“Under Brownback’s leadership, public education has been assaulted. Classroom spending has fallen, while the administration tries to convince voters that money for buildings, meals, pensions and the governor’s pet projects is an increase in classroom spending.
‘When adjusted for inflation … the state’s base support for K-12 education through school district general fund budgets has declined almost $600 million,’Kansas Association of School Boards Mark Tallman explained in a detailed look at education spending.
“While the rest of the country has redoubled its investment in education after the Great Recession, Kansas has sacrificed its school budgets on the altar of income tax cuts, making it impossible to finance any significant investment in education.
“And don’t forget that when the Kansas Legislature had to settle up on education spending thanks to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling, it was the governor’s hand-picked lawmakers who insisted on attaching policy changes to a bill that should’ve addressed only spending.
Those policies have created the most friction between the administration and the state’s teachers. One change siphoned education money for use as a tax credit program for businesses that grant scholarships to private school students. The second – and the most inflammatory – eliminated due process protections for teachers facing termination for unjust reasons.
“Brownback can’t be the education governor and the tax cut governor, because try as he might, the math just doesn’t add up.” http://m.hutchnews.com/opinion/editorials/wistful-wish/article_d1b46a5e-8991-550f-9090-4d4ea8d771e1.html?mode=jqm