“Today’s House budget proposal lacks significant, new state investment in public higher education. Washington ranks second to last in the nation — 49th — in higher education funding per student, with 25,000 jobs in high demand industries awaiting graduates we do not have the funding to educate. If we are to compete in the 21st century economy, we can and must do better.
“In the absence of significant, new state investment, we appreciate this budget allows for modest tuition increases, which will be necessary to preserve student access to a high quality education. If we want to keep tuition increases low, the state must adequately reinvest in our students and public higher education.
“There is much more work to be done as budget negotiations progress, and I look forward to working with the House, Senate, and Governor on getting this right.”
Rep. O’Ban and his wife, Laurie, a Tacoma Community College instructor, have two sons serving in the United States Army. After graduating from the University of Washington, he attended Seattle University School of Law.
1. What motivated you to run for office?
I believed that my 25 years as an attorney, and other leadership opportunities, could be of help to the legislative process. I have found that to be true and am very grateful for the opportunity to use this background and my professional skills to help make our state better.
2. What are your legislative priorities this session?
Increase job growth in the private sector, help veterans transitioning from military service to the private sector find living wage jobs, and bring transparency and accountability to state government so it spends taxpayers’ money more effectively.
3. What has been the biggest surprise and biggest disappointment for you so far this session?
My biggest, pleasant surprise is the higher degree of bi-partisanship than I expected and biggest disappointment is the number of good bills that die because of the lack of time or other, less worthy bills eat up precious legislative time.
4. What do you think the long-term outlook is for Higher Education in our state?
I believe policymakers of all parties are in agreement that higher education is too expensive and pricing the middle class and disadvantaged out of the opportunity to take part in the American dream. I hope that in this legislative session we spend the money and make the reforms to increase access to higher education.
5. How do you spend your time when the legislature is not in session?
I am an attorney in private practice in the firm Ellis, Li & McKinstry PLLC in Seattle and I volunteer at a legal clinic and serve on the boards and volunteer with the Rescue Mission and a nonprofit serving the Yakama Indian Reservation.
“Today’s Senate Majority Coalition Caucus budget proposal comes up woefully short for the UW and higher education. Of the $100 million in ‘new’ funding for higher education, the majority is derived from a 20 percent tax on our international students that we believe will price students out of their education and result in a loss of high-quality talent for our state. Even with this tax on international students, the caucus budget and its 3 percent tuition reduction provides less funding per student in the next biennium and several hundred dollars less than what was provided over two decades ago. Washington already ranks second to last in the nation – 49th – in funding per student in higher education. A budget like this will not allow us to maintain the excellence of the UW and meet the needs of our students, especially in building capacity for more graduates in STEM areas – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – and supplying our state’s critical industries with skilled and qualified workers. We can and must do better.”
State Representative Larry Seaquist (D-Gig Harbor) explains how the legislative budget process works in this white board video from the Washington House Democrats:
Representative Bergquist is serving his first term in the Washington State Legislature. He is a public school teacher, union member and small business owner from Renton.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in political science and history, he attended Western Washington University for his master’s degree in education and social studies. His wife, Avanti, is a faculty physician at the UW and Seattle Children’s Hospital.
1. What motivated you to run for office?
The opportunity, as an active teacher and community leader, to support our students from pre-K through higher ed and to be a strong voice for the great constituents of the 11th district.
2. What are your legislative priorities this session?
Fully funding our basic public education system and keeping tuition from skyrocketing – while protecting our safety net for those in need.
3. What has been the biggest surprise and biggest disappointment for you so far this session?
My biggest surprise is the amount of time that it takes to be an effective legislator. This is truly a full-time job. My biggest disappointment is the lack of ability to find a plan, thus far, to fund our education and transportation needs.
4. What do you think the long-term outlook is for Higher Education in our state?
I am optimistic over the next decade that we can get tuition increases under control, fully fund our state need grants and college bound scholarship qualifiers and maintain and grow our GET program.
5. How do you spend your time when the legislature is not in session?
I am a public high school social studies teacher and tennis coach at Lindbergh High School in Renton.
President Young stressed the importance of early learning and called the UW’s new online bachelor’s completion program “a good thing for all of us” during remarks to the Alliance for Education in Seattle this week.
“As long as I’m president,” he told the group Thursday, “improving early learning and K-12 will be a major priority for the University of Washington.”
He said the just-announced online-only degree in early childhood and family studies is “a great example of how we are breaking boundaries and challenging conventional thinking when it comes to teacher preparation.”
“It’s a good thing for our early childhood educators, it’s a good thing for our littlest learners who will be learning from these well-trained teachers and it’s a good thing for all of us.”
Prior to earning his medical degree, Sen. Schlicher earned a law degree from the University of Washington, and as an undergraduate studied political science and biology at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. He met his wife, Jessica, on their first day of classes at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Sen. Schlicher was appointed to the State Senate earlier this year, filling the vacancy left by now U.S. Congressman Derek Kilmer.
1. What motivated you to run for office?
In my daily life, I am an ER doctor at an urban emergency department and see people suffering from so many ills. Our broken health care system with 50 million uninsured unable to get care was troubling. I saw so many patients struggling with homelessness, addiction, poverty, and searching for work. I believe that we must do more to help our fellow citizens and not forget about them. My hope is to bring their stories to the legislature and remind politicians that at the end of the pen are people that are affected by changes in service.
2. What are your legislative priorities this session?
My priorities are diverse. Getting our economy moving forward and people back to work is critical. We also need to support small business that provide a large majority of jobs in our communities and make sure that they can compete by streamlining the regulatory process. Fully funding education as required by the Supreme Court in the McCleary decision must begin this year if we are to reach our 2018 target. We must also fully implement the medicaid expansion and ensure that we get to the point where we have universal coverage so that people can get the health care they need.
3. What has been the biggest surprise and biggest disappointment for you so far this session?
As a citizen who joined the legislature, I am not a career politician. I believe that we should all be working for the good of our constituents, regardless of party, and help be better stewards of the dollars entrusted to us. It was surprising and disappointing to find career politicians that put their political success above the needs of my constituents. As a result, I believe now more than ever that we need more citizen legislators and less career politicians so that we can get away from these partisan games.
4. What do you think the long-term outlook is for Higher Education in our state?
We are blessed in Washington State to have an amazing higher education system. Unfortunately the system is under immense pressure due to the state financial challenges. I am supportive of tuition freezes through adequate funding this year and beginning the process of reversing the erosion of funding for higher education. I also want to be clear that GET should not be changed by the legislature. There is a less than 1% chance of insolvency despite the media hype. There is no reason to close the program at this time.
5. How do you spend your time when the legislature is not in session?
When I am not in session I work in the Emergency Department at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington and as the associate director for a national Patient Safety Organization at TeamHealth. My family is also my passion, including my wife Dr. Jessica Kennedy-Schlicher (2006 UWSOM grad), son David (4), daughter Juliette (2), and soon our third child in June. When time allows around all of that, I enjoy getting out in our community in Gig Harbor, visiting my family in Bremerton, and enjoying the great outdoors we have here in the state.
Juliet Morrison, Asst. Dir. of the Wash. Dept. of Early Learning, speaks at a UW press conference announcing the new initiative. Photo: uw.edu
Today, the University of Washington announced the launch of an affordable, online, degree completion initiative.
The initiative represents a concerted effort to expand high quality, University of Washington undergraduate education to the 900,000 working adults in Washington State with some college but no degree.
”If we’re going to meet the needs of our state’s economy and provide upward mobility for our citizens, we have to provide affordable, accessible, and high-quality educational opportunities to this critical population. This affordable, online degree option demonstrates the UW is willing to step up to this challenge. This is a great first step, and I hope they develop more,” State Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle) said in a statement.
The first degree offered this Fall will be in the area of early childhood education, with additional degrees to follow.
Classes will be offered in an all-online format for $7,000 per year (full time), which is less than 60% of the cost of our traditional, on-campus tuition. Admission preference will be given to Washington State residents.
Goals for the early childhood education degree are three-fold:
Provide affordable, flexible access to a high, quality, UW undergraduate education to working adults and returning learners in high demand fields.
Expand the number of high quality, early childhood education providers in the state of Washington to bolster early learning efforts at the state level.
Measure, evaluate, and improve the efficacy of online education in order to promote greater student persistence and success.
This week, the business group Washington Roundtable released a study that says 25,000 high-skill jobs in Washington are going unfilled — jobs that have remained vacant for three months or longer, because qualified workers can’t be found to fill them.
By way of background, UW had to turn away 425 qualified students from Computer Science & Engineering last year due to a lack of resources.
Employers, meanwhile, say they can’t get enough of UW graduates:
“We have a standing discussion with University of Washington computer science — anybody you graduate, we’ll take,” said Singh, CEO of Redmond-based Concur Technologies.
The Times story also highlights the painful cuts made during the Great Recession to public higher education in Washington State, and the need to begin to reinvest, especially in high-demand, high-cost fields like STEM.
“We’ve demonstrated that if you invest in higher education, there’s a clear return on investment,” said Steve Mullin, Washington Roundtable president. “When you try to think how we should invest our scarce economic-development resources, we’re suggesting this should be the priority.”
I am a Registered Nurse. I testified on many health care related bills in Olympia and realized that the legislature needed more representatives that truly understood the health care “system.”
2. What are your legislative priorities this session?
Expanding Medicaid and implementing the Affordable Care Act.
3. What has been the biggest surprise and biggest disappointment for you so far this session?
I was disappointed that we could not pass legislation in the House to make sure that guns were not sold by private sellers to the mentally ill, juveniles and criminals. I am surprised that the Senate is still resisting Medicaid Expansion and implementing the Affordable Care Act. Our health care system is broken and we must move forward.
4. What do you think the long-term outlook is for Higher Education in our state?
I believe the State of Washington will continue to be a leader in the nation. As the downturn in the economy improves we will be able to invest more dollars in the system.
5. How do you spend your time when the legislature is not in session?
I work as a critical care nurse and have six grandchildren to keep me busy. I am a hiker and a traveler.
WATCH: Rep. Morrell’s 2013 Legislative Update to learn more about her work in Olympia.
