SERIES | Back to School: Big 5 Legislative Priorities to Fully Fund Our Schools

by Oliver Miska

The state's premiere expert in school finance policy, University of Washington (UW) Professor David Knight, co-published a report in July that laid out what he calls the "Big 5" legislative priorities to fully and equitably fund our schools.

What is significant about his plan is that it disrupts what our lawmakers have prioritized for education for the upcoming legislative session. Luckily for them, they have until January 2025 to come up with new legislation or reintroduce bills that failed last session.

Knight's Big 5 challenges our state lawmakers, agencies, and education associations' growing consensus around what they call the "Big 3," calling their plan insufficient.

Rather than dismissing the Big 3, Knight and progressive-revenue advocates have a vision for equitable funding that addresses systemic inequities of our funding model. Knight builds on the Big 3, which includes:

1. Increasing special education funding;
2. Fulfilling K—12 transportation needs; and
3. Adjusting materials and administrative costs for inflation.

Knight's Big 5 goes further, adding:

4. Increasing equitable allocation of funds to higher-poverty districts; and
5. Passing progressive revenue so our school funding doesn't continue to come from a regressive tax structure.

At its core, the Big 5 means taxing the rich to fully and equitably fund our K-12 schools.

But few legislators have reported having an "appetite" for these changes this year, despite record deficits, looming school closures and layoffs, and increased calls for systemic changes.

In the face of political apathy from status-quo Democrats, a growing statewide coalition of rank-and-file educators, youth, parents, and community members is putting pressure on our legislature to take action on the Big 5 in January. They've launched a pledge campaign to call on legislators to pass the Big 5 this session.

Breaking the System, From the Ivory Tower

The Big 3 started when the Washington Association of School Administrators (WASA) published its 2025 Legislative Priorities. WASA is the official body of all the state's local district superintendents and district administrators and one of the few powerbrokers of education policy. Consensus among the power players is seen as a prerequisite for making significant policy changes in the legislature. When the state's expert in school finance comes out in defiance of the power players, it marks an existential crisis for our state Legislature to find consensus.

In the new report, Knight, along with a handful of other UW experts, provides 30 pages of loving critique after presenting in July at a two-day summit to superintendents from around the state. The goal of the summit was for superintendents to develop a five-year plan for improving the school finance system with the advice of experts from UW, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), and EdFund, a national nonprofit policy advocacy organization.

The report deviates from the superintendents' plan in the recommendations and findings sections, introducing the Big 5.

The report confirms: "Washington's school districts are characterized by significant racial and socioeconomic segregation, but the state lacks any substantial funding program to provide additional services in schools with larger concentrations of student poverty."

Currently, our school funding system depends on local levies (property taxes) combined with state property taxes. As a result, districts like Mercer Island are able to raise $13,154.08 on median home values, at a 6.88% property tax rate, while higher-poverty, lower-property-value districts like Tukwila raise $5,344.70 at a 10.78% property tax rate. Not only does Tukwila generate less money, but it is also burdened by a greater percentage of property tax. This is a systematic and statewide issue.

The report considers the Learning Assistance Program (LAP) "the state's only general fund program that specifically supports students living in poverty." The report concludes with recommendations to "increasing funding for [the] Learning Assistance Program (LAP), or replacing it with a student poverty funding weight."

The report details one more easy-to-remember acronym: LEA, or Local Effort Assistance, a policy that is widely seen as another equity measure that it says "would ameliorate this disparity although larger scale changes to the levy system may be necessary in the longer term." This is a topic we will dive deeper into in Education Finance 101, the fourth article in this series, coming in mid-September.

Despite having a blueprint toward equity, legislators and local superintendents from wealthier cities seem only willing to pass policy that will benefit their districts.

Legislator's Appetite for the Big 5 Stymied by Competing Interests

During the last legislative session, Sen. T'wina Nobles, vice chair of the Senate Early Learning & K—12 Education Committee, introduced SB 6253, a bill that would have brought more money to students in higher-poverty school districts. Tukwila School Board Director Dave Larson, alongside Knight, expressed support for this policy last session, as it would have expanded LAP.

Unfortunately, Sen. Lisa Wellman, the Senate Early Learning & K—12 Education Committee chair, did not bring SB 6253 up for a hearing, forcing the bill to die. Committee appointments have not been finalized for the coming session, a process that happens in the fall and shapes much of what is possible during the session.

Knight's report provides insightful commentary on the competing interests at play with Noble's LAP bill: Wealthier districts with high property values and higher-poverty districts with low property values are in opposition with one another when it comes to policy.

The report shows that increasing LAP "would benefit high-poverty districts like Kent and Tukwila, but would provide little benefit for districts serving the wealthier families, such as the Anacortes or Bainbridge Island School Districts, which serve approximately one-quarter the percent of low-income students of Kent and Tukwila."

This report helps illuminate why a Mercer Island senator from one of the wealthiest school districts might not support an expert-backed equity initiative.

Instead of supporting research-backed equity measures, Wellman, along with other Seattle legislators, like Sen. Jamie Pedersen, sponsored legislation that would have raised local levy limits as a quick fix that serves wealthier districts like Seattle and Mercer Island, but does not address systemic inequities. In the upcoming session, we have a chance to do better.

Knight's Big 5 makes the case for policy that will begin to address equity in allocation and, equally important, also stresses that revenue — our tax code — needs to change.

Equitable Funding Must Come From Equitable Revenue

Washington has the 49th most regressive tax code in the country, meaning our tax system burdens the working class and communities in poverty disproportionately, leaving the wealthy paying an inequitable amount of taxes.

We might go back to 50th if the results of the November election go in favor of the billionaire-backed Initiative 2109 campaign. With years of advocacy, studies, and coalition building, the Balance Our Tax Code (BOTC) coalition, made up of 100 organizations across Washington, is continuing the fight that started in the 1920s, when farmers and educators successfully passed an income tax in our state. Unfortunately, the State Supreme Court overturned the law in 1933, cementing our state into a regressive tax code ever since — a tax code that burdens higher-poverty districts and, therefore, higher-poverty students, who are disproportionately students of color.

We have the chance to change this structural inequity built into our tax code, starting this coming legislative session. Ahead of the session, BOTC will introduce a menu of progressive-revenue options to legislators, coming out after years of development, community engagement, and research. However, lawmakers are holding their breath during a big election year, awaiting the results of the November ballot and election.

Taxing the rich should be an easy sell when only Florida has a more regressive tax code, especially when it means fully funding our schools. But it might take organizing teachers, parents, youth, and community advocates to go to Olympia for a historic fight.

Rank-and-File Educators Pick Up the Mantle

The campaign to put pressure on local superintendents, school boards, and city councilmembers to take action on the Big 5 continues with the Seattle Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (SCORE), part of the Seattle Education Association (SEA). This campaign's first stops will be the Seattle Public Schools School Board and Seattle City Council in September, when both will decide their priorities and advise our legislative delegation in Seattle, covering roughly five legislative districts. Support from this delegation will be a litmus test for which of our Democratic legislators put the billionaire class's interests first. But they will need support from the east side of the state, echoing the partnership between educators and farmers in the 1920s.

Equality isn't equity, and yet Washington can't seem to achieve equality, let alone equity. This visualization of the difference is still relevant in 2024:

Professor Knight might be lighting the torch, but it is being carried by educators on the ground, hungry for equity.

Unions could organize to bring educators to Olympia for testimony and advocacy. They would be even more powerful with parents, youth, and advocates from across the state.

The question now is: Will our legislators take the pledge to tax the rich to fully fund our schools?

To track this story, keep reading our series. Education Finance 101, 102, and 103 will provide a further breakdown of state and district-level funding issues with experts, parents, and educators. We will provide pre-reading mid-September before Lesson No. 4: Education Finance 101 comes out.

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The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the contributors on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the Emerald or official policies of the Emerald.

Oliver Treanor Miska, 33, is a queer Seattleite, educator, community organizer, and lobbyist for educational justice policy in Washington State. Transitioning out of Seattle classrooms after six years, they recently founded Solidarity Policy and Public Affairs, a political consulting firm. As a community organizer, Oliver has held leadership roles within Seattle Democratic Socialist of America and Washington Ethnic Studies Now, where they co-lead a statewide legislative coalition. Oliver is organizing to advocate for progressive revenue and equitable distribution of education spending policy at the state Legislature. To contact them, email solidaritypolicywa@gmail.com

📸 Featured Image: Graphic created by Oliver Miska and the Emerald team.