Districts under stress

As Kansans await a final decision in the lawsuit over whether school funding is constitutional, both candidates for governor say they’re champions of K-12 public schools. But what’s a voter to make of the dueling and contradictory campaign claims? It helps to consult superintendents, who report an educational system under stress.

The Kansas Center for Economic Growth recently surveyed districts and analyzed data from the Kansas State Department of Education. Among its findings: Nearly all surveyed districts said base state aid per pupil for 2015 was insufficient to cover increasing costs. Kansas has fewer teachers instructing about 20,000 more students than it did in 2009. More students are at risk, though dollars earmarked to help them are being reduced in nearly half of surveyed districts. Almost half of surveyed districts have seen class sizes grow since 2009, and district training for teachers has declined. About 30 percent of districts recently have cut back or eliminated sports, arts, music or other programs. In addition, nearly 58 percent of surveyed districts suggested they’d need to raise their local property taxes in the next few years because of reduced state funding.

In a recent meeting with The Eagle editorial board, Wichita superintendent John Allison and Goddard superintendent Justin Henry spoke of having had to find places to cut and then cut more, and of how “those cuts became the new reality,” as Allison put it.

Henry described how his district initiated fees, made cuts and pulled down reserves in a four-year approach to handling its finances, only to find the budget back in the same situation four years later. His district has even trimmed the school calendar by five days in recent years.

Allison spoke of wanting to add a fourth year of required math credit in high schools, for example, but said the school board has needed to be extremely conservative about such changes. In contrast to Brownback administration officials, Allison anticipates that the state’s revenue problems could lead to midyear cuts to schools.

Though some would say the Legislature’s K-12 Student Performance and Efficiency Commission is trying to help districts do more with less, it may lead to doing even less with less.

And Henry asks a great question: “Why is what we’re doing OK?”

Yes, the recent school-funding law has fostered equity in the system and meant more dollars and some tax relief. But even though Kansas has long known that great schools are needed to help offset the absence of natural assets like mountains or beaches, it now mostly asks its districts to get by rather than to get better and better.

Why is what we’re doing OK? It isn’t, and Kansans should be worried, as is the Kansas Center for Economic Growth, that scheduled tax cuts will worsen the trend toward more students in more crowded classrooms being afforded fewer opportunities.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published September 22, 2014 at 7:08 PM with the headline "Districts under stress."