East King Chambers Coalition: Career Pathways Are Widening, the Funding for Them Is Not

Bellevue Chamber of Commerce  |  August 27, 2026

Representative Clyde Shavers came to the East King Chambers Coalition on August 27 with a message that cut two ways. Olympia is deliberately widening the routes a Washington student can take out of high school, and the money behind those newer routes is the money most exposed when the budget tightens. Shavers, who represents the 10th Legislative District and serves as vice chair of the House Education Committee, spent half an hour with delegates from the coalition's eleven member chambers laying out what that tension means heading into the 2027 session.

The Four-Year Default Is Being Retired

Shavers described a committee steadily dismantling the assumption that a diploma points in one direction. His office has worked three buckets: career and technical education, Core Plus programs built with industry partners in aerospace, maritime and construction, and apprenticeship coursework. One bill he co-sponsored pushed career-connected learning down to the sixth-grade level. Another, House Bill 1414, took up the regulatory barriers facing 16, 17 and 18 year olds entering the workforce. Others targeted sectors with documented shortages, including allied health care and the maritime and ferry workforce, and a statewide CTE task force led by OSPI now anchors the effort.

"[We are] shifting away from this notion that it should be a default or automatic conversation of graduating students to consider or go to higher education."  — rep. Clyde Shavers, vice chair, House Education Committee

Where the Constitution Stops Protecting You

The structural problem Shavers put in front of the coalition is that the programs Olympia most wants to grow sit outside the definition that shields school funding from cuts. Basic education is constitutionally protected under McCleary. CTE, Core Plus and Running Start are still being argued into that definition, and last session that gap showed.

"Last session, the higher ed budget was cut way more dramatically than the K12 education side because of the McCleary decision." — Rep. Clyde Shavers

Bellevue Chamber President and CEO Joe Fain pressed on Running Start, calling the reduction modest in dollar terms, roughly seven million a year by his account, but landing on a program students across the coalition's districts use heavily. Shavers offered early learning as the nearer precedent: rather than cut ECEAP and transition to kindergarten outright, the legislature capped them, and his hope is that Running Start is recalibrated rather than trimmed again.

Fine Arts and the Future Ready Question

A delegate raised the State Board of Education's Future Ready report and the prospect of high school fine arts credits dropping from two to one. Shavers said the report's direction toward flexible, student-tailored pathways is sound, but that districts under budget pressure are already cutting arts programs and reading the report as cover for doing so.

"Fine arts is an important attribute to the growth of a child."  — Rep. Clyde Shavers

He pointed delegates to three things worth tracking before session: the Future Ready report, OSPI's periodic CTE reporting, and the bills already on the books, since the coming session is more likely to build on existing programs than to restructure them. With state dollars constrained, he expects the private sector to carry more of the load, naming Boeing's Core Plus work as the model.