Isabel Muñoz-Colón, chair of the State Board of Education, issued a statement challenging the state legislature to work together in a bipartisan manner on a K-12 education budget that meets the requirements of the McCleary court ruling.

“It is long past time to put our children’s education and their futures at the center of our policy conversations,” said Ms. Muñoz-Colón.

“The growth in our achievement and opportunity gaps over more than a decade, and the continued reliance on importing our workforce, has been partly due to lack of ample funding for public schools,” she said, referring to the constitutional requirement in Washington to make ample provision for the public school system.

Ms. Muñoz-Colón believes that both the Senate and House proposed budgets leave key issues unaddressed. She listed educator compensation reform, local levy reform, and investments in teacher professional development as three issues that are not sufficiently addressed in the budgets proposed this week.

“We are holding our students to higher academic standards starting this spring, so it is appropriate for the legislature to likewise meet the higher standard for funding as well.”