Jana Carlisle, executive director of the Partnership for Learning.

The Washington state Senate was in a gambling mood this week. And the money they put on the table – $44 million – is geared toward the state’s neediest students.

Tuesday, the state Senate failed to pass Senate Bill 5246, which would have met the conditions of a federal waiver from the U.S. Department of Education. The waiver called for school districts to be required to use state test scores as part of teacher and principal evaluations.

Instead, the Senate bet that control of the $44 million will be saved with some hard lobbying by the state’s congressional delegation. Instead of solving the issue in this Washington, the Senate punted it back east to the other Washington with fingers crossed.

The issue at hand was a word change in state law from “may” to “must.” The current teacher-and-principal evaluation law does not require school districts to use student growth data, as measured by year-to-year state test scores, in educator evaluations. The U.S. Department of Education, through a conditional waiver, gave the state a year to fix that or risk losing control of $44 million.

It seems inconceivable that state lawmakers would cede control of that much money while they are struggling to meet an order of the state Supreme Court to do a better job of fully funding our schools.

Now, by calling the bluff of the U.S. Department of Education, the state not only risks losing control of $44 million, but also likely places our K-12 education system under the requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), otherwise known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

We all remember NCLB, the federal law that, prior to the state receiving its waiver, deemed half of our more than 2,000 public schools in need of improvement, or “failing.” Under current NCLB requirements, nearly all of the schools in our state would be listed as failing.

Talk about a burden lawmakers just placed on our state’s schools.

First, our local school districts will lose the flexibility to use these vital federal funds for programs they deem most appropriate for their students. These funds directly support low-income students, paying for programs like full-day kindergarten, in-school tutoring, special classes and paraprofessionals to assist teachers in classes with challenged students.

Second, schools will be required to explain in a letter to parents why, under the eyes of the federal government, they are “need of improvement,” or failing.  Schools will be required to offer transportation to schools that are not failing (if they can be found), plus supplemental services (mostly tutoring) that would be available from private vendors — if such vendors have a presence in the community and have been approved by the state.

A third consequence is the potential loss of a federal Race to the Top grant that was awarded to seven of the state’s most at-risk schools districts in South King County’s Road Map region. One of the requirements of that $40 million grant is that the seven districts must use state test scores in teacher evaluations.

Prior to the 2014 legislative session, it appeared lawmakers were in sync on solving this issue and preventing unnecessary burdens on our public schools. Washington’s school districts were counting on lawmakers to protect their full access to and control over funds designed to support programs for students who are most at risk of not meeting academic standards.

But lawmakers in the Senate went all-in on a bet Tuesday that could likely result in a big loss for students who need it most.

Jana Carlisle is executive director of the Partnership for Learning, the education foundation of the Washington Roundtable, a statewide nonprofit organization that communicates the need for all Washington’s students to graduate from high school ready for career and college. As a trusted source of information, Partnership for Learning makes complex education issues accessible.

Your support matters.

Public service journalism is important today as ever. If you get something from our coverage, please consider making a donation to support our work. Thanks for reading our stuff.