School Funding in Washington State

All of you students and parents and teachers who are upset about K-12 education being cut: if you think that these cuts constitute having less than an "ample provision" for education, then please tell Governor Gregoire that her proposed cuts violate the Constitution.

She would likely tell you that we need more revenues to continue to make that ample provision the Constitution requires. In fact, what the Constitution requires is, essentially, to make ample provision for education first, and pay for everything else afterward. So if anything else is being funded, then they have literally no excuse for not making ample provision for education. No extra revenues are required, as long as other expenditures exist.

The Democrats are trying to get kids and parents and teachers to hate on the Republicans and others who don't want to raise taxes, and to convince them that supporting tax increases is the only way to fully fund education. They are counting on you to be ignorant of their constitutional obligations. Don't let them get away with it!