Washington Policy Center: Paying more, getting less from Spokane Public Schools

By Chris Cargill

Wednesday night, the Spokane Public School board will likely approve the largest spending budget in district history. Sounds impressive, right? But if you’re a parent and taxpayer, it’s nothing to be excited about.

While working families in Spokane shell out more for public education, they are continually getting less. And the latest headlines only prove this disturbing fact.

You’ll have to excuse the parents who spit out their morning coffee last week when they read that Spokane Public Schools and the Spokane Education Association – the local teachers union – came to a new contract agreement that not only increases salaries by 5.5% for most staff but also shortens student learning time on one class day each week.

Every Monday in the upcoming school year for Spokane Public Schools will be late start. Every. Single. One.

The district claims the late starts “allow teachers time to work with colleagues around student learning and supports.”

Under last year’s teacher contract agreement in SPS, the district agreed to early release every other Friday afternoon. It must just be a coincidence that late starts and early releases always happen right around the weekend.

Following two years of COVID shutdowns and learning loss for students, one wonders why SPS and the teachers’ union thought it was a good idea to cut class time even more? Can this really be true? And better yet – why are Spokane parents OK with it?

State test scores show 70% of students are now failing to meet math standards, and 52% are failing to meet English requirements. Spending less time in the classroom will not improve these poor student outcomes.

But we’ve seen this move before by the teachers’ union. In fact, in the last Washington legislative session, the union pushed a bill to cancel an entire day from every school week – a 20% cut in student classroom time. That bill did not pass this time, but don’t think union executives are done pushing the concept.

The budget Spokane Public Schools will approve Wednesday night approaches nearly $550 million. It’s 30% higher than just five years ago, while the number of students enrolled in Spokane Public Schools will be 7% lower, according to district budget documents.

Last year, voters in Spokane Public Schools approved a new levy that increased the levy rate by 50%. That increase was on top of the major state funding hike approved by the state Legislature as part of the McCleary education lawsuit, and the approval voters gave to a roughly half-billion-dollar bond in 2018.

SPS – or any other district that is receiving more and serving fewer students – shouldn’t be reducing time in any class day, let alone once every week. Our students deserve better, especially following two years of educational disruption that resulted in plummeting results and a 13.5% drop in the number of students going to college.

Citizens wouldn’t accept these poor-quality results and scheduling games from any place in which they do business. They shouldn’t accept them from our public school leaders either.

Chris Cargill is the Eastern Washington director of Washington Policy Center, a nonprofit research organization based in Seattle. Online at washingtonpolicy.org. Members of the Cowles family, owners of The Spokesman-Review, have previously hosted fundraisers for the Washington Policy Center and sit on the organization’s board.