Moderator Bob Watt (Board Chair, The Seattle Foundation; Vice Chair, Thrive by Five Washington) asked a question about funding, citing the recent court decision stating that the state isn't living up to it's constitutional obligation to fully fund education. He asked what, if anything, our panelists thought would result from it.

Scott Oki, Founder and Chairman, Oki Developments, Inc.:
"I actually don't think we need any more money, I simply think we are misspending the money we already have... The United States employs more non-teachers than teachers on the public school payroll... If we shifted the labor base of our public school system away from central bureaucrats and put those resources in the classroom, we could probably actually do something... If we had the will... to simply put a cap; you can only spend 8% on overhead - the rest of the money has to go into the classroom. I bet you we would have plenty of money to hire more teachers, to pay them more money... We are simply misspending the existing $11 billion this state spends every year."

Lisa Macfarlane, Director of External Affairs, League of Education Voters, responds:
"I disagree significantly with this... I would be the first to say it's not all about money. We need resources and we need reform and if you add those two together then you will get results...  I don't care which measure you pick, we are the bottom of the barrel... It's untenable if you want to provide all children, all children in this state with a quality education opportunity... To pretend that we have enough resources today is wrong. School districts have been making cuts. We're cutting down to the bone and it's hurting kids and it's hurting staff morale... It's an economic development issue. We're not going to, as a country or as a state, recover our economy and give our kids the jobs we need and they deserve if we don't invest in our public schools."