Dino on Education:

Claim: Dino Rossi cut teacher pay (I-732).

Fact: Dino knows we need to reward these dedicated public servants. Dino Rossi’s father was a public school teacher, and the seven Rossi children grew up on a teacher’s salary. The truth about Dino’s record:

• Governor Gary Locke’s original 2003 budget proposal eliminated pay increases for ALL teachers .
• Rossi, as chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, fought to give pay raises to teachers in their first seven years of teaching. Because of Rossi, no first-year teacher in Washington state makes less than $30,000.
•  The 2003 budget received bipartisan support from Governor Locke, Democratic House Speaker Frank Chopp, and the Democratic-controlled House.
•  When teacher pay increases were put on the ballot as initiatives, voters were told that they could be funded with surplus state revenues without raising taxes – this was clearly not possible in 2003 when the state faced a $2.6 billion budget gap.

Fact : Question the messenger. The powerful Washington Education Association union initiated these attacks against Rossi, but in 2003 made the same attacks, except back then they were called Governor Locke’s cuts. While it is politically convenient to blame Rossi now, that doesn’t make their attacks true.

Claim: Dino Rossi cut funding for class size reductions.

Fact: Dino Rossi’s 2003 budget increased funding for class size reduction – from $212 per student to $254 per student. Governor Locke’s original budget provided no additional funding for reducing class sizes.

Dino also helped set up a phase-in schedule for reaching $450 per student. Again, t his proposal passed the Legislature in a bi-partisan fashion (28-19 Senate, 66-31 House). The Democratic Speaker of the House and Budget Chairwoman of the House both supported the measure.

Source: ESSB 6058 (2003).http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=6058&year=2003

Just as with I-728, when this initiative (I-732) was passed, the funding was supposed to come out of the state’s budget surplus. In 2003, there was no surplus. In fact, Washington faced the largest deficit in state history, yet Dino still worked to increase funding and lower class sizes for our children.

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