Reykdal confronted by state data, blames partisanship for bad results

From the Washington Policy Institute: https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/reykdal-confronted-by-state-data-blames-partisanship-for-bad-results 

Pointing to stats from Washington Policy Center’s Report Card for Washington’s Future showing student spending is up per pupil from $13,775 to $19,163, while student test scores show decline with “about 60 percent not on track for college level learning in math and 50 percent when it comes to English”, Q13 reporter Hana Kim asked OSPI chief Chris Reykdal, “What should districts be doing differently that maybe they haven’t tried before, what is your guidance on this to maybe turn things around?”

Reykdal’s answer was to deny a problem, and change the subject. He tried to change the topic from what the data says to who cited the data (WPC). In an effort to cast doubt on the statistics he asserted WPC is a “partisan organization.” Nevermind that WPC is devoted to policy not partisanship, committed to policy, not candidates and has given our highest award to Democrats, invited Democrats to be our keynote speakers at our annual dinner events and featured the former Democrat nominee for vice president of the United States as one of our keynote speakers.Set all that to the side and then consider that Reykdal himself is a partisan. He served as a partisan legislator AND acknowledged being “the Democrat” in the 2020 race for Superintendent of Public Instruction. (Watch the video of it embedded here — scroll down to the video of a split screen between Gov Inslee and SPI Reykdal at a campaign event and watch how Reykdal smiles and nods his head as then-governor Inslee defines him as “the Democrat” in the SPI race.

So a partisan OSPI chief warned against heeding data from a “partisan” group. But even if you take Reykdal at face value and decide not to trust Washington Policy Center at all, you are still stuck with a major problem.

It’s not WPC data we’re citing.

We’re citing state data from OSPI.

You can watch the video or read the transcript below and stay tuned for WPC Education Director Vicki Murray’s deconstruction of SPI chief Reykdal’s assertions. .

….. https://youtu.be/iJBl6XCC_HA

Reykdal: Well our districts are working really hard and actually they are doing a great job and so when we say ‘not college or university ready’ that means three quarters of our kids are absolutely on grade band so we’ve got to do some work on that other 25 percent  for sure, and we have less money today adjusted for inflation per kid than we did six years ago, so the battle of the stats kind of goes on but what I would say to everybody is there is a reason we’re such a successful economy — it’s public ed. Ninety percent of kids go to public ed, Uh, we’ve got these great programs that allow them to go lots of directions, universities, college, military, technical — so we’ve got really great educators, great school districts, and there is always work to do, especially when there’s more poverty than we have ever had and more mental health than we’ve ever had, more mental health needs, so it’s a constant battle so um, so the Policy Center is a very partisan, ideological group, so they have one perspective, and then there’s national data that suggests very few states are statistically out-performing Washington.”

Hana “I mean that is partisan for sure, but those numbers are accurate though right?”

Reykdal, “Well no cause they say those kids aren’t on grade band and the real fact is what percentage of kids are at grade level which is about three quarters and then how many are ready to go to a university without needing remediation in math or writing by the time they are 15 or 16 years old, and we get to almost 50 percent of those kids so as a relative perform (sic) in the country, we do awfully well but there is always work to be done.”

https://www.q13fox.com/video/1660032?anvt=317