Funding doubled, test scores dropped, and 8th grade math scores a “five-alarm fire"

Despite record investments in Washington’s K-12 schools over the last decade, student test scores have been in free fall, according to new analyses released Friday by the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. And while many states are seeing post-COVID improvements in student achievement, Washington’s scores are still dropping.

“Eighth grade math scores are the five-alarm fire,” said Marguerite Roza, Ph.D., Director of the Edunomics Lab and Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where she leads the Certificate in Education Finance program. Edunomics Lab is a Georgetown University research center that conducts modeling of complex education finance decisions to inform policy.

Dr. Roza said 8th grade math scores are a major focus because on an individual level, they are predictive of lifetime earnings, and collectively, they’re predictive of the future economic health of the state.

“It’s very important in an economy that is heavily reliant on a tech sector,” she said. “The report is as staggering as it is concerning,” said Bellevue Chamber CEO and former Senate Education Committee Vice Chair, Joe Fain.

“Since 2013, Washington state school funding has more than doubled, growing at three times the rate of inflation, yet student achievement has fallen. The collapse in student achievement predates the pandemic, and should be a wake up call to legislators, school boards, and parents across Washington.”

In Washington, state spending on schools has grown faster than it has nationally, yet scores have dropped more rapidly than many other states, said Dr. Roza. The multi-year decline in math scores,“might be the most eye-popping, most important number that we came across,”she said, noting that the decline cannot be attributed to the pandemic or distractions such as cell phones, because Washington has lost ground relative to other states experiencing similar issues. In addition to 8th grade math scores, 4th grade reading scores are also a critical measurement, and one where Washington’s scores have also been on a steady decline.

Test scores are just one part of the picture, according to Dr. Roza. Other challenges include decreasing enrollment and tight funding. More than 30 percent of Washington school districts have lost 7 percent or more of their students since 2019, and enrollment across the state is expected to drop another 7 percent over the next 6 years.

This enrollment decline comes at a time when staffing is at an all-time high, though.

“Washington state schools are staffed at a higher level really than any time in history,” Dr. Roza said. Most of the positions added in the last decade are what Dr. Roza calls an, “intermediate layer of non-teaching specialists,” that are not classroom teachers. Rather, they’re administrators, aides, counselors, specialists, extracurricular teachers, and others. Special Education also now comprises about 14 percent of district budgets, up from 11.5 percent in 2010. In large part, this is because Washington schools are identifying dramatically more students as disabled than in prior years. The most common disability classification is learning disability, and Dr. Roza noted that stronger early reading instruction helps reduce that number.