Seattle principals: We stand with you for a new level of accountability and authority
A group of Seattle principals is beginning the process of lobbying the Governor for a veto of the provision I inserted in the Race to the Top bill that lowers the legal bar to demote or remove them from office. The Seattle Times has covered the issue on both the news and editorial sides here, here and here.
I first blogged about the issue of principal leadership here and followed with this recent post.
Like every parent, I believe in strong school centric leadership with high accountability and high authority to lead your team forward. I stand with 40,000 teachers who spoke out loudly and clearly in a fascinating new Gates Foundation report about teacher attitudes toward progress. Not surprisingly they found a passionate belief in the need for strong, quality leadership:
“Within these solution areas, the survey findings debunk several commonly held myths about teachers’ views. The survey found that:
While higher salaries are important, teachers say they are less important than a supportive leader. Fewer than half of teachers (45%) say higher salaries are absolutely essential for retaining good teachers. More teachers say it is absolutely essential to have supportive leadership (68%), time to collaborate (54%), and quality curriculum (49%).”
And yet let me be clear: My commitment as a legislator to increasing principal accountability by attempting to eliminate de-facto tenure is matched by my belief in providing you with the tools to achieve your goals.
We all know that principals have little authority over their budgets (about 5% according to many estimates) and the big issue of who teaches and works in their building. We must address this 800 pound gorilla in the room. How can principals be held to a higher standard of performance yet lack authority over their budget and their staff?
Education reform cannot succeed without the embrace of principals and teachers. They form the core of student-centric work and they know the inside of education on every level. Our job as parents, activists and legislators is to empower principals and teachers to reach their full potential. I realize my amendment has caused some disequilibrium among some Seattle principals. But students, teachers, parents, activists and administrators all look to you as a principal to be courageously honest about what it takes to succeed. We need you to ‘be the change you wish to see in the world.’
I am deeply and passionately committed to working closely with principals, teachers, administrators, parents and advocates in Seattle and statewide to craft stakeholder-driven legislation to align principals’ accountability and authority. A first, rough, working draft of the legislation will be ready for distribution, discussion, debate and a genuine dialogue soon.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.” Machiavelli.
This quote is on my wall from a small sketch of my dear, late mentor, Warren Featherstone Reid, who served at the side of Sen. Warren G. Magnuson, Gov. Booth Gardner, Rep. Jim McDermott and others for so many years.
Why is change so hard?
The institutionalization of power is a sight to behold. It is inevitable. The question is not who or how much power will be accumulated nor whether it will be used for questionable purposes. But whether the people will retain the will to retake their own authority. And to be heard.
Barack Obama struggles with health care insurance reform this week just as the state legislature strives to complete the 2010 budget. Both challenges are made more difficult by the lack of intellectual, political and policy support from our colleagues across the partisan aisle. The strategy of doing nothing, blocking any forward momentum and refusing to participate in a gracious dialogue about how to improve our state and nation’s quality of life is perhaps understandable.
There is little glory in serving as the loyal opposition.
And yet our nation is weaker because of the Republicans’ unwillingness to engage. The days of Governor Dan Evans, the moderate Republican who led our state through three successful terms of extraordinary progress, seem more than only a generation ago. They seem like a different era entirely. The most difficult reality check is that the Republicans seem unashamed of their lack of engagement. They have no interest in the burden of governing. That part troubles me the most.
Sen. Rodney Tom’s struggle with the state budget seems less to me about left versus right and more about the deeper challenge of bringing about systemic reform. I share his quiet, uncomfortable reservations about the budget we have crafted.
The economics of our state budget requires a courageous honesty about efficiency. We have an unsustainable model where health care is crushing our ability to fund other programs. Health care costs for employees and public programs at the local, county, state and national levels are simply corrupting our ability to make financially prudent decisions. And yet we were unwilling to attempt structural changes to public employee health care programs that would move away from a illness-based system to a prevention-oriented system of care. Many claim that “prevention” programs work only modestly well, and others say they take years to recognize any savings. Perhaps. And yet we must take this step. This is one of the dark secrets of our state budget. We must make a systemic change in our model.
To date we have been unwilling to embrace changes to our state employee health care plans. And yet it is not sustainable under the current system and ultimately we will have no other choice.
Ideas such as consolidating the 296 school districts should not be so difficult. They are the right thing to from a fiduciary point of view. Reforming higher education so that we have a more collaborative and less competitive approach to our two and four year institutions should be possible.
The tea party movement and the anger at President Obama from the left seem to me less about about conservatism or liberalism and more about the feeling of the lack of control in our lives. The lack of accountability against big business and big government that together seem to get richer while real people living real lives struggle with unemployment, underemployment, health care costs, taxes, housing and other daily realities.
In Olympia this week the progressive community argues for more revenue, conservatives for more spending cuts. What our state cries out for is a courageous, honest, aggressive, thoughtful, engaged and vigorous attempt at systems reform.
The journey of a thousand miles…
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
On the final day of the regular 60 day legislative session, there is a common refrain in Olympia that progressive legislators prefer a revenue package that closes loopholes and more conservative Democrats are advocating a general sales tax increase. Keep in mind that we are raising approximately $750 million of the $2.8 billion projected deficit.
That analysis is wrong, in my view, and simplistic in its depth of analysis. I am opposed to an increase in the sales tax not because it is regressive as much as because we have reached a tipping point in King County. We simply cannot and should not go beyond 10% sales tax. It is bad policy, bad politics and unfair to small business and low and moderate income citizens. Small business is not a department down the hall of our economy, it is the engine of our way out of this Great Recession.
There are those who criticize King County for raising the sales tax for local uses. And yet we are a sales and B&O tax state. The reality is that local services need to be funded and sales tax is one of our only strategies. King County uses the sales tax and we have a right to empower the county council to use the resources in a manner that works for them.
We have reached the tipping point for the sales tax in King County that we should not go above. That’s not a liberal or conservative position, it’s common sense.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
$15.9 million for a ferry reservation system? Dude, there’s an app for that! I vote no.
The House passed the Transportation Budget yesterday 78-19. I was one of a mere 19 votes against the measure, and one of 5 Democrats to do so.
I do not pretend to have a deep domain of knowledge about how the gas tax flows to highways and ferries, nor can I pretend to suggest that the work of the transportation committees has been insufficient. There are clearly very compelling projects in the budget–some that will benefit my own city–that are vital to keeping our state moving.
I voted against the transportation budget as a symbolic protest against the decision of the ferry system to include $15.9 million, to be spent over 10 years, for a reservation system. Of course a reservation system makes sense in terms of improving the efficiency of the existing public infrastructure.
Yet the question remains: How should the Washington Department of Transportation tackle this challenge? Big or small, hardware or software, heavy or light, proprietary or open?
Simply, building a massive infrastucture for what should be a more modest application doesn’t make sense.
Here’s the agency’s proposal:
• The total cost of the system includes $12.4 million for the system and $3.5 million for communication for a total of $15.9 million.
• Costs associated with the IT system include hardware and software acquisition, customization expenses, license renewal expenses, project management staff time costs, WSDOT programming staff time costs, and costs associated with the procurement process for IT systems. IT costs are scheduled in two phases: (1) purchase and integration of an industry standard reservation system, and (2) system build‐out and additional customization needed to accommodate larger volumes and commuter requirements. The $12.4 million includes:
o $3.9 million for the main system
o $350k for IT support staff
o $225k for Software support staff
o $1.3 million for contingencies
o $6.3 million for terminal specific IT improvements (including: New tollbooths will need to be equipped with the current Wave2Go machinery that will read reservation bar codes. New and existing tollbooths will be upgraded with new software that provides access to reservation system information (and the ability to enter a reservation confirmation code, if necessary))
o $288k for the pre-design study
• The $3.5 million for communications will fund queue detection system at 8 terminals, web cameras as well as additional Highway Advisory Radio. The pre-design study included $9.4 million in communications costs which would support Variable Message Signs on the Highways. This item was not funded in the House floor proposal.
I suggest we take a different strategy.
First, the fact that this entire program is designed, developed and executed within the silo of Wash DOT and is not being coordinated with DIS or securing a second opinion goes against our goal of building an enterprise wide approach.
Second, while committees, task forces and studies have all endorsed the idea of embracing operational efficiencies, and this idea has been discussed for years, I am unaware of whether the agency has done any actual needs analysis/focus groups/detailed user surveys. Even if it has the question remains, what type of reservation system do users really want? I suggest we don’t really know what users want, how they’d use it and what value it would bring.
Third, rather than build this massive infrastructure, I suggest we hire 5 guys in a start up company in my district (there are lots of them) to build a web based reservation system. Let’s start small and light and test out the idea before building a massive infrastructure. Once you learn what users want, the quality of your application will increase exponentially. There are hundreds if not thousands of reservation systems in our state alone to say nothing of other states, nations and systems from the private sector. Do we need to build it ourselves? No way.
This is an old fashioned approach. We need change.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
We see in this economic crisis that the lack of responsibility has emptied the minority-party Republicans of a desire to contribute to meaningful public policy solutions just as the burden of governing has self censured the enthusiasm of majority Democrats.
The change we need in Olympia is not historically revolutionary and radical but systematic and genuine and tied to the core policy issues of our day. One of the problems we face is that it’s been decades since we’ve had the political courage to conduct a genuinely objective “zero based budget, or ZBB.” I don’t pretend to know whether a ZBB process would result in radical change in how we spend our $34 billion biennial budget (not including capital budget and transportation budget and federal dollars). But this I know: Efforts at major government reforms this year has been slimmed down to relatively modest pilot projects, studies, commissions or other safely contained initiatives with the support of both sides of the aisles.
On a narrower level my legislation, House Bill 3178, to change how we spend $2 billion a biennium on technology is moving along in the Senate (hearing is Monday) but faces the quiet, behind the scenes attack of the bureaucracy.
Here’s the irony:
The Governor’s office probably doesn’t object to the policy proposal itself. That’s of course not surprising since the bill has handed the authority and accountability to the Office of Financial Management (OFM, Department of Information Services (DIS), and the Information Services Board (ISB), the existing entities charged with oversight of the technology issues today. The problem is actually that they are more likely uncomfortable with the politics of accountability itself where they are changed with reducing technology spending this year by $30 million. Period. No excuses. No studies, commissions or task forces. Just reduce spending across the $1 billion technology spend. That means it can’t be done across the board, the traditional way out for making reductions. It must be done with a surgical approach, highly focused on excess projects and, yes, people where the value proposition is weak.
The Governor’s office and DIS don’t believe we can achieve the savings in one year. Of course, the dirty little secret is that if you DON’T hide behind process, task forces, committees and inputs then you CAN achieve the reductions by acting boldly through an enterprise wide approach. Simply, the legislation requires transparency so that every agency must report their full inventory of technology including equipment, infrastructure, people, software and more. There’s no place to hide once you have a master list and it’s verifiable. Once you have a master list, the question becomes one of authority to do something about it.
We have a decentralized model in technology where state agencies do nearly everything on their own. Payment systems, email, hosting, application development and nearly every other category remains safely secured in independent silos. Shared services–the buzz world from Olympia to D.C.–is still a generic idea rather than a systemic policy.
An example: I recently discovered a budget request from the Department of Transportation for $1.1 million for secure data lines to process credit cards for the ferry system. I’m willing to bet we have 50 of these same lines elsewhere in state government already but DOT wants their own and hides behind “security.” How many credit card processing systems do we have in state government across Department of Revenue, Parks, Health Authority, Social and Health Services, etc., etc., etc.? Who knows. But it’s a lot and yet we don’t coordinate or cooperate, we simply spend more money so everyone can go their own route. Much of the money comes from non general fund state sources (ie dedicated accounts). That’s why it’s so easy to spend. But taxpayers don’t care and they shouldn’t have to whether the money is from pot A or pot B. It’s all from the taxpayers and we should have a deeper appreciation for the source.
We can achieve $30 million in savings this year if we have the courage to act like an enterprise. Employment Security is embarking on a $52 million project to upgrade their system. It’s unemployment insurance dollars not general fund so the rationalization for the spending flew through the process. DSHS’s Provider One project is more than $100 million down the road (I haven’t followed it myself but others have) and it’s probably on the tipping point of being another disaster from a technical and implementation perspective. It’s primarily federal money but enough state dollars to make everyone nervous.
An enterprise wide approach requires a bold plan based upon sound technical decision making and a collaborative partnership with key stakeholders. But it requires action and change. I am not arguing for full consolidation of power with DIS–I am arguing for a systematic strategy of cooperation and coordination.
Most legislation is too weak in that it covers up accountability so everyone in the bureaucracy has plausible deniability. Ironically, I may have written my legislation too forcefully in the opposite direction such that the Governor’s office is uncomfortable with too much authority and direct accountability to manage their way though this challenge to get a handle on the $2 billion we spend.
We all know the truth: No matter what legislation we pass on any topic it is simply not logistically or operationally possible for the Legislature to manage our state’s way through the chaos of this budget deficit. Only the Governor can courageously tackle systems reform at the level required to deal with this financial crisis. In order for that to happen we need to find a way to wake up the institutional infrastructure of government to the depth of the crisis we face. It still slumbers. We have yet to genuinely and meaningfully and openly ask our 110,000 state employees for their own ideas to embrace new ways of doing business. In all of my committee meetings, I have yet to see one regular state employee be allowed to stand up directly to present a new idea about how to conduct business in state government. It’s simply not in our culture to allow front line employees access to the legislative table. And that’s just one of the symbols of our problem.
I readily acknowledge that my legislation to bring accountability to technology spending in merely a modest step forward. It is neither radical nor revolutionary. It is a small step in the larger picture of our budget. And yet it is strong and forceful enough to make the gears of the bureaucracy shake in discomfort. The whisper campaign against the legislation is in full force now that the bill has left the House of Representatives (on a 97-1 vote, by the way). The Senate Ways & Means Committee hears the bill on Monday.
If we were to design government from scratch today, what would it look like?
We are so much more than what we’ve become.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
Agriculture is a driver of our quality of life. Apples, cherries, wheat and other valuable commodities travel from Eastern Washinton to the Port of Seattle in our district and elsewhere to be shipped out to the world.
The problem is that the agricultural interests–farmers from small family farms to multinational agri-businesses–pay none of our state’s primary taxes regardless of their income or economic might. They pay no sales taxes on their equipment, fertilizers or other inputs necessary to successful farming. They pay no B&O taxes. We all treasure family farms but we have lost site of the reality of our tax system and fundamental equality across our state. Even massive agribusinesses pay no such taxes simply because they are in agriculture as a business category. It’s wrong and patronizes even them by suggesting they are above contributing to our community’s interests.
It is unethical and unjust to the software developers, nurses, lawyers, coffee shop owners and so many others in our district and statewide. It is unethical and unfair to Queen Anne Book store, a tiny shop strugling to compete against the Internet. It is unfair to Hobbs’ auto repair shop fighting to stay alive. It is time for us to have the courageous honesty to acknowledge that we have carved out agriculture over decades from paying any taxes regardless of their financial sitution simply because they are a vital constituency politically and we want them to be successful.
We all treasure family farms and none of us pretends their lives are easy. They are the DNA of our nation’s history. We all deeply admire farmers and the hard life and business they lead. We honor their service to our nation as they feed 1/3 of the world through exports. But today’s agribusiness is more than the family farming stereotypes of old and we need to open the doors of a new model that is more equitable to us all.
There are 52 tax preferences that benefit agriculture in Washington. Some of them make complete and total sense but some do not. The value of those exemptions totaled about $360 million in the two year budget cycle.
We spend billions of dollars to support agriculture in our state. And we should. But our lack of fairness in asking for even a modest contribution to fund public education, universities and more from the agricultural community is unjust.
I support a conversation driven by the JLARC (legislative panel) that recommends establishing an income threshold to qualify for B&O exemptions.
Here’s the critical data: Removing the current B&O tax exemption for agriculture producers and EXEMPTING the first $1 million in annual gross receipts would generate $21 million in fiscal year 2011. Exempting the first $2 million in gross receipts revenues would generate $19.5 million in fiscal year 2011. This data makes it clear that the vast majority of taxes in agriculture would be paid by large scale agribusiness entities.
We do not want to penalize farming as an industry or farmers but neither do we want to continue an old fashioned model. They should not receive preferential treatment by paying no state taxes despite receiving billions in direct public benefits through education, health care, transportation, telecommunications and so much more.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
The House just passed a bill to make it a primary offense for texting while driving, and to prohibit teenagers from using a cell phone (for calling or texting) when behind the wheel.
I’m disappointed we had to accept a Republican amendment to take out the provision making speaking without a headset a prmary offense. We just did not have the votes to push it through without any of their votes. Still, I’m pleased that we moved forward.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
The House Democratic leadership released the state budget and revenue package today. There are a number of links to data here, here and here.
We are living in extrarodinary times. I have long said that I will not vote for another all cuts budget, but I will also not vote for a timid budget that fails to embrace the need for courageous honesty about our state’s condition.
There are some pieces of this budget that I appreciate and some that are unlikely to materialize (such as the assumptions for more than $700 million in federal funds).
I include myself in a group of Legislators who have made a clear statement that it is my strong preference not to vote for a general sales tax increase. In King County, this would put us above the 10% rate, something I do not support. While I have some substantial concerns about some aspects of the revenue package that was released today, and I am fighting to reduce the adverse impact upon some key areas, I do want to be clear that I feel closing tax loopholes is a central priority. We have a patchwork tax structure and we should do much better to equalize revenues across the spectrum.
I am open to a vigorous, thoughtful, gracious and purposeful conversation about our budget and revenues. What do you like and what do you feel is off base?
Please reach out and share your views.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
I happened to be thumbing through the state Senate’s Transportation Budget today. Given my lack of policy depth in this category and my admitted lack of insight into how transportation dollars flow, my general tendency is to defer to members of the transportation committees in both the House and Senate.
But one tiny, inconsequential but symbolic line item drew my attention and caused me to roll my eyes: $75,000 (presumably through a personal services contract) for the Washington State Department of Transportation to secure short term consulting support to create a pilot program of organizing, managing and developing advertising for their website.
We spend $1.9 billion for equipment, software, infrastructure and nearly 6,000 state employees to manage our state’s technology resources.
Our lack of enterprise wide thinking is crushing us. And draining our pockets. Surely there is someone in the institutional infrastructure of state government with expertise, interest and depth in the area of web-based advertising who has some time to help our friends at Wash DOT figure this out.
$75,000 isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, of course, despite being about double the annual salary of a legislator.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
By now I’ve heard from many of you expressing concern about the amendment I drafted and added onto the Race to the Top legislation moving through the Legislature. And many of you who have expressed strong support for this move despite some reservations about how the School District will deal with this new tool.
I deeply appreciate and respect your concern. I am most impressed by the thoughtful, gracious and insightful dialogue many of you have shared with me privately.
My amendment was added yesterday to the Race to the Top bill, Senate Bill 6696, in the House Education Committee and now goes to the full House of Representatives.
It is exactly the integrity you have shown that tells me we are on the right track by trying to eliminate de-facto tenure for principals in Seattle and ultimately statewide.
The Seattle Times story about the amendment is posted here.
An earlier discussion of my passionate belief in strong principal accountability AND authority (resources, training, support, wrap around services, control over budgets and who is in your building, etc.) is posted here.
Many of you have asked, “why target Seattle principals only?” In arguing against this policy, one answer is that the state school principals association argued strenuously that few if any other jurisdictions appear to have a challenge with removing under achieving principals. Simply, Seattle seems to be an exception to the rule. Few other districts seem to have interpreted the state’s ‘probable cause’ standard so rigidly, in my view, and it makes sense to take a first step and learn from the experience before moving statewide. Second, I accept the idea that it is simply too easy to move principals around from school to school or to the Central Office in a major district. In a small district it’s just not possible.
Many of you have also asked why I’ve targeted principals when teachers and superintendents have greater protections. Fair challenge and legitimate question. Yet the Race to the Top bill targets superintendents for greater accountability as well, while taking a strong stand in favor of high accountability and high authority for teachers and principals. It is an important step. Principals play a special role in the trifecta of leadership and, yes, they have an obligation to stand up first for greater accountability.
We have maintained the state’s new WASL-driven standards for high school graduation for students. How can we not increase accountability for teachers, principals, administrators and parents (and legislators) as well?
I believe that principals are leaders, managers and bold advocates for student interests. Tenure for principals is old fashioned and counter productive to our state and nation’s larger interests in a strong school-based leadership team.
My commitment to you is that I will begin immediately working with you to draft legislation for 2011 to provide principals with more authority, support, resources and training.
You do not stand alone. You have the courage to lead and our community stands with you.
When we say ‘high accountability and high authority,’ we mean it.
Strong principals lead to strong schools and great student outcomes. I believe this move will help with Race to the Top and the Obama Administration’s priorities. And I believe it is 100% aligned with our state’s bold education reform direction toward more authority and more accountability for school leaders: Principals, teachers, administrators and parents.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
