Dive Brief:

• On Sunday, the Seattle Education Association signed a new contract with the Seattle school district, bringing an official end to a strike that delayed the start of school last week.
• The new contract gives teachers a 9.5% raise over the next three years, less than the 21% they originally requested.
• The contract also guarantees 30 minutes of recess; an investigation last year found that some elementary schools had less than 15 minutes. 

Dive Insight:

The end of the strike brings to a close a showdown that highlighted the turbulent state of education in Washington. The strike raised the profile of the state’s struggle to adequately fund schools during a week that also saw the Washington Supreme Court rule against charter schools. Although the strike is over, Washington lawmakers face significant hurdles to resolve those outstanding issues. What’s more, the effects of the strike won’t fade until the end of the year. Six days of school will have to be rescheduled. That could happen at the start of summer break or be distributed through the year, during other holidays.

Few other states faced the kind of kickoff to the school year that Washington did, but several are still mired in similar battles — particularly over school funding. Texas just saw a longstanding school finance court case resurface, Kansas remains divided by partisan pushes for funding, and Colorado’s Supreme Court just upheld a legal quirk that allows education officials to cut back on the dollars they give schools.