I-884: Empty Promises, Dishonest Rhetoric

The campaign website for I-884, the "Education Trust Fund Initiative" which aims to increase the state sales tax by a billion dollars a year to boost education spending, has a page that allows you to Tell a Friend about the initiative. The following text will be sent to your friend:

Imagine if you and I could make three promises to every child in Washington State:

1. Every child will start kindergarten ready to succeed in school.
2. Every student will have the quality teachers, and the instructional opportunities, he or she needs, throughout K-12.
3. There will be a place in a state community college or university for every student who works hard, and financial help for every student who needs it.

Three promises, and no excuses. That's the vision for I-884, the Education Trust Fund Initiative.

Only a mean person could say no to such promises. But only a fool would believe that I-884 will actually keep any of those promises.

We citizens feel education is too important to leave to the politicians.

I agree wholeheartedly. An education system of publicly funded and privately managed schools would be ideal. But that's not what the I-884 folks have in mind. Their plan is to pour an extra billion dollars a year into government schools, under the control of, you guessed it, politicians.

The people who crafted and support I-884 are just citizens. We're not running for any political office. We're parents, teachers, students and community leaders.

In fact, the list of the I-884 campaign contributors consists of a handful of the richest people in the state who are pushing to raise taxes on the less affluent; the Washington State Democratic Party; the public school employee unions; and a number of candidates who are, uh, running for political office.

The Reality of I-884

Yesterday I attended a forum about I-884 at the Downtown Seattle Republican Club. (okay, I also helped organize it). Marsha Richards of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation led a discussion with Paul Guppy of the Washington Policy Center and Charles Hoff of the Federal Way School Board. The punchline was that Washington schools are underperforming, but the problems have nothing to do with funding, and everything to do with misguided regulations, lack of incentives for performance and/or consequences for failure, misplaced priorities and inadequate parental involvement. Spending an extra billion dollars a year on the current system will only make the current problems a billion dollars bigger.

The taped discussion will be broadcast on SCAN-TV (Comcast cable channel 77 in Seattle and most of King County), Thursday, August 26 at 6pm. Set your VCR.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 24, 2004 12:28 PM | Email This