“Republican leaders in the Kansas House on Friday said they didn’t intend to include an expansion of charter schools as part of a school funding bill intended to address the Supreme Court’s ruling on school finance.
And while they said they intend to introduce a new bill without the charter school provision, education groups said they still have major concerns about other provisions of the bill, such as merit-based pay for teachers, changes in teacher licensing requirements and offering corporate tax breaks for funding private school scholarships.” http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2014/mar/21/charter-school-provision-mistake-gop-leaders-admit/
We haven’t seen the new bill, but it sounds like there will still be many harmful education policies that have appropriately failed to move out of the education committees or off the floor in the past two years. Last week in the House Education Committee, Chair Kasha Kelley lectured the committee about not moving forward with the bills she wanted and told them, “If we can’t come up with middle ground there will be another way around the barn.” Sticking them in the Gannon appropriations bill is one way, but it’s not the right way. These so-called reforms DO NOT WORK. The legislature should fix the funding inequities and do no further harm to Kansas schools and students.