Dive Brief:

• Washington state legislators are being held in contempt by the state's Supreme Court for failing to create a more efficient and reasonable method for the state to pay for public education.  
• If lawmakers don't create a plan to address the issue by the end of the 2015 session, the court will impose sanctions and potential fines — and the justices may even re-write the budget themselves.
• Each biennial state budget, the cost for reforms has been over $4 billion and legislators have been unable to agree on cuts or tax raises.

Dive Insight:

In the last budget, legislators injected $1 billion into the education fund. While it's commendable that Washington's legislators are making education a priority, part of their job description is also making policy in a satisfactory and realistic manner. Anyone can decided to flush education with cash, but they should also make sure it's done properly. The state has suffered its fair share of bumps in the education arena: After losing its No Child Left Behind waiver, the state not only lost control of how much of its federal ed dollars are spent, but many of its schools stopped making "Adequate Yearly Progress" under the Bush-era regulations and have since been deemed "failing."