During this year's legislative session in Olympia, we reported that education stimulus funding for Washington state was in jeopardy because the legislature, bowing to pressure from the teachers union, was watering down the education reform bill.

Two things that were watered down in the bill were teachers' pay reform and teachers' certification reform.

Today, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced that Washington state may, in fact, lose out. The News Tribune reports :

The special pot of stimulus funds – up to $4.5 billion – will go to states that take steps to reform their education systems. Federal Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants states to set high standards and having testing in place to measure them, improve low-performing schools, make sure each classroom has a good teacher and have data-collection systems in place to track student performance.

Seems simple. But each touches on issues that have been battlegrounds between teachers unions and reformers. Improving low-performing schools might lead to changing staff. Assuring quality teachers in each classroom might involve firing low-quality teachers, evaluating teacher performance and offering merit pay to reward the best teachers.

Here's a nagging PubliCola report from April, as the education reform debate was in play:

As we reported earlier this session, there is a chance that Washington state may lose millions of dollars in education funding from the federal government if state education guidelines do not line up with President Obama’s reform agenda.

Education reformers, including Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and Seattle schools superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, laid out this case in a formal letter to Governor Gregoire late last week as the education bill remains in limbo . The reformers letter included an attachment—an April 1 letter from Obama’s secretary of education Arne Duncan —which emphasized the same point.

The bottom line is this: Unless the state enacts rules this year that will upgrade basic graduation requirements, strengthen the state’s ability to hold schools accountable to standards (measures currently included the House education reform bill and the Senate bill respectively ), and sets up a data system to monitor accountability measures—Washington state stands to lose hundreds and millions in federal education funding.