So despite the federal mandate, republicans managed to divert funds from Seattle schools and democrats caved. It's almost like our laws do nothing if no one is held accountable.

Whoops, the McCleary ruling rather. The federal mandate was for SPD...

@ 4,

It's about paying your fair share. The red counties keep electing nihilistic, anti-social, RepubliKKKan lunatics who refuse to take personal responsibility for everything from road maintenance to adequately educating their own children.

They shouldn't be rewarded for their self-destructive, free-loading behavior by demanding that the sane counties around the Sound increase the amount needed to bail them out.

@5: So you are saying that it is wrong to bail out or give assistance to those who make self-destructive choices or those who can not support themselves, because they do not take personal responsibility?

@4 It's misleading to call Seattle wealthy and rural towns poor. Seattle has wealthy people in it but they're not the ones being targeted. Otherwise, we'd just tax places like Medina and Bainbridge. Now stop your pathetic personal insults.

@ 6, Specifically, it's wrong for us to bail out the RepubliKKKan bath salts cannibals and save them from facing the consequences of their own completely voluntary anti-tax, anti-society, anti-sanity choices.

Wasn't the lottery supposed to take care of our public education shortfalls?

Since it hasn't, kill the lottery. Otherwise the dems and alt-left just perpetuate their hypocrisy as @4 so eloquently stated.

@8 - Do you mean to imply that in order to make the WA 'red county' Republican legislators "face the consequences" of their political decisions, we need to deprive the children in schools across the state? I'm not sure punishing the children is the best solution here. I don't want kids to be pawns in some game of political hardball.

I have no problem with richer parts of the state helping out poorer parts of the state, we're all Washingtonians, and we're all Americans... that's what Americans do, help each other out.

But it does seem that the legislators are not acting in good faith. And why is that? I want the answer to that question. Maybe we should take the difference out of their pay...

Why 'take away' something from Seattle & make schooling here more difficult? Why "restrict Seattle school officials use of state funding, and fail to fully pay for teachers' salaries"? That makes no sense at all.

Why did we give Boeing a $13 Billion tax break (& let them axe jobs), and now face school funding issues? Seems like a no brainer right there.

(@9 - psst there's no such thing as "alt-left". nobody calls themselves that. it's an abusive label.)

Anyone who pretends to care about equality of opportunity or fairness should welcome the end of levy funding. The key to getting schools properly funded shouldn't be going back to that reactionary approach, which punishes children for living in the same community as poor and/or selfish adults, it should be through getting the Republicans out of power so we can get the revenue for proper funding. We have a great opportunity to take the Senate in a few months, and make larger gains a year later. That's the way forward. This attempt by rich school districts to go back to the inequitable, unfair levy system should be rejected by anyone who considers themself progressive. People like #5 seem to think it's just fine to punish children for their parents politics. Nuts to that.

@4:

Except the richer blue counties in this state have ALWAYS propped up the poorer red counties, despite their vociferous assertions to the contrary. And frankly, I doubt most of us would have a problem with that in-principal were it not for the fact that: A of All) the poorer red counties assume THEY pay the full amount for their public services (which, of course they don't), and; B of All) they're so damned ungrateful when they find out they're being subsidized by us. I mean, seriously, if they don't want our money, if they don't want the public services our tax subsidies provide for them, they could always just flat-out refuse to accept our commie/pinko/socialist/librul largess, and hold their heads up proudly for sticking to their unwavering adherence to conservative principals such as independence, self-reliance, personal responsibility, lifting-by-your-own-bootstraps, and what-not.

But, for some reason, they never do, do they?

Nope, all they can do is, on the one hand extend their grabby hands and shout "GIMME! GIMMIE!", and on the other complain about how "big gubbamint" is wasting THEIR hard-earned money! I mean, talk about hypocrisy - it would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

And of course, then they have the gall to insist THEY be given veto power over how we raise and spend tax revenue within our own geographic borders, but if we were even to suggest such a reciprocal action in THEIR neck of the woods, they'd go ballistic, even though in point of fact much of that money is ours to begin with.

@10 " I'm not sure punishing the children is the best solution here. I don't want kids to be pawns in some game of political hardball. "

In the War Of Social Justice you must break many young eggs to create the glorious SJW paradise that's just a few small steps away.

@11: Logic dictates that if there is a discussion of alt-right, there would be an intuitive discussion of the alt-left. How they are defined and what they mean to people differs, but it is incredibly disingenuous to not discuss the the logical opposite of the political spectrum.

In addition, there are left-wing extremists like Dow Constantine, so there you go.

Using financial leverage to force amoral, unethical RepubliKKKans to appropriately fund schools does not "punish children." That's absurd.

It's abusive for them to greedily and irresponsibly refuse to fully fund education in the first place, and enabling them to continue doing so deepens the crisis instead of solving it.

@17: of course it does. It perpetuates a situation that leaves those children, through no fault of their own, at a distinct disadvantage. The levy systems perpetuates economic inequality.

@16:

Naw, because that's pretty much exactly how THEY would do things.

Seriously, a simple acknowledgement of their imbalanced tax revenue-to-tax expenditure ratio, and perhaps a "thanks for helping us build and maintain our roads, bridges, schools, fire stations, and public utilities" would probably suffice.

@ 18,

Taking money from sane counties and deepening Puget Sound area school deficits in order to give the money to the red counties so that they can keep their taxes artificially low harms our children, period.

RepubliKKKans and their Democratic enablers have the choice to fully fund education in a fair, equitable way, however they refuse to do so and instead exploit a perversion of inter-district revenue equalization. You seem to think that they don't have a choice, which is obviously false.

@20: Taxes are lower in rural counties because they are rural. But their tax revenue also funds state expenditures for everyone, as do urban taxes. Unless you REALLY think that someone in Okanogan County should pay the same property tax rate as someone in King County, your "artificially low" argument is flawed.

Any right-minded person would move away from a state that doesn't care for its children enough to fund education. It could; it just doesn't want to. The republicans couldn't care less and the democrats are too weak to stand up for it. Washington's tax structure is SNAFU, as per usual.

@15 - Now these are terms defining "ends" of the political spectrum? Well I'll be.

The "alt-right" defines itself as such. That's their own label, for themselves. It's clearly a euphemism for people who have vocally expressed wanting to do "peaceful ethnic cleansing" (Eg. R.S.). But it's a label they created for themselves, for their own purposes.

"Alt-left" is a label created by the alt-right (&/or Trump, (probably Bannon)), and non-consensually applied to people they oppose (..again, no person labels themselves "alt-left", and the term didn't exist before 15 Aug 2017..).

To attempt to use the two terms as "the logical opposite[s] of the political spectrum." is to create a false equivalence between those promoting racial hatred, genocide and now actual murder, ...with basically anybody they want to dismissively label. Without actually talking about the substance of their political viewpoints. No lefty is arguing for the extermination of any group or person.

The first is a self-applied, disguising euphemism.
The second is an oppositionally-applied, dismissive erasure.

Dow Constantine is "left-wing extremist"? Sir, you debase words. The Baader-Meinhoff Gang were leftist extremists. The FMLN were leftist extremists. Weather Underground were leftist extremists. I'll bet you Dow doesn't even own a gun.

@24: Yeah, Dow as a left-wing extremist is a bit of a stretch.

I sometimes slip into hyperbole.

@26:

So, then you agree: the rich, liberal, urban counties shouldn't be rewarding the poor, conservative, rural counties for the bad choices those irresponsible citizens made by deciding to live in those places, yes?

" ... restrict Seattle school officials use of state funding ..."
– should be "officials' use"– plural possessive