking of student needs and outcome data.

• OSPI shall establish a workgroup to determine how to best implement the WISSP framework (subject to appropriation):

  • Submit a report to the Legislature by October 1, 2017 on policies that need to be adopted or revised to implement the WISSP framework

• Reestablishes the Center for Improved Student Learning (CISL) at OSPI (subject to appropriation).

 

Summary of HB 1541 (PDF)

 

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Our View on NPR’s School Money Education Funding Series, Part 3

By the LEV Policy TeamNPR School Money series part 2

The third and final installment of NPR’s School Money series asks the question, “is there a better way to pay for schools?” The piece explores some of the challenges states have faced in school funding, such as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights in Colorado, and three potential areas to change funding systems: property taxes, local control, and federal funding. The article is wide-ranging and does not offer specific proposals for reform. Ultimately readers are encouraged to engage in a dialogue, looking at the different needs of students in schools, and take a common view of students in their states and across the nation to address disparities in school funding.

The property tax section tells the story of Wyoming. In response to a court decision that ordered the legislature to “treat the wealth of the state as a whole,” the state increased and redistributed funding for schools, taking property tax revenue from districts with high property values and using it in districts with lower property values. However, while this system provides more funding for districts that cannot generate the same amount of money as wealthier districts, it does not take into consideration student need. This may be one of the reasons that the increase in funding has not resulted in an increase in student achievement. Increased investments need to be targeted to students if additional funding is to impact student outcomes, as we saw here. In Washington, we must be intentional about how we invest the new dollars for McCleary. We cannot simply put more money into a system that is not meeting the needs of so many of Washington’s students, particularly students of color and students living in poverty. Systems change and investment need to happen at the same time.

The California local control story offers an example of how resources can be targeted to the students that need them most. California provides additional resources based on student needs at the school level. The principal and the school community, including parents, then decide how to best spend those additional dollars. With this flexibility and local control also comes increased accountability—the principal is evaluated on student achievement, parent engagement, and school climate to ensure that the increased investments are being spent in ways that improve student outcomes. While it is very early in the implementation of California’s new funding model, the principles of student-focused investments, school level accountability according to multiple measures, and transparency in the budgeting process are all important considerations as we invest new resources into Washington’s schools.

While the NPR series has highlighted that money matters, and more importantly, how we use money matters, it has also illuminated that there is no single fix to the school funding issues plaguing most states. We may learn from the experiences of other states, but as we move forward to address our own inadequate and inequitable funding systems we will have to engage each other to find our own way. We need to view every student in Washington as our own student, not just the student that lives in our district. We must also understand that different students will require different levels of resources to access the same educational opportunities. Increased funding is not by definition equitable funding. We need to invest in every student with the intention of providing equal opportunity to learn, which will require viewing money as a tool, not an end in itself. If we keep the student at the center of our work, we have the potential to leverage the McCleary investments to provide equitable resources based on student needs and to begin to close opportunity gaps.

Education Advocate May 2016

ED Advocate, League of Education Voters Newsletter, May 2016

Greetings

Chris Korsmo
Chris Korsmo, CEO

It’s a glorious spring week and we’re busy gearing up for next year’s big discussion about how to address funding basic education across the state.  First, we’re exploring what should be included in the definition of basic education.  We welcome your input on what you think should be prioritized.  To that end, we’ll be hosting a series of FREE Lunchtime LEVinars throughout the spring and summer to highlight this meaty topic.

Our first LEVinar happens next Tuesday, May 17 at 12:30pm.  Our Policy team will share what we can expect from the Legislature’s McCleary Task Force, moderated by State Field Director Kelly Munn.  Register HERE.

Thank you to everyone who participated in GiveBIG last week!  Although there were some technical glitches that impacted the day, we still raised important funds that will help us ensure that our kids who need more support get the resources they need.

Thanks for all you do for kids. We couldn’t do it without you.

Chris Korsmo signature

 

 

Chris Korsmo

Thank You for Giving BIG!

Seattle Foundation's GiveBIG Day, 05.03.16 and 05.04.16We’d like to give a special shout-out to the Aurora Lilac Fund, Anonymous, Lisa Jaret, Betsy Johnson, Erin Kahn, Arik Korman, Amy Liu, Kelly Norton, Laurel Preston and Sharon Rodgers!

Any amount was appreciated and no gift was too small!

Thank you for giving big to LEV!

LEV’s Activist of the Month

Nancy Chamberlain (L) and Wendy Reynolds are May Activists of the Month
Nancy Chamberlain (L) and Wendy Reynolds

At the League of Education Voters (LEV), we recognize all of the hard work that you do toward improving public education across Washington state. We are pleased to announce our Activists of the Month for May: Nancy Chamberlain and Wendy Reynolds.

Read about how Nancy and Wendy harnessed the power of social media as an advocacy tool in their community. Read more

FREE Lunchtime LEVinar Tuesday, May 17

FREE Lunchtime LEVinar May 17, 2016LEV Policy Team members Julia Warth and Jake Vela will answer your questions on what the McCleary Task Force will do and what it won’t do.  Moderated by our State Field Director, Kelly Munn. 

When: Tuesday, May 17, 2016 at 12:30 pm.
Register here

Get Involved

COMING UP

May 17 | Lunchtime LEVinar on the McCleary Task Force


HELP SUPPORT THE LEAGUE OF EDUCATION VOTERS FOUNDATION
| Donate online


League of Education Voters

League of Education Voters2734 Westlake Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
206.728.6448
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Activist of the Month: Nancy Chamberlain and Wendy Reynolds

At the League of Education Voters (LEV), we recognize all of the hard work that you do toward improving public education across Washington state. We are pleased to announce our Activists of the Month for May: Nancy Chamberlain and Wendy Reynolds.

Nancy Chamberlain (L) and Wendy Reynolds are the May Activists of the Month
Nancy Chamberlain (L) and Wendy Reynolds are the May Activists of the Month

Nancy Chamberlain and Wendy Reynolds started a Facebook page about the Northshore School District that has grown from 10 members to nearly 1500 in less than a year.  It’s become a lively forum for parents to ask questions and share opinions about topics ranging from school power outages to gender-neutral bathrooms, how money is spent in the district and grade reconfiguration due to the arrival of a new high school.

Nancy became a LEV activist in 2007, when her daughter was in first grade.  Nancy says, “I first met (LEV State Field Director) Kelly Munn when she came to a friend’s house to talk about education funding and how our state’s school system wasn’t attracting people to move here to work for Microsoft.”  Since then, she has been a regular at school board meetings and has worked on several standing district committees, such as the curriculum committee and start time task force.

Wendy met LEV CEO Chris Korsmo through a family relative.  Wendy says, “My son’s half-day kindergarten class had 32 students and his teacher felt she couldn’t do anything about it.  Chris hooked me up with Kelly Munn and I’ve been involved with LEV ever since.  My son is in sixth grade now.”

Nancy and Wendy’s Facebook experience began when Wendy worked on a page dealing with Northshore School District start times.  The group had less than 100 people involved and was focused on a single issue until Sharon Taubel, LEV’s January 2015 Activist of the Month, put up an article about a different topic.  “That gave Wendy the idea to start a page involving broader education themes,” says Nancy.

Right now, the Northshore School District discussion group’s main focus is preserving the Junior High Challenge Program, which provides a more rigorous curriculum for all students.  Nancy says, “We need to make sure our kids have what they need to go to a four-year college.  Our district is geared to start algebra in 9th grade, which means many students don’t get calculus in high school.”  Nancy is encouraging concerned parents to email the school board and students are circulating petitions to save the program.

When asked about her vision for the Facebook page, Wendy says, “I want to work with the district to make the Northshore School District #1 in the state.  I’ve seen a lot of little changes over the years but the biggest thing is that people are paying attention now.  Social media makes it easier to get information out.”

And Nancy’s goal focuses on parental engagement.  In her words, “It’s all about getting new parents involved.  I’m using the Facebook page to tell people what’s really going on.”

Our View on NPR’s School Money Education Funding Series, Part 2

By the LEV Policy TeamNPR School Money series part 2

On Monday, NPR published the second installment of the “School Money” series. The series aims to illustrate the complexity of the school funding system and examines how money matters to educational outcomes.

The second installment focuses on one essential question: What difference can a dollar make in our schools? Through examples of various education reform efforts across the country, the article attempts to shed light on the ongoing debate of what matters more—the amount of money spent on education or how the money is spent.

The education funding stories of Camden, New Jersey and Revere, Massachusetts are two examples featured. The article highlights the large amount of money that has been invested in Camden’s educational system with limited improvements s in student outcomes. The district’s per pupil spending is nearly double the national average, with the majority of the additional funds going towards combating poverty and educational necessities that have been historically underfunded. In comparison, Revere, MA received additional funding and invested the funds in people—teacher recruitment, professional development, new teaching materials and a technology team. And the results? Massachusetts has moved from ranking in the middle of the pack for student achievement to the top.

The objective of these two examples and the other cases that were sprinkled throughout the piece (early learning and investments in English Learner programs), is to demonstrate that while the amount of money does matter, how that money is spent is equally as important. How effective the investment strategies are also depends greatly on the challenges, political landscapes, and needs in each state, district, and school.  It’s important to remember that whenever tracking the effectiveness of investments we must start at the beginning and not the end (outcomes). Years of systemic discrimination and oppression become more apparent when we begin to invest in schools and districts that have been underfunded for years. To that point, a couple of years or even decades of more investments, even if they are intentional and targeted, will not fix hundreds of years of inequality overnight. But money matters, especially for low income students. The investments need to be stable and sustained and reflective of community needs.

Our View on NPR’s School Money Education Funding Series

NPR School Money series

By the LEV Policy Team

On Monday, NPR launched the first installment of a three week series on education funding. The series is highlighting disparities between states and between districts within the same state. This story shows that Washington is one of many states working towards adequately funding schools and ensuring students who need more support get more support.

This article brings attention to how the local and state share of education funding is generated and why different schools generate different levels of funding support. This point rings especially true for Washington, as it is the over-reliance on school district levies to provide basic education that was a key element of the McCleary Supreme Court ruling in 2012.

According to the article, Washington ranks behind 38 states in the level of funding support for K-12 schools at $9,383 per student. One challenge in comparing per-student spending across states is that the most recent data available is often three years old, making even new ranking lists not reflective of recent changes in education funding. The data used in this analysis is from the 2012-13 school year. For Washington, this means that it does not include any of the $3.2 billion of new investments dedicated to basic education over the last two budget cycles. Including the recent enhancements will boost per-pupil funding amounts in Washington by more than 10% over the per-student amount included in this article.

Washington still has substantial progress to make in fully funding basic education, but it has made significant strides in recent years that are not reflected in the per-student funding ranking of states in the NPR article. It is important to both acknowledge the progress Washington has made in funding education and continue to strongly advocate for equitable and ample education funding.

Op-Ed: Washington’s community, technical colleges can bridge the skills gap

Published in today’s Puget Sound Business Journal

Dr. Amy Morrison Goings is the President of Lake Washington Institute of Technology
Dr. Amy Morrison Goings is the President of Lake Washington Institute of Technology
Chris Korsmo, CEO, League of Education Voters
Chris Korsmo

By Dr. Amy Morrison Goings, President of Lake Washington Institute of Technology, and Chris Korsmo, CEO, League of Education Voters

Recently, the League of Education Voters convened over 400 hundred of our neighbors to discuss the challenges around bridging our state’s skills gap. There are many theories being discussed as to why we are facing a lack of prepared talent across manufacturing and information technology sectors, to name a few. We believe Washington State’s chronic underfunding of public higher education, particularly our 34-member community and technical college system, is one of the reasons why we have these ongoing skills gaps.

The mission of the community and technical colleges is directly related to the viability of our state’s workforce. According to the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, from 2014-2015 Washington state community and technical colleges produced more than 45,000 college awards, including more than 10,000 associate’s degrees and nearly 300 applied baccalaureate degrees (four year degrees that are directly applicable to a graduate’s career aspirations).

Sixty five percent of all new jobs created in the next few years will require some form of a post-secondary credential. Not just a high school diploma and not necessarily a baccalaureate degree, but somewhere in-between. An associate’s degree, or a certificate backed by industry need, or an apprenticeship. Providing relevant, nimble, and industry connected workforce education is at the core mission and talent of the community and technical colleges.

 Even with the strong mission of our colleges, it’s becoming more difficult to close the skills gap, because community and technical colleges are not constitutionally protected in the same way as K12. Unfortunately, our colleges have not been financially supported through the Great Recession to the present day. In fact, today, community and technical colleges are funded per student at pre-2007 levels. Think about if you paid your employees, vendors and partners at 2007 levels. There would be gaps in service. The community and technical colleges are no different.

Those who work in the community and technical colleges system are advocates for the full funding of K12 and early learning, and work very closely with secondary partners to expose students, at an early age, to the two-year colleges. This partnership creates direct routes for students into career opportunities and earning potential that comes with technical preparation.

With that said, we believe most of us would agree that a “basic education” in the 21st century, must include early learning, a fully funded K12 system, and a post-secondary credential.

Through the support of the League of Education Voters, and the unmatched advocacy for K12, early learning, and higher education, especially the community and technical colleges, we will ensure that all Washingtonians can take full advantage of our growing economy and fully participate in the workforce.

We can’t do it alone. We need your help. Work with us to bridge the skills gap by engaging with a community or technical college. Our colleges have expert faculty who come from, and work in, industry, in addition to teaching. Programs have advisory committees that are comprised of business leaders from all different types of industry from aerospace and engineering, to game design and computer security, to welding and machine technology. Give to college foundations so that students have financial support through scholarships. And most importantly talk to your legislators about the value of our state’s community and technical colleges.

By partnering with advocates like the League of Education Voters, you will help send the message that we must fund K12 and stop the disinvestment in higher education. By doing this, we will all be able to give our state a fighting chance to bridge our growing skills gap.