Washington's Paramount Duty

Washington's Paramount Duty Non-partisan, grassroots group of parents and allies working to compel the state to amply fund basic education and swiftly fulfill its paramount duty.

Washington’s Paramount Duty is a non-partisan, grassroots group of parents and allies working to compel the state to amply fund basic education and swiftly fulfill its paramount duty. We envision a future where every child has equitable access to an amply funded basic education. Because Washington hasn’t met its constitutional duty to fully fund basic education, school districts and parents have w

orked to fill the financial shortfall through local levies and PTA fundraisers. Poorer areas are not able to fill the state’s shortfall, leading to further educational inequities. An amply funded, high quality education can help each child build a better life and contribute to society. Washington needs new revenue to ensure our schools are providing students with an excellent education. In a state that is home to world-class companies, we have the wealth to ensure every Washington student receives a world-class education. Every child in Washington has the right to:
• An amply funded, basic, K-12 education that is equitable, culturally sensitive and non-biased.
• A healthy and safe school, with qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and nutritious meals.
• A supportive environment that breaks down barriers for every student, regardless of situation or ability, including children of color, low-income families, immigrant families and LGBTQ students.
• A well-rounded curriculum, including art, music, drama, languages, technology and sports.
• The knowledge, skills and technology necessary for each child to thrive in the 21st Century. Washington has the most unfair tax system in the United States. Our tax system places a disproportionate burden on those with the lowest incomes. Our wealthiest individuals and largest corporations take home huge profits while we critically underfund education. We need dependable and regular revenue sources to fund our schools. Our new school funding needs to be:
• Ample – Sufficient to fund education and sustainable in economic upswings and downturns.
• Enough to safeguard important state priorities – We cannot fund K-12 education through cuts to other essential state services such as early learning, higher education, mental health care, etc.
• Equitable – While all schools need more funding, some need more than others. We need to invest in and expand upon existing legislation to close the opportunity gap for every child.
• Fair and reasonable – New revenue must be progressive—meaning the revenue must come primarily from the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations, who have not been paying their fair share.
• Transparent and accountable – Voters must be able to see that the funds designated for education go to schools and classrooms and are spent as promised.

Schools across Washington State are facing serious budget problems, the result of the legislature's failure to fund them...
10/18/2023

Schools across Washington State are facing serious budget problems, the result of the legislature's failure to fund them, and now students face cuts and even school closures. Washington's Paramount Duty is stepping up to mobilize the public to push legislators to act. Click this link to email all three of your legislators with the push of a single button. And you can edit the message that gets sent to tell the story of how cuts are already impacting your own school community.

The legislative session starts in January. They have at least three options for getting the revenue our schools need: use the extra unbudgeted capital gains tax money (at least $350M and likely closer to $500M), pass the wealth tax bill, close corporate tax loopholes -- or do some combination of the three. They should also eliminate the cap on special education funding, which would also go a long way toward helping students as well as district budgets.

Please send a message now, especially as legislators are starting to plan for the upcoming session. We can't sit back and let our schools collapse. Let's fight back!

Districts face major cuts and closures as the state legislature continues to deliberately and knowingly underfund public education, with state spending per pupil actually shrinking in recent years when adjusted for inflation.

We've never seen anything like this before: unprecedented shortages of staff have led some of our state's largest school...
11/12/2021

We've never seen anything like this before: unprecedented shortages of staff have led some of our state's largest school districts, including Seattle, Bellevue, and Kent, to cancel classes today. It's a sign that our schools need more help in this urgent moment.

Can you write to Governor Jay Inslee and your state legislators now and urge them to add hundreds of millions of dollars (at least) in more funding for our schools in the upcoming legislative session to meet these needs?

Schools across Washington State are not only having to cancel classes due to a shortage of teachers, many more have had to cancel school bus routes due to a shortage of drivers.

This isn't a new problem, and it's not the fault of teachers or drivers. These staffing shortages were well known to be problems before 2020. The coronavirus pandemic has made these problems a lot worse, but the ultimate cause is the failure of our state government to fulfill its paramount duty of fully and amply funding public education for Washington State's children.

Will you take a moment and write to Governor Inslee and your state legislators urging them to provide the funding needed to meet all the needs of our teachers and students in our public schools?

Staff shortages and unmet student needs are exacerbating the impact of the pandemic. More funding is urgently needed.

We have one week to win a big victory for our public schools.For more than five years Washington's Paramount Duty has be...
04/18/2021

We have one week to win a big victory for our public schools.

For more than five years Washington's Paramount Duty has been pushing the state to tax the rich and fund our public schools. Thanks to the House Finance Committee, we're closer than ever to that goal.

Last Friday the House Finance Committee approved ESSB 5096, the capital gains tax bill which had already passed the Senate. The committee made a few small changes, including dedicating all the revenue to the Education Legacy Trust Account -- which includes our K-12 public schools!

This is urgent since many districts still face the prospect of huge cuts this fall, which would both violate the constitution as well as hurt our students as they seek to recover from the pandemic. The legislature had been considering bills that would have also provided policy changes to backfill lost funding, including for transportation. Those bills were adopted, but stripped of most of the language that would have helped backfill funding. Instead, that's going to have to happen as part of the final budget.

It's unclear right now how that final budget, which has to pass by Sunday, April 25, will look. The State Senate included hundreds of millions of dollars to backfill lost funds for schools. The State House's budget did not, and assumed districts would use federal stimulus funds for that (which isn't what Biden or Congress intended). But that could change for the better, with pressure from constituents like you and me.

We also don't know what the Senate will do with the House's changes to the capital gains tax. Given all of this, as well as the fact that session ends on Sunday, we need to make one last strong push for a capital gains tax to fund our public schools.

Can you take a moment and write a letter to your legislators urging them to fully fund our public schools, including a capital gains tax? Your messages have made a big difference so far, let's keep a strong push going for the next week ahead!

Our schools are in crisis. A capital gains tax is key to meeting the need.

This may well be our last, most important chance to avert budget cuts for the fall in many schools across the state -- a...
04/08/2021

This may well be our last, most important chance to avert budget cuts for the fall in many schools across the state -- and help provide educators and districts with the resources they need to help our students recover from the pandemic.

The State Senate's proposed budget includes hundreds of millions of dollars to backfill lost revenues for school districts. But the State House's proposed budget doesn't. Instead, the House wants districts to use federal stimulus funds for that instead, which isn't the purpose of the stimulus funds in the first place. Districts should not have to choose between health and safety on the one hand, and keeping teachers in the classroom on the other.

The legislature is also debating legislation such as ESHB 1476 that would help provide districts with more flexibility in calculating enrollment for the upcoming school year, as well as levy flexibility that would allow them to collect more revenue. They're also considering policy changes to fully fund transportation.

And the legislature is debating several wealth taxes, including a capital gains tax, that could help provide long-term funding for our schools and pay for things like smaller class sizes, family and student support, and early childhood learning.

We need the legislature to address all of this. The votes on the final budget are coming up soon, but legislators are debating behind the scenes right now about what the final package will look like. Can you tell them to pass a budget that will prevent cuts and fund our public schools?! Thank you!

Our schools are in crisis. A capital gains tax is key to meeting the need.

ACTION ALERT!! The State Senate is likely to vote *tomorrow* on SB 5096, the capital gains tax that would raise hundreds...
03/06/2021

ACTION ALERT!! The State Senate is likely to vote *tomorrow* on SB 5096, the capital gains tax that would raise hundreds of millions of $$ each year for education. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's unclear the votes are there to pass it -- and Senators might remove the "emergency clause," and doing so would allow Tim Eyman to try and repeal it at the November election.

At the same time, many districts across the face are staring at budget cuts next fall or in future years thanks in part to the effects of the pandemic. The legislature is considering taking federal stimulus funds and using it to try and replace lost state revenues. That would force districts to make cuts, which would be a disaster.

A capital gains tax could help fund smaller class sizes, a nurse at every school, family support workers and programs, PPE and ventilation retrofits, and other things needed to equitably and safely provide a better education than they were receiving before the pandemic hit.

By clicking here you can send an email to State Senators urging them to both pass SB 5096 as well as provide the financial and legal flexibility districts need to avoid cuts this fall. Please act now -- the capital gains tax vote is likely to happen on Saturday!

Our schools are in crisis. A capital gains tax is key to meeting the need.

California has a budget *surplus* right now precisely because it taxes the rich and has a capital gains tax. Imagine wha...
01/17/2021

California has a budget *surplus* right now precisely because it taxes the rich and has a capital gains tax. Imagine what we could do for Washington's schools with a similar surplus. Smaller class sizes, a nurse at every school, plenty of resources on site to support students and families as they recover from the pandemic, and so much more.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday unveiled a $164.5 billion budget for the next fiscal year, detailing how he plans to spend a $15 billion surplus that the state has accumulated despite the pandemic-induced recession that’s left thousands of businesses shuttered and 1.5 million people sti...

This is a stunning op-ed and a must read. The authors, two small business owners, make a critically important point that...
10/29/2020

This is a stunning op-ed and a must read. The authors, two small business owners, make a critically important point that will matter a great deal for all of us in January when it comes time to push our legislators to tax the rich to support public schools and other crucial services needed to recover from a pandemic:

"For years, powerful business interests like chambers of commerce, the Washington Hospitality Association, and others have used small businesses as a political football, threatening that restaurants would be forced to close if we raised the minimum wage, or if we passed paid sick leave, or if we raised overtime standards, or adopted secure scheduling procedures. Those threats were amplified by politicians and conservative media outlets who wanted to appear concerned about neighborhood businesses when they really just wanted to keep more money in the hands of the wealthy. Today, small businesses are shuttering around Seattle, people are losing their jobs, and these same organizations have quietly looked the other way.
Those powerful interests who wept and gnashed their teeth about the precarious state of small business in Seattle and elsewhere are nowhere to be found now—or at least, they’re too busy advocating for corporations and their wealthy friends to stand up on our behalf. That’s because organizations like the Association of Washington Business, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the Washington Hospitality Association know the policies we need run counter to their dogmatic anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-government politics."

In January we will hear from leaders of those same organizations, as well as groups like the WA Realtors and others, that our agenda to tax the rich and support public schools is somehow damaging to their members. But as this op-ed reminds us, they're not actually speaking for their members. They're speaking for themselves, and their own ideological preferences. Small businesses, independent businesses, hospitality businesses, realtors, and others generally agree that we need good public schools, that we especially need them as we battle this pandemic, and that we need progressive taxation to fund them.

Please read this and share it widely!

By Debra Russell and Jessica Tousignant The lockdown was a necessary step in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, but we couldn’t predict what it would mean for businesses. Restaurant …

We strongly agree with Sen. Joe Nguyen here, who is stepping up with bold leadership against budget cuts and calling on ...
09/05/2020

We strongly agree with Sen. Joe Nguyen here, who is stepping up with bold leadership against budget cuts and calling on legislators to make fiscal decisions with an equity mindset and an eye toward the whole economy and the needs of the state -- including schools. What he says here is spot on:

"Not only is austerity not monetarily sufficient to lead us out of this crisis — but it is not just or equitable. The upcoming budget decisions must be augmented with a strategy for implementing new progressive revenue streams, and with an eye towards protecting critical services."

We urge all legislators, regardless of party, to sign on. Every community in this state, and especially every public school in this state, has a stake in preventing budget cuts and instead taxing the rich.

Senator Joe Nguyen of the 34th Legislative District (White Center) has launched a petition calling for the State Legislature and Governor’s office to reject an austerity approach in upcoming budget discussions. The petition stipulates that signees “call on both chambers of the Washington State L...

It's clear we can't reopen classrooms safely right now.As distance learning is happening again this fall in communities ...
07/28/2020

It's clear we can't reopen classrooms safely right now.

As distance learning is happening again this fall in communities across the state due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, districts need more resources to provide remote instruction equitably and support families, learning from the mistakes and failures of the spring. Otherwise inequities will get even worse, especially as families with privilege turn to their own personal solutions.

The state legislature is not likely to meet again until January. But right now, Congress is debating a new stimulus bill that could include funding for our schools and families. So for the first time, WPD is mobilizing to press Washington's Congressional delegation to make sure that the stimulus includes at least $200 billion to help deliver equitable instruction and support families during this crisis.

Can you help by sending a message to Congress today? This is urgent -- a vote could happen later this week!

Congress can help make distance learning easier and more equitable -- if they act now.

This is written by a teacher in Sedro-Woolley and we strongly agree with her -- educators should not be asked to risk th...
07/19/2020

This is written by a teacher in Sedro-Woolley and we strongly agree with her -- educators should not be asked to risk their lives in order to teach our students.

Instruction this fall needs to happen safely and equitably, and often that didn't happen in the spring, especially the equitable part. We need our state and federal governments to step in and provide all resources needed to meet the needs of educators, parents, and students this fall, especially if in-person schooling is not possible due to public health concerns.

Look for more this week from WPD on that and a call to action. If schools are having to go to a distance model again, it has to be done better than before. And that requires a lot more resources to be successful.

If I’m asked to return, I’ll have to walk away.

Can you take a moment and click here to write to the governor and your legislators urging them to not make budget cuts a...
05/22/2020

Can you take a moment and click here to write to the governor and your legislators urging them to not make budget cuts and instead protect services and add funding for schools and services during this crisis?

The pandemic has led to a budget crisis, and the governor and legislators are deciding what to do. If they make huge cuts, it will cripple student learning for onths and years to come, will make inequities worse, hurt people, and set back the fight against the coronavirus. All of the proposals for student learning in the fall, whether distance or in person, will fail without additional aid, and especially if there are cuts.

There are a group of legislators who oppose cuts and want to do the right thing and tax the rich, and use other tools like the budget stabilization account and borrowing, to get us through the crisis. But they need all of us to speak up right now, as key discussions are already happening behind the scenes.

This is an even more critical moment for our schools, our kids, and our communities than anything we saw during the McCleary case. Thank you for taking the time to write. And then share this with everyone you know.

The governor and legislature could devastate student learning and public health for years to come -- or they could step up and tax the rich.

Our public schools and our children's education has suffered enough during the necessary closures to protect public heal...
04/25/2020

Our public schools and our children's education has suffered enough during the necessary closures to protect public health and stop a pandemic. We cannot allow those steps to lead to permanent, lasting, irreversible damage to children and schools.

But that's what will happen if Olympia pursues budget cuts. It is unacceptable to cut funding for public schools, or higher education, or social services (the latter two being specifically singled out by Inslee's budget director in this article for cuts). It is particularly galling that the governor's office and legislators would look to devastating cuts, rather than tax the billionaires who live here or the mega-corporations that are getting even richer during this crisis.

WPD has consistently rejected the idea that we should fund public schools at the expense of other priorities. They all matter. A hungry child will struggle to learn. Slashing higher education funding means we will be denying our kids a future.

It won't be easy to find the new funding, through a mixture of taxes on the rich and borrowing, to stave off cuts. But it's necessary work. This is a crossroads moment for our state. We stand ready to work with legislators and the governor to find and implement creative solutions to avoid cuts, to fund our schools and other programs, and rally public support for those efforts. But we also stand ready to fight hard against any effort to slash spending. Even Inslee himself admitted in a March press conference that the Great Depression ended with government spending. Don't accept the belief that cuts are necessary. They're not. And it's our job to stop them.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Even once Washington’s economy fully reopens, the effect on state revenues from the coronavirus shutdown is expected to be felt for months and maybe years to...

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