Brownback campaign, Senate GOP attack Paul Davis on rural schools

Republican lawmakers have called for Paul Davis’ appointee to a commission on school spending to step down over comments made in support of consolidating rural school districts, but one of Republican House Speaker Ray Merrick’s appointees also has written in favor of the same policy.

Gov. Sam Brownback attacked Davis, his Democratic opponent in the governor’s race, at the Kansas State Fair debate over comments his education advisor, John Vratil, a former Republican state senator from Leawood, made in 2011 predicting that “rural school districts will be starved out of existence.”

Brownback repeatedly emphasized his opposition to the forced consolidation of rural school districts during the debate. Davis also said he opposed the policy, in which small town school districts are combined to concentrate resources and some schools are closed.

When Brownback rolled out his education platform two weeks before the debate he also emphasized his opposition to forced consolidation. “A lot of times for a town if they lose their school you might as well close the town up, too,” Brownback said during a campaign event in Topeka last month.

When Brownback was asked if he took any responsibility for consolidation happening at the local level due to budget constraints, he reiterated his opposition to forced consolidation and stopped taking questions.

John Milburn, the governor’s campaign spokesman, said that the state was not responsible for consolidation happening at the local level.

“It’s not really a policy decision that the governor can do when local school districts get together. That’s a decision that’s made between two local school boards. They decide to do that,” Milburn said. “There’s no policy in the state that’s forcing consolidation. That’s a completely local decision.”

The governor’s own efficiency task force recommended in 2013 that school districts “realign district geographical boundaries in order to facilitate administrative efficiencies.” This would consolidate administrative operations for districts but not schools.

The task force said that decisions on what schools students attend should happen at the local level.

Democrats argue that increased funding for schools would help rural communities prevent consolidation.

“The biggest threat to schools across the state is four more years of Sam Brownback’s failed experiment,” Chris Pumpelly, spokesman for the Davis campaign, wrote in an e-mail. “Paul Davis opposes school consolidation as strongly as he opposes Sam Brownback’s massive cuts to education, and Sam Brownback and his allies know it.”

“These cuts are devastating Kansas schools, kids and parents – especially in rural communities. Since 2012, Paul Davis has demanded the cuts be restored,” Pumpelly added.

The Brownback campaign has sent out mailers warning Kansans of the “Davis-Vratil Education Agenda: CONSOLIDATION.” The mailer notes that Vratil was Davis’ appointee to the state’s K-12 Student Performance and Efficiency Commission.

Senate Republicans piled on Vratil this week. Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce, R-Hutchinson, sent out a statement demanding Vratil’s removal from the commission.

“Calling for the forced consolidation of rural schools is essentially calling for the death of numerous rural communities,” Bruce said. “Shame on Paul Davis for surrounding himself with people such as John Vratil who seek to rob non-urban Kansans of an opportunity to succeed.”

Bruce was joined by 12 other Republican senators in making this demand. Milburn said the governor also thinks Vratil should resign from both the commission and as Davis’ education advisor “due to his incredibly disrespectful comments regarding rural school consolidation.”

A coalition of 11 House Republicans from rural districts issued a statement voicing concern about Vratil on Friday.

The Davis campaign accused the GOP of engaging in political theater.

“Given the anti-education track record of the folks making this attack, this sounds more like political posturing than genuine concern,” Pumpelly wrote in an e-mail.

Merrick appointee: Consolidation an option

Dave Trabert, another member of the commission and president of the Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, also has advocated consolidation. Trabert was appointed to the commission by Merrick, the Republican House speaker from Stilwell.

“Consolidation of extremely small districts is not a popular topic for discussion, but one that should occur,” Trabert wrote in a 2010 report for the policy institute.

“Consolidation is not just a cost issue; it’s also about the quality of education,” he continued. “At what point does a district become too small to be able to offer an education that will prepare students to enter the workforce, whether directly into their chosen field or first into higher levels of education?”

In a phone call, Trabert said that he is not advocating that consolidation needs to happen, but that he thinks it should be an option.

“There’s a handful of districts in Kansas where there’s only six or seven kids per grade level in an entire district,” Trabert said. He pointed to the districts in Gove County where several districts have a total of about 100 students among all grades. “Those kids cannot have the same education opportunities as kids in a different-sized district.”

Trabert said there are other options besides consolidation and that the focus of the commission is to study all the ways in which resources can be used in the best interest of students.

Bruce, the Senate majority leader, will not be calling for Trabert to step down from the commission, according to Bruce’s chief of staff, Peter Northcutt.

“Dave works for a think tank and his job is to talk about issues. And in the report he’s talking about the issue of consolidation, and he’s not saying that’s the route we should go,” Northcutt said. “Vratil is taking a stance that this is going happen regardless and so rural districts just need to deal with it.”

Northcutt denied that Senate Republicans’ call for their former colleague to step down was meant purely as a political attack on Davis.

“Consolidation in a number of rural districts is a serious kitchen table issue, so I think these rural legislators feel Sen. Vratil should be removed for what they feel is a pretty extreme stance on consolidation,” Northcutt said.

The governor also won’t be calling for Trabert to resign, but Milburn said Brownback “will oppose any effort to force rural school to consolidate no matter who calls for it.”

“Governor Brownback has been advocating for rural Kansas his entire life,” Milburn added.

For his part, Trabert doesn’t think that Vratil should come off the commission.

“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but if we did these things based on opinion, the one thing we can guarantee is we’d never get anybody appointed to the commission,” said Trabert with a laugh. His own appointment was strongly opposed by the Kansas National Education Association.

Russell Fox, a political scientist at Friends University, said the focus on consolidation appeals to the governor’s rural base and also helps muddy an already convoluted debate on school finance.

“They see that a lot of their kids’ school teachers are opposed to the governor … and then they get this mailer and say ‘I never heard about this, I guess Paul Davis can’t be trusted with education either,’” Fox said. “Brownback benefits from a convoluted debate about education, because right now the simple line about education is not good for him.”

This story was originally published September 12, 2014 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Brownback campaign, Senate GOP attack Paul Davis on rural schools."