Inslee Talks Education, Climate Change During Kitsap Stop
BREMERTON — Gov. Jay Inslee told an audience of Kitsap County Democrats on Saturday night that properly funding education is the biggest challenge ahead for the state.
Inslee was at Olympic College in Bremerton for the Kitsap County Democratic Central Committee’s largest fundraiser of the year.
Along with the challenges of funding education, he talked about the importance of addressing climate change.
Earlier this year, the state’s Supreme Court ordered the Legislature to pump $5 billion into its K-12 schools in five years. And in April, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan notified the state that his department was revoking the state’s No Child Left Behind waiver after lawmakers failed to tie student test scores to teacher evaluations.
“We have a moral obligation to our children and not just a legal obligation to our constitution,” Inslee said, stating that increasing education funding is the right thing to do, with or without an order.
As U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, introduced Inslee, he also pointed to education as a key issue for the state, noting that 17 percent of the state’s population and 55 percent of Washington prisoners don’t have a high school diploma.
Inslee argued against removing money from mental health and affordable housing to pay for education, which is one option that has been place on the table, he said.
Teachers have a difficult enough time without having to educate “a hungry, homeless, sick child,” he said.
The governor also hailed the DREAM Act, which was passed by lawmakers during the 2013 session. It allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the state as children to apply for need grants to pay for college.
He recalled recently meeting a young man in Pasco who was an agricultural worker and had moved from Mexico as a child. The young man’s brother is in medical school and he hopes to be a mechanical engineer, Inslee said.
Funding education isn’t the only difficult task the state has, Inslee added.
He also voiced concerns about climate change and ocean acidification, which is affecting the state’s oyster industry and causing some oyster farmers to move to Hawaii, Inslee said.
Kilmer — who is on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology — echoed Inslee’s concerns about climate change.
“Our kids are only as safe as the air we breath and the water around them,” Kilmer said.
Inslee pointed to green energy as not only a way toward a better environment, but a job creator for the state.
“Climate change is not about science,” Inslee said. “It is about us.”