Citizen-founded and citizen-funded, LEV is the only Washington-based organization working to improve education from early learning through higher education. This wide lens allows us to identify promising reforms across the educational spectrum and unite diverse constituencies who might otherwise remain focused on narrow agendas.
As an enterprise, the League has a Foundation (501(c)3), 501(c)4 and a PAC.
“Our top priority is to get better education results for all children,” says Chris Korsmo. “This financial crisis has shown that our state can’t keep doing business as usual. We need to seize this opportunity to sweep away whatever is dysfunctional or inefficient and build the education system we want for our students.
Recent Achievements
Working closely with community groups, the League of Education Voters supported approval of a groundbreaking contract between Seattle Public Schools and the local teachers’ union, which allows student test scores to be used in a new teacher evaluation system.
LEV helped develop the Excellent Schools Now coalition, a diverse group of business leaders, grassroots voters, parents, and reformminded educators that worked in 2010 to enact Washington’s Race to the Top bill, SB 6696, which empowers the state to intervene in low-performing schools, establishes a four-tiered evaluation for teachers, and moves the granting of tenure from two to three years after hire. Although Washington did not receive a grant, the reforms outlined in the legislation will help improve the quality of the state’s principals, teachers, and schools.
