This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

The state’s fiscal crisis gives lawmakers a pass on many otherwise worthwhile proposals this year, but reform of the archaic way Washington pays for K-12 education isn’t one of them.

State coffers need not be flush for the Legislature to officially admit that the state’s definition of basic education and the complex formula it uses to dole out money to school districts are woefully out of date.

Task force after task force has delivered that message to legislators. Electing not to listen – or to acknowledge the problem but punt on solutions – only puts off the inevitable.

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Contributing blogger Karen Irwin is on a historical family field trip. She couldn’t post this lyrical piece from the road, so I’m doing it for her:

We packed up the family and headed back east for two reasons: 1)It is our eldest daughter’s senior year and we wanted to give her a spring break to remember and 2) While America is in search of its soul, we wanted to help look.

The American Dream is circling the drain, “six different ways” according to one well known political pundit. Oh we still have “life” and “liberty” but the pursuit of happiness has for many, officially gone into foreclosure.

Thomas Jefferson defined happiness as this: “a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honor,” but times they have a changed. In the late twentieth century and into the 21st century, happiness has been redefined as a 3,000 sq.ft. home with granite countertops and something big and shiny parked in the garage, or it is a 30 percent return on a hedge fund. Pick up a newspaper (please, pick up a newspaper), and you’ll find that the American Dream has become a big ol’ mess.

This is not how it was supposed to go. Call me a crazy romantic, but the real American Dream is principled, it was hard won, it is about common cause. I told this all to my kids over cereal a few weeks back. I was met with sleepy-eyed stares. After all four left for school, I Pricelined tickets to the East Coast, back where it all first started. If I couldn’t tell them, maybe I could show them.

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For Sunday: The state’s definition of basic education and the complex formula it uses to dole out money to school districts are ruefully out of date – and time is running out for the Legislature to act of its own accord.

For Monday: A new multi-county initiative has a spectacular ambition: reducing the rate of family homelessness by 50 percent over the next 10 years.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune’s editorial board.

Want to sit in on

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This editorial will appear in Friday’s print edition.

The state Senate – thank heaven – is poised to extend long-promised high-occupancy lanes into Pierce County.

The state Senate Transportation Committee has noticed that Interstate 5 runs not only through King County, but Pierce County, too. The committee has kindly decided to do something about it.

No one in these parts hasn’t noticed that the HOV lanes on Interstate 5 stop right on the border of Pierce County.

The lanes don’t stop there because the need for them stops. They stop there because someone in Olympia apparently decided long ago that King County’s piece of I-5 was more deserving of funding than whatever rarely traveled goat path exists south of the county line.

King County has long had an extensive system of transit and carpool lanes. Pierce County has zip, aside from a new – and very short – stretch on Highway 16.

The Highway 16 HOV lanes don’t connect to I-5; they vanish into a chronic traffic jam in the middle of Tacoma. Likewise, if there’s heavy auto traffic on I-5, it frequently grinds to a near standstill at the county line.

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This editorial will appear in Friday’s print edition.

$5 voluntary annual fee – or close up to 45 parks?
An opt-out $5 annual fee on vehicle tab renewals looks like a painless way to raise a lot of money for state parks.

It’s easy to see why opting out is a touchy subject for some people.

Fail to check one opt-out box, and the next thing you know, your credit card is being charged an ongoing fee for a service you didn’t even know you had ordered. Miss checking another box, and your cell phone company is sharing your customer data with businesses you don’t want having that information.

But is it a big deal if failing to opt out costs you $5 a year and helps save a slew of state parks from being closed?

Unless some new revenue source is found – a tough proposition this year – Washington State Parks could have to cut $23 million over the next two years, forcing the system to close as many as 32 parks in addition to the 13 already targeted.

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More need, less money. Sound like a familiar story? It’s hitting the community colleges especially hard, as Tacoma Community College’s external relations guy, Dan Small, recounts here:

As we wait for legislators to announce the Senate and House operating and capital budgets, TCC enrollment continues to explode. Enrollment for winter quarter was up 18 percent over winter last year.

For Spring quarter, which begins March 30, a total of 6,824 students are enrolled to date – 691 more than last spring. Right now we are turning students away because we can’t handle any more. Many courses have long waiting lists.

We’ve added as many classes needed by students in areas like math and science that our budget will allow, and we are basically out of rooms. For some badly needed courses, we can’t find any more adjunct teachers to hire.

A lot of the reason, of course, for our enrollment increase is that so many people have lost their jobs and are coming back to retrain for a new career. As we said during the editorial board meeting, we are a big part of the solution for economic recovery in Washington State.

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Here’s what we’re working on for Friday’s editorial page.

The state’s fiscal crisis gives lawmakers a pass on many otherwise worthwhile proposals this year, but reform of the archaic way Washington pays for K-12 education isn’t one of them.

UPDATE: We’re holding off on this topic given this afternoon’s release of a letter from the governor on the issue. Instead, we’ll write about the state Senate Transportation Committee including Pierce County HOV projects in its budget – a big improvement on the governor’s plan.

A proposed $5 opt-out fee on license tab renewals looks like a

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This editorial appeared in today’s print edition.

The Highway 520 bridge must be replaced. Other parts of the state will have to pay however many billions tolls don’t cover.

Tolling the Highway 520 bridge over Lake Washington is a foregone conclusion, or it ought to be. The span must be replaced, and its drivers should help pay for the new structure – just as the users of the second Narrows bridge are paying for that structure.

But the Legislature faces two further questions: Should tolls be imposed next year, before construction starts? And should the I-90 bridge over Lake Washington also be tolled?

For anyone concerned about transportation funding in the rest of the state, the answer to both questions should be yes.

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