Parents in Washington State have been advocating and fighting for school choice for decades. Over the last couple of years, their fight has drawn in tens of thousands of other parents who became aware of the dysfunction of our public schools during the plandemic. While Washington is run by the teacher’s union and school choice seems like a long shot at best, Representative Jim Walsh is sponsoring a bill that would allow parents and families just that: CHOICE.
Filed on December 13, 2021, HB-1663 would allow for up to $10,000 to follow the student. In a Facebook post on December 10th, Rep Walsh state:
“In WA, our K-12 school system is struggling. It’s failing to deliver the uniform, high-quality “education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex” that our state constitution describes.
We need to take bold action to fix this problem. Fiddling about the edges of “education reform” isn’t enough.
Here’s a bill that makes bold change. It channels a billion dollars a year (that’s about 3% of WA’s annual operating budget) into an education funding program in which money–up to $10,000 per child, per year–truly follows the student.
Some special-interest groups are going to hate this proposal. But it’s the kind of bold K-12 education reform that WA needs. It empowers families, parents and–most importantly–kids.”
This bill would give much-needed financial relief to families who have undertaken homeschooling or private school. Many of these families have had to cut back on work outside the home to provide education for their children or they have taken on the additional financial burden of a private school while still funding government schools through their tax dollars.
This will be a hard fight. The government, the unions, and other groups will fight hard to keep a bill like HB-1663 from passing. These groups do not want to lose funding, they also don’t want to lose the opportunity to groom little Johnny in the way that they want…making him a “global citizen” as established by SB-5023 back in 2019.
As Washington has made Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) and Ethnic Studies (ie: Critical Race Theory, Diversity Equity & Inclusion, etc) mandatory in government schools, more parents are ready to pull the plug and find school solutions that provide their children the opportunity to get back to academics. We need all hands on deck, and that means not just parents, but grandparents and concerned citizens and other special interest groups.
This is a BIG bill. We know that our public education system is broken and run by radical left democrats that are not interested in providing the kind of education our children need to be self-sufficient, confident, contributing members of our society. This is our opportunity to change that trajectory for Washington children.
What can you do? Follow this bill. Write letters (the paper kind) to and call every Democrat legislator and tell them you want them to PASS this bill. Forward this information to at least 5 friends. You can comment on this bill and let your representatives know that you support it. (Even if you would like to see some tweaks to the bill, you can still support the bill and provide your feedback and input.)
This is how we save our children. This is how we save our country.
Please also consider making a financial contribution to Representative Walsh’s re-election campaign. Rep Walsh has been out there every day – in Olympia, on social media. I don’t think I’ve seen a harder worker for our cause. He doesn’t have to be in your district for you to donate. This is an easy way to say “thank you, keep going!”
*By Julie Barrett, Founder, Conservative Ladies of Washington
