Let's Grade The Wea's Leadership

TWO years and four days ago at a rally in the Seattle Center Arena, the seeds were sown for the Washington Education Association's strike against the Legislature.

Chanting "fail, fail, fail," about 800 teachers from WEA locals in King County graded the Legislature and Booth Gardner in seven key areas of education funding.

They flunked. They deserved it. Those were times of big revenue-surplus windfalls. Education didn't get a fair share.

The state was slipping - and has continued to slip - in the percentage of the budget devoted to kindergarten-through-12th-grade education. School construction was underfunded. Class sizes were among the nation's worst. School supplies were wanting. Teachers were - and are - underpaid and underappreciated.

A statewide strike was promised if the governor and Legislature didn't improve their grades.

That strike was delivered 13 days ago by 21,000 of the 50,000 WEA members. It idled 300,000 of the state's 800,000 students.

It's over for now. It's time to grade the WEA leadership.

Give Carla Nuxoll, WEA president, an A for organization - for galvanizing teacher activism that caught public and legislative attention.

Give her an F for strategy. She is naive about the political jungle of Olympia. Nuxoll - and her key advisers - weren't quite sure where they were headed with the head of steam they built.

The WEA's specific demands came late, then turned to Silly Putty. Near the end, one WEA official said that adding $200 million to the Senate budget proposal would bring a "settlement." In a wink, Nuxoll said $100 million more would do the job.

Cooler WEA heads unsuccessfully urged every type of pressure but closing schools. They knew the WEA could paint itself in a corner by striking the Legislature.

The 147-member body has no obligation to negotiate. Unlike school districts, it has no contract with the WEA.

Legislators had the option of ending the strike by passing an unsatisfactory budget and going home. Or - as was the case - the governor could pull the plug on the strike with a lengthy cooling-off period before a special session begins. Neither action would settle anything. But it would put kids back in class.

Nuxoll said that teachers would return to class if legislators stayed in Olympia - that the WEA points had been made. But she said that if the Legislature adjourned, the strike would continue. No one believed that. Why would the teachers strike an empty Capitol building?

So teachers have gone back to the classroom empty-handed. Yet the WEA has claimed victory. There are no victors yet.

"Before the strike began, few believed that we could influence the legislative process, but we did," Nuxoll said.

She said the strike put education funding at the top of the agenda in Olympia. She's correct there.

The WEA has been promised a blue-ribbon committee to discuss long-range solutions to give kindergarten-through-12th-grade education the funding it deserves.

"No one was even discussing such a commission or the need to deal with long-term solutions before the strike began," Nuxoll said.

But proper funding of education has been studied to death. Blue-ribbon commissions don't put pork chops on teacher tables. They don't reduce class size or provide needed school supplies or address special needs of districts.

They might. But recommendations of blue-ribbon commissions still have to get through the Legislature.

What else was gained by the disruptive strike?

The WEA points to a change-of-heart pledge by House Democrats to dip into the state's $260-million rainy-day reserve - if necessary - to increase their K-12 budget proposal.

WEA support always has gone to the Democrats. But at that rally two years ago, Terry Bergeson, then WEA president, said: "The Republicans have done better for us than the Democrats have . . .there are people who are not friends of children, and we need to knock them out of the temple."

This time around, the Republican-controlled Senate put the biggest K-12 pot on the table from the beginning. The WEA said that it wasn't enough, and that it was unacceptable because it peeled money from human services, which also serve kids.

"Obviously, we don't have a budget, but we have a promise - in writing - of a House budget that equals or exceeds the Senate budget," says Teresa Moore, WEA spokeswoman. "That never would have happened before the strike."

Equaling or exceeding the proposed Senate budget may be a WEA expectation, but it's not part of the written pledge.

The House Democrats promised support for a blue-ribbon commission, using reserve funds if necessary, lifting the lid on local levies, and steering more money to districts with special needs.

None of those is a monumental gain from such a massive strike.

Hopes for a surplus in the June revenue forecast hold a possible solution. If there is a surplus, all of it should go to education. Tapping reserves as a Band-Aid is a lousy solution, but may have to be done. A better K-12 budget is a must.

While there was parent anger over school closures, there was substantial parent support for teacher goals - if not the strike. That's a plus.

Bergeson, the former WEA president, who is now part of management as an executive director of the Central Kitsap School District, says that rallies by 20,000 teachers showed this is "not just a WEA thing - not just a labor dispute."

She believes that the teacher push for better education funding - not just higher wages - could lead to forging new partnerships among teachers, parents, business and communities.

"Everybody has to understand the larger picture better," Bergeson said. "But why do we always have to learn from a fight?"

A resumption of the strike - as threatened if there is no sign of legislative progress - could lose parent support and cause a backlash by voters when local school levies are put on the ballot.

That WEA trigger finger definitely shouldn't be used.

Don Hannula's column appears Wednesday on The Times' editorial page.