Morning Fizz
"It's Not About Money."
1. Coming on the heels of their big announcement
this week that they're kicking in $25 million ($5 million over five years) to a higher ed scholarship endowment fund), Microsoft held a small dinner and Q&A with a handful of local press last night starring Brad Smith, the company's General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Legal and Corporate Affairs.
Microsoft exec Brad Smith holds court at Black Bottle
It's an intimate setup over dinner and wine—and frankly, a pretty cool event: Smith made a few opening remarks and then took questions for two hours. Fizz was a little nervous about going because we'd done a cynical report on Microsoft's $25 million higher ed contribution the day before. But, we'd gotten some great stuff from Smith the last year. (Plus, it was at Black Bottle in Belltown).
Smith focused on the endowment fund—the plan is to get other corporate players to contribute (Boeing has also pledged $25 million) and increase the fund to $1 billion by the end of the decade. "I've already personally made some calls," he said.
Smith, who chaired Gov. Chris Gregoire's higher ed task force last year, was thrilled about the idea of the fund (he compared it to the successful endowments already in place in East Coast schools), which he felt was the crowning achievement of the task force. He said it will add a "third leg" to the tuition-plus-state-funding model. (Smith also applauded the move give universities tuition setting authority.)
However, we asked Smith about K-12 education. Why hadn't Microsoft been as successful on that front? Microsoft is a big proponent of the reform agenda that fell flat in Olympia this year , most notably the effort to tie teacher layoff decisions to teacher performance rather than seniority.
Smith would only say that "business, parents, teachers, the WEA [the teachers' union], and others needed to find common ground and come together around a rallying cry." He said the rallying cry should be addressing Washington State's high school drop out rate, 32 percent. [pullquote]"We're losing 29,000 people a year," he said, calling it a "compelling number" that equaled nearly 300,000 high school dropouts over the next decade, adding that "almost five percent of the state's entire population will drop out."[/pullquote]
But what's the solution?
"I don't want to go there," he said, "for us [Microsoft] to say we've figured out the one thing." He did say that "the number one issue is not lack of money. It's not about money, it's about approaches, how do you use the money," citing teacher hiring practices and how to measure student success and evaluate teachers. (For the record: The state budget did cut $2.5 billion from K-12 over the next two years and hit teachers and staff with a 1.9 percent cut totaling $179 million.)
Jane Broom, director for Microsoft's Puget Sound Community Affairs, who was also at the table, did "go there." She said the one idea that consensus is "gelling around" is "quality of teaching."
She also noted that the drop out stats were worse than Smith had indicated, pointing out that brand new figures showed Washington State had dropped to 42nd (down from 35th). It's not that our rate has gotten worse, it's that other states had improved while we hadn't, she said.
One of Smith's other aides also fielded another one of our questions about Microsoft's 2011 agenda in Olympia. Smith had highlighted this year's workers' comp bill as a success for lowering costs. But how did he respond to labor's complaint that those savings came at the expense of injured workers?
Microsoft's Director of State Government Affairs, DeLee Shoemaker, also on hand, said the compromise—which allowed older workers to take one-time settlements as opposed to getting ongoing coverage for injuries—"was about choice, giving workers the option if they wanted release" from the standard coverage program. She said "everybody was happy with the compromise" noting that house speaker Rep. Frank Chopp (D-43, Seattle) had ultimately signed off on it. (Chopp's more liberal house had initially rejected the senate idea of "compromise and release," complaining that desperate workers would simply settle for one time payments.) Shoemaker did amend her take on it, acknowledging that labor wasn't happy about the final legislation: "They drew a line in the sand."
Since this morning's report on dinner with Smith is focusing on Smith's staff: We must say, the most surreal moment of the night had to be for Jeff Reading, Microsoft's brand new Senior PR Manager for Public Policy. Reading was, most recently, the communications director for the state senate Democrats, working closely with progressive state senate majority leader Sen. Lisa Brown (D-3, Spokane).
As the table of reporters pressed Microsoft on its position last year against the high-earners' income tax (wouldn't that have helped higher ed funding?), Shoemaker trotted out a GOP soundbite about how government has increased spending by 30 percent. Fizz scoffed and pointed out that that number was misleading (it's not adjusted for inflation and doesn't take into account population growth). We turned to Reading for backup. He and the Democrats had been trashing the 30 percent canard for years now.
Reading took the fifth.
2. A group of North Beacon Hill residents is pushing to form an Alcohol Impact Area in the neighborhood, which would allow the state liquor control board to prohibit the sale of malt liquor and single bottles of booze in the area.
According to the group's Facebook page, [pullquote]"Many neighbors have stories of people passing out on their lawn, drinking and loitering at bus stops and harassing neighbors for money outside local stores or on sidewalks."[/pullquote]
The city has already established AIAs throughout downtown and the University District. Liquor rules in AIAs typically target the low-cost, high-alcohol products (like MD 20/20, Wild Irish Rose, and the other items on this list) commonly bought by chronic public inebriates. Critics of AIAs say they unfairly target poor and homeless people; they don't work because booze companies simply change the names of their products; and they just push the problem to other neighborhoods.
3. The subject matter's pretty innocuous (promoting independent community pharmacies), but the timing was certainly unfortunate: On Monday, just as US Rep. Anthony Weiner's name was about to become a nationwide joke, Weiner and Washington State US Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers signed off on a dual Roll Call editorial. McMorris Rodgers told the Spokane Spokesman-Review yesterday, "I had no idea" about Weiner's impending Twitter scandal, and said she wouldn't call for his resignation.
4. File this one under kooky gossip around the King County Council, but here's the buzz: King County Council member Larry Phillips, a Democrat who lost a 2009 primary bid for King County Executive, is thinking about going for it again.
Microsoft exec Brad Smith holds court at Black Bottle
It's an intimate setup over dinner and wine—and frankly, a pretty cool event: Smith made a few opening remarks and then took questions for two hours. Fizz was a little nervous about going because we'd done a cynical report on Microsoft's $25 million higher ed contribution the day before. But, we'd gotten some great stuff from Smith the last year. (Plus, it was at Black Bottle in Belltown).
Smith focused on the endowment fund—the plan is to get other corporate players to contribute (Boeing has also pledged $25 million) and increase the fund to $1 billion by the end of the decade. "I've already personally made some calls," he said.
Smith, who chaired Gov. Chris Gregoire's higher ed task force last year, was thrilled about the idea of the fund (he compared it to the successful endowments already in place in East Coast schools), which he felt was the crowning achievement of the task force. He said it will add a "third leg" to the tuition-plus-state-funding model. (Smith also applauded the move give universities tuition setting authority.)
However, we asked Smith about K-12 education. Why hadn't Microsoft been as successful on that front? Microsoft is a big proponent of the reform agenda that fell flat in Olympia this year , most notably the effort to tie teacher layoff decisions to teacher performance rather than seniority.
Smith would only say that "business, parents, teachers, the WEA [the teachers' union], and others needed to find common ground and come together around a rallying cry." He said the rallying cry should be addressing Washington State's high school drop out rate, 32 percent. [pullquote]"We're losing 29,000 people a year," he said, calling it a "compelling number" that equaled nearly 300,000 high school dropouts over the next decade, adding that "almost five percent of the state's entire population will drop out."[/pullquote]
But what's the solution?
"I don't want to go there," he said, "for us [Microsoft] to say we've figured out the one thing." He did say that "the number one issue is not lack of money. It's not about money, it's about approaches, how do you use the money," citing teacher hiring practices and how to measure student success and evaluate teachers. (For the record: The state budget did cut $2.5 billion from K-12 over the next two years and hit teachers and staff with a 1.9 percent cut totaling $179 million.)
Jane Broom, director for Microsoft's Puget Sound Community Affairs, who was also at the table, did "go there." She said the one idea that consensus is "gelling around" is "quality of teaching."
She also noted that the drop out stats were worse than Smith had indicated, pointing out that brand new figures showed Washington State had dropped to 42nd (down from 35th). It's not that our rate has gotten worse, it's that other states had improved while we hadn't, she said.
One of Smith's other aides also fielded another one of our questions about Microsoft's 2011 agenda in Olympia. Smith had highlighted this year's workers' comp bill as a success for lowering costs. But how did he respond to labor's complaint that those savings came at the expense of injured workers?
Microsoft's Director of State Government Affairs, DeLee Shoemaker, also on hand, said the compromise—which allowed older workers to take one-time settlements as opposed to getting ongoing coverage for injuries—"was about choice, giving workers the option if they wanted release" from the standard coverage program. She said "everybody was happy with the compromise" noting that house speaker Rep. Frank Chopp (D-43, Seattle) had ultimately signed off on it. (Chopp's more liberal house had initially rejected the senate idea of "compromise and release," complaining that desperate workers would simply settle for one time payments.) Shoemaker did amend her take on it, acknowledging that labor wasn't happy about the final legislation: "They drew a line in the sand."
Since this morning's report on dinner with Smith is focusing on Smith's staff: We must say, the most surreal moment of the night had to be for Jeff Reading, Microsoft's brand new Senior PR Manager for Public Policy. Reading was, most recently, the communications director for the state senate Democrats, working closely with progressive state senate majority leader Sen. Lisa Brown (D-3, Spokane).
As the table of reporters pressed Microsoft on its position last year against the high-earners' income tax (wouldn't that have helped higher ed funding?), Shoemaker trotted out a GOP soundbite about how government has increased spending by 30 percent. Fizz scoffed and pointed out that that number was misleading (it's not adjusted for inflation and doesn't take into account population growth). We turned to Reading for backup. He and the Democrats had been trashing the 30 percent canard for years now.
Reading took the fifth.
2. A group of North Beacon Hill residents is pushing to form an Alcohol Impact Area in the neighborhood, which would allow the state liquor control board to prohibit the sale of malt liquor and single bottles of booze in the area.
According to the group's Facebook page, [pullquote]"Many neighbors have stories of people passing out on their lawn, drinking and loitering at bus stops and harassing neighbors for money outside local stores or on sidewalks."[/pullquote]
The city has already established AIAs throughout downtown and the University District. Liquor rules in AIAs typically target the low-cost, high-alcohol products (like MD 20/20, Wild Irish Rose, and the other items on this list) commonly bought by chronic public inebriates. Critics of AIAs say they unfairly target poor and homeless people; they don't work because booze companies simply change the names of their products; and they just push the problem to other neighborhoods.
3. The subject matter's pretty innocuous (promoting independent community pharmacies), but the timing was certainly unfortunate: On Monday, just as US Rep. Anthony Weiner's name was about to become a nationwide joke, Weiner and Washington State US Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers signed off on a dual Roll Call editorial. McMorris Rodgers told the Spokane Spokesman-Review yesterday, "I had no idea" about Weiner's impending Twitter scandal, and said she wouldn't call for his resignation.
4. File this one under kooky gossip around the King County Council, but here's the buzz: King County Council member Larry Phillips, a Democrat who lost a 2009 primary bid for King County Executive, is thinking about going for it again.
Filed under
Share
Show Comments
