Candidate Forum: Daranciang, Valdez, comment on education

Daranciang - Valdez
LD 46, Pos 2

By Evan Smith

In an earlier post showing candidate comments on education, I left out part of the comments from Republican 46th Legislative District challenger Beth Daranciang. She is running against incumbent Democratic State Rep. Javier Valdez in the Aug. 4 primary and Nov. 3 general election in the 46th Legislative District, which includes Lake Forest Park, Kenmore and northwest Seattle. With only two candidates on the primary ballot, both will qualify for the general-election ballot.

Here are their responses to the question, “How can legislators improve the way we pay for schools?”:

Legislative District 46, State Representative Pos. 2

Beth Daranciang (Prefers Republican Party)

State education funding should be focused on improving the education of all children. To that end, and to satisfy the McCleary decision, state spending on K-12 schools has doubled in the last eight years.

The COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the importance of directing education efforts and funding to the most effective ways of educating our children, including empowering teachers to improvise in ways that fit their particular students.

Javier Valdez (Prefers Democratic Party)

While the Legislature has made progress on the state's paramount duty to fund our public schools, we know we still need to make further investments to provide more nurses, counselors, social workers, and librarians in our schools. We need to look at new revenue policies that will shield our working-class families and focus on the wealthiest taxpayers that can pay more. It's also time to re-examine the over 700 tax exemptions our state allows.

This is part of a series of responses to questions we’re sending to candidates running in the Aug. 4 primary election. We will present responses to our questions from candidates for state representative positions in the 32nd and 46th legislative districts. This question came from a reader. Send future questions for the candidates to schsmith@frontier.com.