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This afternoon,
the House Education Committee held a public hearing on HB 2500. HB
2500 is a companion bill to SB 6314, heard in the Senate Early
Learning & K-12 Education Committee on Wednesday. HB 2500 and SB 6314
would transfer lottery revenues, currently being used to finance the
Mariner’s stadium, to an arts education program after the stadium
bonds are paid off. The Committee also held a public hearing on HB
2523, which would create the position of World Language Supervisor
in the Office of Public Instruction.
The House Capital
Budget Committee held a work session and public hearing this afternoon
to review the recommendations of the Joint Task Force on School
Construction Funding. The original charge of the Task Force was to
conduct a comprehensive review and evaluation of school construction
funding and spending issues. Because of the complex nature of the job,
however, the Task Force collectively decided to divide the work into
two phases. The first phase of the effort culminated in
recommendations of the “low hanging fruit” related to school
construction — which were discussed today. The second phase, which
will begin immediately following the 2008 Legislative Session and
conclude prior to the 2009 session, will focus on how school
construction is funded in the state. Additionally, they plan on
reviewing all of the funding sources for school construction and may
provide recommendations regarding the need for additional
resources. WSSDA has been closely following the work of this Task
Force and we will continue to closely follow the Task Force
recommendations as they proceed through the legislative process. You
are encouraged to review the Task Force’s “Phase I” recommendations
(which can be found at:
http://www.leg.wa.gov/Joint/Committees/K12SCF/). If you have any
comments or concerns, please contact your WSSDA staff and/or your
local legislators.
Next week — the
second week of the 2008 Regular Legislative Session — is slated to be
a busy one, as most legislative committee slowly move away from work
sessions and get down to hearing and moving actual legislation. On
Monday, the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee will be
focusing on a series of bills related to the Washington Assessment of
Student Learning, including: a bill to authorize the use of a
segmented math assessment as an alternative to the WASL; a bill to
allow the use of multiple measures to meet high school graduation
requirements; and a bill to delay the use of the reading and writing
content areas of the WASL as a graduation requirement.
Later in the week,
Thursday, both the House Education and the Senate Early Learning &
K-12 Education Committees will hear updates on the status the State
Board’s and OSPI’s effort to revise the mathematics standards. If you
have not reviewed the report regarding the proposed math standards,
you are encouraged to do so. An updated report is scheduled to be
on-line on OSPI’s Web site (www.k12.wa.us)
on Monday, Jan. 21. |
