Action Gregoire

Gov. Gregoire shared her perspective of the economy that is hitting everyone. However, she did commit her support and thanks to the education community in the state. However, her actions do not show her conviction.

1. over the past 4 years, she increased the education budget by $3 billion. In one legislative session, she decreased the budget $3.8 billion. ooops!

2. she denounced the action of the education committee for failing to have funding for the proposal. 2261 passed. She has not vetoed it.

3. There were millions of dollars given to districts to support math and science improvements. Not accountability was attactched to the bill. No accountability was required by the districts. There was little improvement to math and science support.

4. She was adamant that Washington state is up to par with technology and use of technology. However, many schools are still under funded to and do not have the resources for all of the technologies she talked about. Her speach referenced youtube. She probably has not been in the classroom recently. Youtube is filtered in my school as, probably, with most schools. Maybe the state needs to make a policy that will allow teachers the ability to have access without barriers so we can offer the most to our students.

5. She boasted about being ranked 8th out of 50 states for number of Nationaly Board Certified teachers. Unfortunately, that is the highest ranked statistic for Washington. We are still the lowest in rank for teacher pay, classroom size, and per pupil spending.

I appreciated many of her words, but actions speak louder, like her quick exit on us. Christine, please show us that you realy mean what you say by starting with a veto of 2261.