Funding for public K-12 education is complex—let alone increasing every year. The formula for determining how much money each district receives– available here – requires an Excel workbook with 12 individual spreadsheets. The main spreadsheet, Legalmax, is essentially a roll-up of the other 11. It takes 85 columns of data to determine the Legalmax and a row for every school district in the state. It takes nine columns just to determine the enrollment in each school district for funding purposes. The other 76 columns determine how much funding each district receives (e.g., student weightings, special education, cost-of-living adjustments, among many others).
The current formula expires on July 1, 2027, but the Legislature has already begun the process of crafting a new law. The Education Funding Task Force convened earlier this year to put together an outline for the new formula. Committee Chair Senator Renee Erickson hopes to have a draft formula by the beginning of the 2026 legislative session in January.
The committee is comprised of both Legislators and non-legislators, and if the discussions that have transpired thus far are any indication, then getting a draft ready for the 2026 session is an aspirational goal, indeed.
That notwithstanding, the new funding formula is an excellent opportunity for the Legislature to initiate some much-needed policy change. Here is a list of policy changes that should accompany the new formula.
- Expansion/creation of school choice options. I have written extensively on the topic of school choice. Kansas continues to lag far behind the rest of the country in terms of choice options for students. The new funding formula should include choice options, e.g., ESAs, tax credit scholarships. Kansas should create universal options so that every family can have the opportunity to find the right fit for their children. Each student should be eligible to receive up to $10,000 per year, which is much less than the average $18,324 per pupil that is currently spent in Kansas public schools. See more ESA data here. A school choice proposal during the 2025 session would have seen each child receive up to $8,000 towards non-public education.
- Encourage shared services through the funding mechanism. According to KSDE statistics (LINK), there are 27 districts in Kansas that have fewer than 150 students. In those districts, the average per-pupil annual expenditure is $33,375, nearly double the state average. If those attendance centers are kept, then their “back office” operations don’t need 27 individual school districts and bureaucracies to make them go. That says nothing about the districts that have more than 150 students but could still save money—better put towards instruction—by using Kansas’ shared-service centers.
- At-risk program. This is long overdue and there is ample evidence to back up that claim. The current system is not only broken, but it has been shown that significant at-risk funding (all of which is funded by the state – no federal dollars) has been spent in violation of state law. Considering these revelations, the focus has been on putting together a list of best practices with no eye toward actual results. The at-risk program, which had humble beginnings in 1992 with an appropriation of $13 million, has grown to over half a billion each year. And there’s nothing to show for it in terms of increasing student achievement. An unacceptably high percentage of students who take the annual state assessments continue to score at the lowest reported level (Level 1). The program was established to increase the achievement of those students who were academically at risk of failing. It is now nothing more than a supplement to the districts’ general funding.
The time is now for a new approach to at-risk students. I developed a much different model, which can be seen here. It is a radical change from the current failed model, but not a radical approach. In fact, the approach is basically the same as the one utilized to give support for ELL students: students are tested in, given special instruction, and tested out when appropriate. Funding is based on the number of truly at-risk students, not those who qualify for free lunch. Schools would also be held accountable for improving the outcomes of the at-risk students, with funding on the line.
- Terminate the small district/large district weighting system. Each year districts get additional funding based on the size of their student population. Apparently, it costs more money to operate a small district than a large district and vice-versa. The formula for how this is calculated is complex and is explained by the Kansas Legislative Research Department here (see pages 7 & 8). This is totally unnecessary and simply serves as a little more hot fudge on top of the ice cream sundae that is school funding. In the 2024-25 school year, this weighting provided districts with just under $300 million.
- Place a cap on carry-over cash. On July 1, 2024, districts had a combined total of carry-over cash in excess of $1.3 BILLION. That is a new high and the fifth consecutive year of unencumbered cash reserves of over a billion dollars and triple the amount 20 years ago. That’s some rainy-day fund. Why? Clearly, from Elkhart to Riverside and Riverton to St. Francis, the state provides a financing umbrella that makes a rainy-day fund superfluous.
It’s far past time to rein in the districts’ practice of rat-holing that many taxpayer dollars. It is incumbent on the Legislature to include a provision in the new formula to cap the amount of carry-over cash a district holds from year to year. Any amount above the cap would be considered part of the following year’s base funding.
- Tie some portion of funding to student performance. The one thing that gets the attention of the education establishment is money. A sure-fire way of improving student achievement is to make at least some state funding tethered to actually improving student achievement. Education Commissioner Randy Watson keeps proclaiming that there are too many students testing in Level 1 on state assessments. His constant call is that something must be done (by the districts) to get students to higher levels. I couldn’t agree more. However, he stops short of providing a solution. I’ve got one: if schools do not improve by pre-determined measures, it will hit them in the purse. That will certainly cause districts to focus on student achievement with a little more seriousness.
The need for a new funding formula is an excellent opportunity for the Legislature to make a statement regarding where they want to see the direction of public education headed. And it’s time to hold education’s feet to the fire to change the way they do business. It’s time for some accountability.
