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is the primary agency charged with overseeing K-12 public education in
Washington state. Led by State School Superintendent Randy Dorn, OSPI works with
the state’s 295 school districts to administer basic education programs and
implement education reform on behalf of more than one million public school
students. OSPI is housed in the Old Capitol Building in Olympia.
The financial management of schools rests with locally elected school boards in the state’s 295 school districts. The state, through OSPI, supervises school district budgeting, accounting, and financial reporting to provide consistent financial management and accountability. The State Auditor conducts regular examinations of school districts’ finances to ensure sound accounting practices and compliance with state and federal fiscal policy.
We collect a great deal of data about our schools and operations. The School
Report Card is a parent-friendly resource for data on student demographics,
student performance and school staff in our state. The new Comprehensive
Education Data and Research System (CEDARS) is an online system that captures
every district's data on courses, students and teachers.
State and federal law requires student testing to determine whether they are achieving state standards. Our state tests fulfill the requirements of the Washington State Educational Reform Law of 1993 and the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Beginning in 2009-10, our students will transition from a paper-and-pencil system to an online assessment system.
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