Jay Inslee has been running for governor ever since the state Supreme Court handed down its McCleary decision in 2012, finding that the state was not fulfilling its constitutional duty of funding public schools. And ever since that decision was handed down, Inslee has been running from McCleary.
As the Seattle Times covered in extensive detail over the weekend, Inslee has had plenty of time to come up with a plan to fully fund our schools, but instead “it’s surprising the Washington state Supreme Court’s order on K-12 funding, the 2012 McCleary decision, didn’t seem more politically urgent” to Inslee. As pointed out in the article:
Inslee had 8 months during his 2012 campaign to propose an education plan – and did nothing but attack his opponent, Attorney General Rob McKenna, for his plan. The candidate (Inslee) receiving $1 million in teacher union money for his campaign “shot it down” once McKenna’s plan was on the table.
Nor was a plan forthcoming once Inslee was in office, In fact, “in 2015, a handful of Democratic and Republican lawmakers, as well as state schools Superintendent Randy Dorn, released several different funding proposals. Not Inslee. By not releasing his own plan, the governor signaled it ‘must not matter, must not be that important,’ said Dorn, a Democrat who is retiring this year.”
Now, with the re-election campaign winding down, Inslee continues to avoid taking responsibility for the state’s most pressing issue. “The governor won’t release a full McCleary funding plan until December — after the November election. He says he doesn’t have the necessary school-funding data to put out the plan sooner.”
That’s Inslee’s equivalent of the ‘dog ate my homework” excuse, that after four legislative sessions while in office, Inslee just doesn’t have enough information to be honest with the voters – or with his mega campaign donors.
Makes you wonder why it took the media this long to point out this inconvenient truth.
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