by Jerry Cornfield, Washington State Standard
December 27, 2024
As Democratic Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson looks to transform the delivery of public education in Washington by appointing rather than electing an overseer of the system, his strongest allies may be Republicans.
Ferguson campaigned on eliminating the superintendent of public instruction as an elected job and putting a person in charge of education policy in his cabinet in his first term.
Such a change will require voters amending the state constitution to remove the post as an elected position. Before that, it will take a two-thirds vote by the state House and Senate to approve putting the constitutional amendment on the ballot.
Leaders of the majority Democrats say this is not a priority for their caucuses but Republican leaders are interested.
“Where I think the governor-elect and I agree is that we should get rid of the Office of Superintendent Public Instruction, and, frankly, the state Board of Education,” Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, said in a recent interview.
“Roll it all underneath the executive branch and that way we have an election that the people are paying attention to,” he said. “They can hold [governors] accountable for when they either succeed or fail in delivering education.”
Braun and House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, said they have not yet met with the incoming governor about the 2025 session. Axing the elected post could be an issue they work on together, they said.
“I think that there’s a definite path we could find to put that on the ballot,” Braun said. “I’m not going to say yes, absolutely, I’ve counted the votes. But am I willing to take it on? Yes, absolutely.”
A spokeswoman for Ferguson said this will be a topic when he sits down with GOP leaders. The governor-elect has not decided if he’ll request legislation for the change or wait to see if a lawmaker proposes the idea, Bayley Burgess of Ferguson’s transition team wrote in an email
“He is confident there will be legislation on this topic this session,” she said, adding that Ferguson could seek out a legislator to introduce a bill on his behalf.
Reykdal weighs in
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction channels funding to schools, implements state education laws and sets curriculum standards for more than 1 million public school students. It oversees the state’s 295 school districts, six state-tribal education compact schools, educational service districts and the Washington Center for Childhood Deafness and Hearing Loss.
The superintendent is a nonpartisan elected post — though candidates in this year’s election had strong ties to the two major parties. It carries a four-year term.
Making it an appointed job is not a new idea.
Former governor Chris Gregoire tried unsuccessfully in 2011. She envisioned appointing a secretary of education to oversee the state’s multiple boards and entities responsible for education from early learning to college. The person would serve subject to confirmation by the state Senate.
More recently, in 2022, former state senators Reuven Carlyle and Sam Hunt, both Democrats, introduced legislation to do the same thing. It received a hearing but did not advance out of the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee.
The argument has been, and is now, the same. Residents view the governor as being directly responsible for education but they are not because Washington delegates decision-making authority to the superintendent and others.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, who won a third term in November, backed the 2022 bill and continues to support converting the elected office to an appointed post.
But, he said in an email, it must be done as part of a broader reform of Washington’s “convoluted” education governance structure in which those boards and agencies with policy-setting powers often create inconsistent directives for educators and school boards.
“One agency sets educator certification requirements, while a separate agency actually completes the certification,” he said. “One agency sets graduation requirements while another agency sets the learning standards. One agency establishes a code of conduct for educators while a separate agency investigates violations of the code.”
“This change would allow for greater alignment of priorities with a single statewide voice setting the vision and direction for our education system,” he said in an email.
Burgess, in her email, said Ferguson supports this reform “to improve accountability in our education system.”
Across the aisle
Democrats, who hold overwhelming majorities in the state House and Senate, must be on board if there is any chance of the change occurring.
House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, and Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, said making the position appointed rather than elected is not a current priority of their respective caucuses.
“It doesn’t mean nobody’s thinking about it, but we have had no discussion of it,” Jinkins said. “There might be a great appetite for it. It didn’t come up in anything, anywhere.”
Pedersen said people are “very open to the conversation” though he voiced skepticism about the value of such a change.
“The big question for us would be whether that gets us closer to great schools or full funding for public schools,” he said. “It’s not immediately apparent to me that that’s the system reform that is the biggest obstacle to meeting our goals.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
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