Vashon’s public schools open their doors in a week — an annual rite of passage that offers an opportunity for us to consider how very lucky we are on this energetic and engaged Island.

Thanks to a robust and largely successful fundraising drive, the much-feared reductions in critical programs won’t happen this year at our three public schools. Classes will not be measurably larger. Science electives have not been cut at the high school. We’ll once again have a school nurse. The high school’s remarkable Percussion Ensemble will continue.

For those who care about public education on Vashon, it was a troubling spring. Once again, we dodged a bullet.

But other districts in other parts of the state were not so lucky. 

At North Kitsap School District, 29 teachers were given pink slips last spring. Other districts have had to cut counselors, nurses and librarians. Still others have had to furlough staff and shorten the school year.

Those disparities will likely widen — eroding the once-radical notion of universal education — if communities across the state increasingly rely not on state funding but on philanthropic support to meet their school districts’ basic needs.

The problem, however, is not at the community level. It is only right that those communities with the financial and civic wherewithal to organize a foundation or other private fundraising efforts do so, stepping in to fill the gap out of concern for their children’s future. Indeed, the efforts on Vashon have been nothing short of heroic.

The problem is at the state level. 

Despite a state Constitution that holds the state responsible for the “ample provision” of basic education, lawmakers have consistently failed to meet that standard. In fact, according to some education advocates, the state has experienced a decade-long downward spiral in public school funding — placing Washington, its students and its teachers at the bottom of several lists that measure financial support for public schools.

According to recent statistics, we rank 42nd in per-pupil funding. Our schools are the third worst in class size. And we’re 31st in the nation in teacher salaries; according to the Washington Education Association, many teachers with children have salaries so low that their children qualify for reduced-price school lunches. 

Our rankings will likely look worse after we take into account this year’s legislative fiasco — a budget that was balanced by cutting $2.5 billion in K-12 and higher education funding over the next two years.

Public education advocates continue to look for ways to right the ship — the latest being a legal challenge to a Tim Eyman-inspired initiative that requires a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to raise taxes. The measure, approved by voters in 2010, has had the effect those interested in defunding government seem clearly to want: It’s created a hurdle so high it will be nearly impossible to pass anything amounting to meaningful tax reform.

So as you send your child off to school, consider taking a few minutes to send a letter to your lawmakers, the governor and others who are in a position to make a difference. On Vashon, we may be able to continue to plug the dike. But other communities won’t, and one of the greatest concepts of the 19th century — that of universal education — will continue to lose meaning and impact over time.