WA: With Budgets Tights, School Funding Becomes a Political Football

Never mind that dollars and results are largely unrelated

SEATTLE — With the state dramatically scaling back its funding, Superintendent Nick Brossoit has had to cut back on just about everything in the Edmonds School District. Everybody who works for the suburban Seattle district, including Brossoit, took five furlough days last year and will take another three this year. Brossoit eliminated programs for struggling students, foreign language classes and sections of advanced math and science courses. Parents helped pull weeds and trim bushes before the start of this school year, because the district halved its grounds keeping crew. Some science classrooms do not have enough lab stations or chairs for every student.

"It's almost like being in a wartime setting," says Brossoit, the head of a group of parents and schools that sued the state in 2007 over insufficient funding. "We're hunkered down, waiting for air support."