The apparent failure of school bond issues at East Valley and other Washington schools has rekindled the debate over Washington’s supermajority requirement for bond issues. A new group has formed to pressure the legislature to lower that threshold to a simple majority. We’ll look back at recent failed efforts to do the same and talk with Jared Kink from Washington Investing in Schools and Education, or WISE.
"A lot of school districts are moving away from bonds and going to capital levies, which only need 50%. And if you do a capital levy, in the long run, those actually cost more than the bond, and it actually takes longer to accumulate the money to build.
So, when funding schools, bonds are the cheaper and more efficient way to build in a school district than a capital levy."
Are people inherently altruistic or greedy? Maybe a little of both, according to WSU evolutionary anthropologist Kristopher Smith, who recently published an article exploring that, using an African tribe as his subjects.
"There are some people who, even when they already have less than the other person, were willing to give more. But on the other hand, we also found people who were much selfish. In fact, most people ended up taking all of what was on the other person's photo. So a lot of people were willing to take from others."
We’ll talk with Johanna Bringhurst from the Idaho Humanities Council about marking America’s 250th birthday and look at how last year’s plans to eliminate federal funding for humanities affected the timing of the celebration.
"I expect that, like, July 4th, 2026 for the next year to 2027 will be a time of thinking and doing programming and providing funding about what are the next 50 years, the next 250 years going to be like? What do we want? What do we expect?"
