School bills meddle, don’t solve funding
Ten months after the 23-year-old school finance formula was repealed in favor of temporary block grants, Kansans haven’t seen anything resembling Gov. Sam Brownback’s promised “education funding plan that not only provides more money to the classroom but is sustainable, stable and predictable.”
The Special Committee on K-12 Student Success recently recommended only what a “new school funding mechanism” should do, among some provocative proposals. Some think little will happen on a school formula until next spring, unless a Kansas Supreme Court decision forces lawmakers to act sooner.
School districts could use an idea of what the future holds, though. As it is, for example, all Wichita’s USD 259 knows is that it will see no more state money for the 2016-17 school year, despite estimated cost increases of $14.7 million to $27.3 million.
If there’s a lack of urgency on finding a new formula, there’s no shortage of ideas for how the Legislature might meddle in public schools and local control.
The House Education Committee has scheduled hearings this week on one bill to let a new legislative panel decide the eligibility of school bond projects for state aid and another to dramatically expand the program offering tax credits for funding private-school scholarships.
On Wednesday the same panel will consider the controversial bill to take Kansas from 286 school districts down to 132, by forcing administration mergers in counties with fewer than 10,000 students. One needn’t have lived through the state’s painful 1960s consolidation to know small communities would resist seeing their schools’ decision making leave town.
Meanwhile, the chilling 2015 bill meant to make it easier to prosecute teachers for lesson materials deemed harmful to minors is back, set for a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Last week another House panel heard pleas to pass a bill, sparked by a decision by the Derby superintendent and board, to prevent school districts from refusing the use of their campuses by BB gun and other air gun shooting clubs and competitions.
There’s a bill that would bar districts from using tax dollars to explain bond issues to voters. There’s even a measure inspired by the “war on Christmas” meant to safeguard “traditional greetings” associated with winter celebrations on school property.
It’s almost as if Kansas didn’t have an elected State Board of Education, an appointed state education commissioner and hundreds of elected local school boards.
Does anybody still remember when Rep. Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, architect of the block grants, said during the 2015 House debate: “I believe our local districts know how to educate our kids better than we do”? Anybody? Hello?
This story was originally published January 30, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "School bills meddle, don’t solve funding."