OLYMPIA, Wash. – In a press conference Monday morning, Washington Superintendent of Public Education Chris Reykdal announced his proposal to fill the current $4 billion gap in state funding for Washington’s K-12 public schools.
As superintendent of public instruction, Reykdal, who is up for re-election, is required to submit his proposal to Governor Jay Inslee for the next two years, whether he wins in November or not.
In recent years, the state has fallen into a big financial hole, and Reykdal made it clear on Monday that he wants to fill that costly gap.
“In short, I want to close the four-billion-dollar gap. I don’t accept no as an answer and I don’t accept people that say that’s too much money, you can’t do it,” Reykdal. “My answer is we will do it, it’s just a matter of how long that will take.”
From high inflation to a reliance on one-time federal money that came during the pandemic, it’s all adding up, and Reykdal said now is the time to get out of the budget crisis. The superintendent is sending this message to Washington families: the state should and will provide enough money so that their kids can receive a fair, well-balanced education, and future.
“There’s a lot of hope and optimism out there, but we can do better even with the right investments, and that’s what today is all about,” Reykdal said.
Reykdal broke down the details of his 2025 to 2027 biennial operating budget proposal, one that he has sent to Governor Inslee. He pointed to a few key statistics, one being that Washington invests 3.1 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in education, while the national average is 3.6 percent.
“Washington state has always lagged behind,” Reykdal said. “That’s four billion dollars per year, that we would have to invest in our schools either from state investments or local levies, just to get to the national average.”
On top of that, Reykdal said Washington remained behind high-performing states, like Massachusetts when it comes to per-student spending; Washington sits at 17,000 per student, while Massachusetts is at 21,000 per student. Reykdal wants to bridge that gap.
“It’s a good goal for Washington to have, we’re a high-performing state academically, above the average by a lot and in some cases in the top ten or 15, but we can’t be the best unless we invest like we’re the best,” he said.
And to families and educators, being the best doesn’t just mean high testing scores, it means fostering environments that support happy and healthy kids. But when there’s a budget hole as big as four billion dollars, Reykdal said it’s harder for districts to go above and beyond basic education needs.
When Washington families face high inflation, so do the school districts.
“They have to cut programs, sometimes impacting students, or they have to rely on their local levies and that means they’re not doing the extra things that you wanted to do when voting for levies, they’re just surviving,” Reykdal said.
While the state received a great chunk of federal money during the pandemic, those one-time dollars are gone, and as we enter the 2025 to 2027 school years, Reykdal is asking Governor Inslee for less than two billion dollars per year.
“We’re very resolute about this now because there is no federal money to rely on over the last several years,” Reykdal said.
Reykdal is prioritizing special education, student transportation, maintenance, supplies, and operating costs. On top of that, Reykdal wants to transform the well-being of our students by emphasizing student mental and behavioral health, targeted support for high poverty schools, retaining educators, removing barriers to learning, and overall, school district financial health.
“Let’s get after it, our kids need us,” Reykdal said.
Reykdal is up for re-election. In the November general election, he’ll face off against David Olson.Olson, the sole candidate endorsed by state republicans, has served on the Peninsula School District board since 2013, currently as vice president and as president in 2021. His background includes service in the Navy and later government banking, with cities and counties throughout Washington as his clients.
Olson said with his background in banking, he’s the best candidate to help get Washington’s public education system out of this financial hole.
