Defining basic education in Washington

One thing is for certain — and that is the release of the Washington House of Representatives 2015-2017 budget proposal on Monday shows there are still signs of life in Olympia among our elected representatives.

That may be a small comfort to K-12 educators around the state who have been trying to send a message to legislators to do something about education via everything from emails to one-day teacher walkouts. Both the House and Senate proposals would add between $1.3 billion – $2.2 billion for educators’ compensation to the state’s side of the ledger, but in different ways.

One question is...