McCleary required Washington to fully fund education—so why did the “fixes” worsen inequity?

Plus a flurry of behavioral health legislation

First, if you haven’t read part one of this series, go read it. 

In 2017, the Legislature rewrote the way the state pays for K-12 schools to comply with the Washington Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary decision, which found lawmakers had failed to adequately fund basic education as required by the state constitution.¹

After lawmakers negotiated the “McCleary fixes” in 2017, Washington became a fully-funded education system, meaning the state was entirely responsible for paying basic education costs, the most expensive component being administrative and teacher salaries.²

In 2017-18, the year before the McCleary fixes, the state spent a little under $12 billion on K-12 education. The next year, the state funneled another $2 billion into K-12 education—which meant K-12 education received a more than 50% share of the state budget that year, according to a legislative staff report. 

Nearly $7 billion was added to the state spending on education post-McCleary, but since then, the money gap has grown substantially between students in affluent districts and low-income school districts.