Last week, the WEA ran a full-page ad that was critical of three of my votes and prime-sponsored bills during the 2015 Legislative Session.

I stand by all three votes and would vote the same way if the issues were to come before me again in the Legislature. I firmly believe my votes reflect the values of our local community and will provide the most benefit for the students in our schools. Here’s why.

I have not been supportive of initiative 1351 to reduce class sizes in grades 4-12, primarily because it would cost over $2 billion per year. My priorities are reducing class size in K-3, which is shown to have the more dramatic impact on student learning; expanding access to early learning pre-school programs; and reducing the cost of college tuition. Since we have a finite amount of tax dollars to spend, any money we spend to reduce class sizes in high school will reduce access to pre-school programs and necessitate double-digit annual increases in college tuition.

My vote to require that local districts collectively bargain what percentage of their teacher evaluations would include a portion of the state test scores was essential to maintaining flexibility and control of $40 million in federal dollars to help our most vulnerable students.  Every district that has collectively bargained this typically assigns a weighting of state test scores below 1 percent of the overall evaluation process.  That means out of 100 possible points, only 1 (or often less than 1) of those 100 evaluation points would be based on state test scores.  This is a very minor but solidly valid compromise to maintain flexibility and control of $40 million dollars that our students count on.

My levy reform proposal has been the only levy reform proposal introduced this entire session that would ensure that not a single dollar of our local levies that we approved in Issaquah would be transferred to school districts in Eastern Washington. Our local levy dollars are under attack in Olympia as people try to transfer our tax dollars to the other side of the mountains. This bill ensures our local approved levies would continue to support our local schools.

I am proud of all these votes and prime-sponsored bills. I have four daughters going through our Issaquah public schools and could not be happier with the excellent quality of their teachers. The fabulous public schools in Issaquah is the primary reason why I chose to raise my family in this community. My priority has always been what is best for my four daughters, and the other students attending public school in our community, and my votes reflect those priorities.

If you would like to discuss these (or any other) issues with me, I urge you to contact me through my office at 360-786-7680, my email at mark.mullet@leg.wa.gov, or even in person at my pizza restaurant. These are important issues and they deserve a full and honest dialogue.

-Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah