More than a decade ago the Kansas Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of injecting itself into the legislative process, ordering the Legislature to cough up an additional $853 million per year to fund K-12 education in its landmark Montoy decision. The Legislature caved, allowing the Court to usurp the constitutional authority of the power of the purse from that … Read More
New school finance law will do nothing to improve outcomes of at-risk students
The Legislature blew it. Given a golden opportunity to give serious attention to the issue of low performance and the huge achievement gaps of Kansas at-risk students, the Legislature instead chose to appease the Supreme Court through an increase in funding. The new school finance law – SB 19 – is full of language aimed at improving educational outcomes of … Read More
Again and again, in Kansas public education it’s protecting the institutions first, students second
Recent actions by a legislative committee and the state’s largest school district are grim reminders of just how much public education in Kansas is all about protecting the institutions that provide the education, not the students. On one hand there’s the state legislature. The House K-12 Education Budget Committee continues to struggle with putting together a “consensus bill” that will … Read More
Giant education establishment relentless in effort to quash tax credit scholarship program
The Topeka Capital-Journal article “Kansas House bill could narrow private school tax credit program in coming years” provides a lengthy description of the program that was passed in 2014 and where it may be headed as forces within the Legislature fight to limit and ultimately eliminate the fledgling program. The article includes all the hot-button issues that school choice opponents … Read More
New Study Shows At-risk Charter School Students Outperform Those in Exclusive Schools
There is no shortage of those critical of charter schools, and most of their criticism is baseless. The doubting-Thomases like to claim that charter schools drain money from traditional public schools. Reviews of charter school funding from coast to coast show otherwise. They claim charter schools do not take special education or other special needs students – also not true. … Read More
It’s baaaaack! Teacher due process poised to be wrested from local control
Lost in all the hullaballoo over action surrounding the massive tax increase is that the effort to take teacher due process decisions away from local school boards and put it back in the hands of state government has passed the House of Representatives. I recently testified against the bill in the House Education Committee (the bill was not put forward … Read More
Most Kansas legislators won’t declare their principles
Lots of declarations are made on the campaign trail and town hall meetings, but when asked to declare their principles on key state budget and education issues, most Kansas legislators wouldn’t respond. Kansas Policy Institute asked all 165 Kansas legislators to respond to a 6-question multiple choice online survey between January 13 and January 30 but only 34 responded; some … Read More
Innovative schools doing nothing all districts couldn’t do with no evidence of increased student achievement
Q. Is there anything innovative schools are doing that all other non-innovative schools couldn’t also be doing? A. No. Although not a direct quote, that was part of a Q & A discussion between members of the House Education Committee and Coalition of Innovative School District (CISD) chairman Bill Mullins during CISD’s annual report to the Legislature. Members from both … Read More
What Trump’s Education Secretary could mean for Kansas school choice
It appears president-elect Trump will not jettison the U.S. Department of Education. Too bad. However, the news is not all discouraging because Mr. Trump has tapped Michigan’s Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary. Ms. DeVos has a strong record in the area of school choice, having led the charge in her home state’s first school choice program in the 1990s. This … Read More
Blue Ribbon task force on teacher supply and retention – an exercise in missed opportunities
A state-wide task force charged to study teacher vacancies and a looming supply shortage in Kansas presented its report to the State Board of Education earlier this month. What could have been an opportunity to raise probing and difficult questions was wasted on a report full of fragmented recommendations that appear to be more self-serving than dealing with the underlying … Read More
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