Jean Schodorf advocates a bipartisan approach

Sen. Jean Schodorf calls education “the great equalizer.”

When it’s done well, she said, it gives all people a fair chance at finding a job and building a successful life.

Defining how much money that takes, what role state government should play and whether administrators are overpaid has been part of a messy debate in Topeka for years.

Schodorf, chair of the Senate Education Committee and a former Wichita school board member, says she wants 65 percent of money spent in classrooms – although she admits that determining what’s in the classroom and classroom-related can be a battle in itself.

She disagrees with the idea pushed by some limited-government conservatives — such as her opponent in the District 25 Senate race, Michael O’Donnell — that schools are top heavy and administrators are overpaid. She said big cuts to education funding have eliminated a lot of administrative positions.

Her philosophy is that “everything we do in a school should be goal-oriented.”

One of her first efforts as a senator was to push for financial literacy teaching to give students an understanding of how credit, debt and other basic financial functions work. She took the idea on after consulting with Carol Rupe, then a board of education member, and Jill Docking, a banking executive.

It was necessary because too many kids graduate and one of the first people they meet is someone offering credit cards that ultimately put them in debt and force them to leave college or jettison possessions, she said.

Schodorf said the state now requires testing on financial matters. There’s much left to do, she said. “But it can be done.”

For years, Schodorf has advocated a bipartisanship approach, pledging she will work with Democrats to solve problems while criticizing fellow politicians in Washington, D.C., and Topeka for letting partisan alliances get in the way of solutions. In many cases, she has embodied that approach in Topeka. But it has also made her a target of fellow Republicans who say she is too close to being a Democrat.

Schodorf said she has always been a Republican and believes in low taxes, responsible spending and meeting the basic needs of citizens, particularly seniors, people with disabilities and children.

She is among at least eight incumbent Republican senators targeted for replacement by conservative political action groups backing candidates they believe will be more likely to support Gov. Sam Brownback’s efforts to shrink government spending and further reduce tax rates.

Schodorf voted in favor of this year’s income tax rate cut for individuals and elimination of nonwage income tax for farms and a wide variety of businesses. But she says she’s worried about its potential to force deep cuts in spending. She thinks the state should focus on property tax reductions.

She views opposition from other Republicans as part of a national movement pushed by factions of the party.

“People have become so entrenched in the party that they think Republicans can only think one way,” she said. “I believe Republicans are independent people. I’m not a puppet, and I don’t think elected officials should think they can’t disagree with the party or the government or anybody.”

‘Open to new ideas’

Schodorf said her independent style stems from her childhood.

Her father was a Marine Corps aviator and her mother a schoolteacher. She grew up on a farm in Independence and graduated from high school there. Then she went to the University of New Mexico and got a master’s degree in communicative disorders, a credential that led her to a language pathology job at a school back in southeast Kansas.

After a year, she moved to Wichita for a language pathology job with the school district and married. She also returned to school to get a doctorate from Wichita State University. Her political career began on a neighborhood board that advised Wichita City Council members on neighborhood issues.

She was elected to the Wichita school board in 1989, a position she kept for 12 years before state Sen. Pat Ranson encouraged her to run for Senate. She narrowly won the position in the 2000 election. She and her husband divorced that year.

Schodorf has been on the Senate’s powerful Ways and Means Committee for her entire Senate tenure. She said spending cuts forced by the recession have largely been a good thing for the state because they led to the elimination of some unnecessary programs and forced everyone to reprioritize.

But she said some of the cuts have led to problems that should be addressed. The state’s mental health hospitals, Larned in particular, have become underfunded and overfilled.

“Our whole mental health system is at a point of breaking because it’s been cut so much,” she said.

Earlier this year, legislators shuffled spending priories a lot, but did relatively little to increase spending in Brownback’s proposed budget, adding about $26 million to the state’s $6 billion budget.

Schodorf said the state needs a lean budget that focuses on basic needs, and she said it’s good that people continue to challenge the state to find ways to control spending.

“Questioning how we do things is good,” she said. “And I’m open to new ideas.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2012 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Jean Schodorf advocates a bipartisan approach."