“So how did the charlatans and cranks end up dictating policy in Kansas, and to a more limited extent in other states? Follow the money.
For the Brownback tax cuts didn’t emerge out of thin air. They closely followed a blueprint laid out by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which has also supported a series of economic studies purporting to show that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy will promote rapid economic growth. The studies are embarrassingly bad, and the council’s Board of Scholars — which includes both Mr. Laffer and Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation — doesn’t exactly shout credibility. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/opinion/paul-krugman-charlatans-cranks-and-kansas.html

This is true for tax policy and education policy. We need legislators and a governor who won’t blindly follow ALEC “scholars” when common sense and evidence show their theories are flawed.