Why Washington State Has the Highest Classrooms in the Country (2023)

According to a January 2015 Taxation and Economic Policy Institute study titled "Who Pays" of tax rates in all 50 states, Washington households pay some of the highest state taxes in the country — 20% above the national average. . Therefore, families in Washington must have the best-funded schools and the smallest classes in the country. Instead, Washington's million children are forced to endure the largest classroom in the country. How can it be? In this report, we're going to "follow the money trail" to see how the Washington State Legislature is stealing billions of dollars from our schools and our children's futures to line the pockets of a few wealthy billionaires and multinationals.

Why are small classes important?
Small classes are important to our students' futures because small classes allow difficult students to get the help they need to succeed in school and in life. For example, the nation's largest study of class size found that low-income students lucky enough to spend four full years in smaller classes are much more likely to graduate than their peers who spent years in larger classes. little:

Those:Finn, J.D., et. Anguilla. (2005).Small classes in the early grades, success in school and graduation.Educational Psychology Journal.
http://www.classsizematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Small-Classes-in-the-Early-Grades-Academic-Achievement-and-Graduating-From-High-School.pdf

That's according to a 2011 study that summarized the academic and economic results of students in smaller classes in the STAR study compared to their full-size classmates.“Grade quality effects on test scores in later grades disappear, but gains on noncognitive measures remain.” Put simply, high-stakes test scores are not an accurate indicator of future student performance. However, student participation in small classes is an indicator of future success as an adult.

These are just some of the adult outcomes these students attended 20 years later in a lower grade of elementary school: getting married. stay. Students were less likely to commit a crime or go to jail. Much of this information was obtained from the federal tax returns of 95% of the approximately 12,000 students who participated in the STAR study.
Source: Chetty R, Friedman JN, Hilger N, Saez E, Schanzenbach DW, and Yagan D (2011). How does your kindergarten class affect your income? Evidence from the STAR Project. Quarterly Review of Economics, 126(4), 1593-1660.
http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/STAR.pdf

In a separate analysis, Alan Krueger, president of the Council of Economic Advisers, estimated that every dollar invested in reducing class sizes produced about $2 in long-term economic benefits.https://etec511.wikispaces.com/file/view/economic+considerations+and+class+size.pdf

Smaller classes lead to more successful students
Wealthy private schools understand the importance of small classes. For example, at the private Lakeside School in Seattle, the average class size is 16 students.If classes of 16 students are considered ideal for the children of the wealthy, small classes of 16 students should be available to all students in Washington state.

Unfortunately, Washington has the highest class in the country.
Unfortunately, according to the National Center for Education Statistics' Survey of Schools and Personnel (Table 8), Washington state has the third-largest class in the country for elementary school, the second-largest class in the country for high school and the second largest class in the country. country for primary education. second largest class size in the country for high school.http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass1112_2013314_t1s_007.asp

This class size estimate comes from a national survey of classroom teachers, which asked teachers how many students were in their classroom on average. This research shows that for grades 1-6, the national median class size is 21 students and the Washington State median class size is 24 students. For grades 7-12, the national median class size is 27 students and the Washington state median class size is 30 students.http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.30.asp

Here is a class size distribution showing which states have low, medium, above average, or extremely large class sizes:

But even this survey of teachers underestimates the true size of classes across the country and in Washington state, because it includes special education teachers who often have classes of fewer than 10 students. Excluding special education classes, the typical or average class size in the US is probably closer to 29 students andnot Washington State,the typical or average class sizethere are almost 32 studentsper teacher per class.

Because Actuallyclass sizesare much larger than the student-teacher ratio
The most common mistake when talking about class size is confusing class size with student-teacher ratio. The student-teacher ratio is determined by dividing the total number of students in a school or state by the total number of professionals in the school or state. For example, if you go to the Washington State OSPI website and click Assignment, then Publications, then Staff Summary Reports, then select a year and click Table 46, you will get a report called Ratio of students per class. In fact, this is the student-teacher relationship. For the 2014 school year, this ratio was18.2 students per teacher. http://k12.wa.us/safs/PUB/PER/1415/tbl46.pdf

This type of statistic might lead one to believe that Washington State's class size is only 18 students, which would mean that Washington State has the smallest classes in the US and the world. However, if you walk into a real classroom in a real Washington state school and count the real students, you'll see about 30 students in the real room. Many classrooms have 35-40 students!

The OSPI state certificate is also misleading. This shows that the state of Washington has 1,075,107 students and 60,543 classroom teachers. This would lead one to assume that the average class size in our state is 18 students. Why is there such a large difference between the student-teacher ratio reported by OSPI and the number of students in actual classrooms? The problem is that OSPI uses an extremely broad definition of classroom teachers. Many of the so-called classroom teachers are actually administrators. We need administrators. But we must not deceive parents and voters by calling them teachers. The use of student-teacher ratios misleads the public and even legislators into thinking that class sizes aren't all bad, if that is the case.Ratings in Washington state are among the highest in the country.

With an actual average class size of 30 students, the actual number of faculty is around 36,000. This means that OSPI incorrectly lists 24,000 administrators as teachers. It also means that with an additional 10,000 teachers per billion, it would cost about $3.6 billion a year to cut class sizes in half here in Washington state. This does not include the costs of support staff or the construction of the schools themselves. It also doesn't include raising teacher salaries here in Washington state to the West Coast average, or eliminating the use of local taxpayer dollars for basic education. So my plan to halve class sizes includes a billion dollars for tax replacements, a billion dollars to raise teacher salaries, four billion dollars to build hundreds of new schools a year and $4 billion to hire 36,000 new teachers and 4,000 assistants. The sum required to halve class sizes amounts to approximately $12 billion in incremental revenue per year.

Where are we going to get the $12 billion a year needed to cut class sizes in half in Washington state?
Since poor and middle-class families in Washington state already pay the highest state taxes in the country, this is a more specific question.Where is the money that should have gone to our public schools?It turns out that there is no need to raise taxes. What we really need to do is cut tax breaks for the rich. It will be impossible to reduce class sizes for struggling students until we first recognize and better understand that the real primary duty of Washington lawmakers was not our public schools, but to provide more than $36 billion in tax breaks to wealthy corporations. multinationals (those for their new elections). Here is a graph of the increase in the number of government tax breaks since 1996:

Here's a graph of the increase in dollar value of tax breaks in billions of dollars compared to total government revenue and public school spending:

Understanding the misleading nature of Washington Department of Revenue tax cut reports
The Washington legislature not only passed the largest tax cut in the United States, it also passed the largest and most unsustainable tax cut in the history of the world. That is why we now have such a broken tax system.

With tax breaks for the rich preventing us from fully funding schools, any parent or teacher who wants to understand why Washington has the largest classes in the country should take the time to understand how the public is being misled about the size of this debt. federal. be tax exemptions. This topic is complex. So be patient, take your time and read slowly.

Since 1984, the law has required the Washington State Department of Revenue to issue a tax exemption report every four years. Here is a quote from RCW 43.06.400 authorizing this report: "Beginning in January 1984 and in January of every four years, the Treasury Department shall submit to the Legislature before regular session a statement of the amount of reduction to the current one and for the next biennia on the state or municipal income that the state receives as a result of the tax exemptions The list must include an estimate of the income that will be lost as a result of the tax exemption, the purpose of the tax exemption, the people, organizations or sectors of the population that will benefit from the tax exemption andregardless of whether the tax exemption conflicts with another government program."

It should be obvious that giving away tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks every year goes against the primary duty of the legislature to fully fund our public schools.mimany billions of dollars in tax breakshalf10.000furtherLehrerlose their jobs and thousands of children are forced to endure larger classes.This fact is not mentioned in any of the tax benefit reports.

In January 2016, Vikki Smith, the current director of the Washington State Department of Revenue, published the 2016 Tax Exemption Report, which she called the 2016 Tax Exemption Study. for the previous four versions of this report and I will summarize briefly my findings here. You can download a PDF of this 910-page study from the following link:
http://dor.wa.gov/docs/reports/2016/Tax_Exemption_Study_2016/2016_Tax_Exemption_Study_Entire_Report.pdf

The Treasury Department currently collects about $20 billion a year in taxes, but also exempts at least $30 billion a year in state taxes. The DOR Tax Exemption Study attempts to describe the $30 billion a year in lost government revenue. This $30 billion in lost government revenue is being "justified" by corrupt state legislators with the false claim that it "creates jobs." In fact, history shows that tax breaks for wealthy multinationals like Microsoft and Boeing almost always fail to create jobs. For example, after receiving billions of dollars in tax breaks, Boeing laid off thousands of workers and used its tax breaks to build a non-union aircraft factory in South Carolina, laying off thousands of workers in Washington. Microsoft used its tax breaks to open sweatshops in China, laying off thousands of workers in Washington.

However, like the 2012 report, written by former Treasury Director Suzan Delbene, the 2016 report has several glaring omissions:

First,the Study 2016does not include the 1997 tax credit for intangible industrial property.Given that this is one of the largest tax breaks of all, accounting for billions of dollars in lost income, and those benefits go almost entirely to three of the richest people in the world, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen, one has to wonder the validity of the rest of the 2016 Tax Exemption Study.

Second, this report makes no mention of Microsoft's multi-billion dollar tax break for businesses and professions each year.Microsoft gets this tax break by claiming it's located in Nevada, even though everyone, including the Washington State Department of Revenue, knows it's located in Redmond, Washington.

Third, this report does notcompletelyAnalyze lost revenue by manipulating business and professional categoriesthat some companies always pay these taxes at an extremely low rate while other companies pay these taxes at an extremely high rate. It simply assumes that the previously manipulated B&O price was somehow fair or accurate. A more consistent way to assess a tax would be according to established standards, such as a B&O percentage tax.

Quarto, This reportballs down the amount of income lost through tax breaksfalsely claims that removing the 694 tax breaks (now reduced to over 700 thanks to 2016 legislation) would only raise about $30 billion.This claim is based on another obviously flawed assumption that repealing the 1931 intangible property tax exemption for personal property would not generate more revenue but would only shift the entire property tax burden from some taxpayers to other taxpayers. Here is a quote from Section 1, Page 3 of the study: “Eliminating a property tax exemption does not increase government revenue. Eliminating a property tax exemption broadens the tax base and lowers rates. This reduces estate taxes for existing taxpayers and changes property taxes for currently exempt taxpayers."

In fact, our state constitution sets a one percent tax rate on all property. If you own a $200,000 home, one percent is $2,000 in property taxes. But if your house doubles in value to $400,000, then one percent of that is $4,000. Government revenue is directly related to property value. So when property value doubles, the tax burden doesn't just shift from one taxpayer to another: the total available state and local taxes double. Vikki gets away with such a nonsensical statement because local tax rates are set by the full amount of the tax, and if the full amount were not increased, the burden would simply pass from one owner to another. What Vikki doesn't know is that the total rate is almost always limited by the one percent limit in our state constitution. A doubling of wealth would double the income available to finance public schools.

Vikki then incorrectly assumes that the value of the intangible property is only $2 trillion. Intangible personal property is discussed on page 17-458 of the 2016 Tax Exemption Report. On page 459, Vikki states that she estimates the value of exempt personal intangible property to be $1.907 billion, or about $ 2 trillion, or about the same as the value of tangible property in the state of Washington. The ratio of tangible to intangible assets was 50:50 in the 1990s. But the value of intangible assets has risen dramatically, to the point that intangible assets account for about two-thirds of all assets in 2010. In other words, once you get to know this tangible asset in our state

What is immaterial property?
Tangible property is property that you can touch.asapartments and commercial buildings. Intangible property includes all other forms of wealth:asStocks, bonds and computer programs.Historically, intangible assets represented a very small percentage of all assets. however withthe concentration of wealth in the hands ofvery rich, now represents the intangible property on70% of all properties.oMore than 90% of intangible wealth belongs to the richest 1% of our richest citizens.

Due to the rapidly increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 1% and the fact that almost all of this wealth is in the form of intangible assets, the amount of revenue lost from this tax break has skyrocketed since 1997 to the point where it is now causing a loss of government funds of over $4 billion a year.

It's no coincidence that our state has cut billions of dollars every year from our public schools ever since. As a direct result of this massive and reckless delivery of state taxes, as well as the federal tax cuts that have taken place sincethe wealth of the richest 1% of our population has doubled in the past20 years from 20% of our total assets to 40% of our total assets.This one-time exemption accounted for US$7 billion in state tax exemptions each biennium.o $3.5Billions in federal tax breaks each year in 2008.This makes this one tax break far greater than any other tax break. The law that allows this tax benefit is RCW 84.36.070.http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=84.36.070

this massive1997control loopholehad givenBillions of dollars in tax breaks for our wealthiest citizensevery yearin the past18years through the exemption ofa trillion dollars in "intangible property" from our state property tax. It's the largest tax break in our state's history and bigger than Boeing's billion-dollar-a-year tax break and Microsoft's billion-dollar tax break combined!

A billion dollar change in the property tax burden ofinvestorsfor owners
One mechanism that led to this loss of government revenue was as followsreichinvestorsyou suddenly had a huge financial incentive to misclassify your tangible industrial property as intangible property. That is what manyinvestorsit did, resulting in a major change in the property tax burdeninvestorsto the owners Here is a graph of that change:

Source: Washington State Department of Treasuryhttp://dor.wa.gov/docs/reports/wa_tax_system_11_17_2004.pdf

The property tax burden for middle-class homeowners has skyrocketed in the past14years as the commercial to residential ratio changed from around 50-50 in 1997 to 66% residential to 33% commercial in 2006.With $100 billion in commercial property tax breaks, residential property taxes will increase even if state and local spending remains the same.

As a result of these tax breaks for millionaires and tax changes for our middle class, our middle class now pays much more than the national average in state taxes, while millionaires in our state pay much less than the national average. Working-class families see their taxes skyrocket and naturally assume government spending is "out of control." ButWhat is really getting out of hand are the tax breaks.Bmillionaires.

We can cut class size in half by bringing tax relief back to 1996
In 1996, we had 400 tax breaks that cost $20 billion. We now have over 700 tax breaks for the wealthy that have cost our schools $36 billion. This includes the 1997 Intangible Property Tax Exemption, which is so unfair and so expensive that the Treasury Department and the Legislature don't even want you to know about it. It also includes most of the Boeing and Microsoft tax breaks.

So the question is, which is more important? Help Bill Gates and Paul Allen buy another private jet? Or help one million students in Washington State get the education they need and deserve to succeed in school and in life? If elected, I will immediately file a motion for summary judgment to declare illegal, null and void all tax breaks since 1996 and deposit the resulting $16 billion a year in additional government revenue, which is controlled by the Superintendent of Public Instruction. We could have restored full funding for the school in just 6 months.

Now you know why our state's ratings are the highest in the country. In fact, I'm the only candidate who won't even talk about the real cause of our huge class sizes. All the other candidates are happy to talk about their "great relationships" with the bad guys who are financially robbing our schools and our children's futures. They perpetuate the myth that the legislature will suddenly turn around and start funding our schools "next year." But everything that will come out of Olympia next year is the same thing that will come out of Olympia this year, last year and the year before: more excuses and more lies. Did you know that 4 years after the McCleary Supreme Court decision, we have 30,000 more kids, but 1,000 fewer teachers? All we've gotten since McCleary is another fake committee and a hundred more tax breaks for the rich!

That's why we need a whole new leadership at Olympia, a more honest leadership. That is exactly what I offer: real solutions, not just marketing slogans. So I hope you'll share this important article with all the teachers and parents you know. Together we can win this election and give our children the education they deserve.

As always, feel free to email me with your questions and comments.

Greetings,
David Primavera M.Ed.
David (arroba) springforbetterschools (ponto) org