(The Center Square) – Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal on Wednesday morning defended public education during his annual state of K-12 education address.
Reykdal opened by acknowledging that the framing of education in general is very negative right now.
“It’s something, quite frankly, I’ve never seen in America in my 30 years in public ed,” he said, “and that’s an intentional practice to tear down public education for political reasons.”
He said the anti-school narrative is tied to a push for privatization of education.
“Washington kids are generally outperforming kids in most other states, but we’re also looking at international data called PISA; it’s an assessment of 15-year-olds,” he said. “The United States is sixth in the world in reading, so despite this public vilification for purposes of privatization, our nation is outperforming most of the world, and our state is, most of the time, outperforming the rest of the country.”
Math is a different story, according to Reykdal.
“Where we struggle in math,” he said. “We still tend to be above the national average, so there’s room for us to think differently about our assessments. We have to double down on mathematics if we want the same outcomes like we have in reading.”
When it comes to grade point averages, Reykdal said we’re at an average of “3.03, an increase of one-tenth of a percent since 2019, so GPAs are holding in pretty good there.”
Reykdal said another big measure of student success is attendance.
“On any given day 95% of our students are attending school,” he stated.
Reykdal said Washington is doing better now in terms of attendance than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m incredibly excited about that,” he remarked.
Reykdal credited paraeducators for their hard, saying all the good things happening in basic education wouldn’t be possible without them. Paraeducators work with licensed educators in a classroom environment to assist students and teachers,
“One in five employees in the school district is a paraeducator,” Reykdal explained. “These are folks who support students one-on-one and in small groups. These paras are everything to us.”
He cited a recent report that said paraeducators make an average of less than $30,000 a year.
“Due to the low pay and low hours, we see far too much turnover in the first two years,” Reykdal said.
A recent report from ZipRecruiter ranks Washington No. 6 out of 50 states for paraeducator salaries, but does note regarding the occupation that the “job market in Washington is not very active as few companies are currently hiring.”
Senate Bill 5882, aimed at providing more money for paraeducators and increasing their overall numbers, got a hearing Wednesday before the Senate Early Learning Committee, where Liv Finne, Education Center Director for Washington Policy Center, testified against the legislation.
“Our research shows that this bill would cut the ratio of teachers in public schools,” Finne said. “We have an education emergency in our public schools and this bill ignores that.”
SB 5882 “would increase non-teaching staff and cut the ratio of teachers, potentially leading to larger class sizes and reduced student access to learning.”
Finne was interrupted by Sen. Lisa Wellman, D-Mercer Island.
“Is there anything specifically in this bill that cuts the ratio of teachers?” the committee chair asked.
Finne replied, “If you increase the ratio of non-teachers you’re going to reduce the ratio of teachers.”
Wellman responded, “There is nothing in this bill that reduces the number of teachers.”
“That is your interpretation” said Finne. “But what will happen on the ground is that teachers will have to be cut because resources will have to be moved, that’s what our research shows and that’s what experience shows.”
“We already have so many non-teaching staff,” Finne said, citing a legislative memo that reports only 50% of employees in the public school system are teachers.
In response to Reykdal suggesting that public education is being vilified.
“We’re not allowed to criticize schools that are failing our kids,” Finne told The Center Square. “That’s absurd.”
Finne added, “Thirty-six percent of students across America have access to school choice; this is an amazing thing.”
Reykdal and the Washington Education Association – the state teachers union – are nervous about the school choice movement, she suggested.
