We’ve said this multiple times and find this shows that our governor and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce do not support our schools but instead throw out this worn out, refuted talking point to argue for cuts to schools and support for public funding of non-public schools.

“So where did O’Neal and Brownback come up with the 55 percent? Instead of comparing classroom spending with a district’s operating budget, as the ’65 Percent Solution’ dictated and as state lawmakers said when they debated and passed the statute, they compare it with total spending, including pensions and capital expenditures (which by law can’t be spent ‘in the classroom’). In other words, they moved the goalpost.

“But the larger question is whether the goal should even matter.

“There is no research showing a relationship between the 65 percent threshold and improved student outcomes. It’s a made-up, unscientific target.

“That’s likely why the 65 percent movement quickly disappeared from the political scene. In fact, the website of the group pushing the reform has been inactive since 2009.

“Even a school efficiency task force that Brownback created questioned the relevance of the goal.

“’The 65 percent is really an arbitrary number, and there’s no science behind the fact that it either does or does not provide an optimal education for kids,’ Ken Willard, the chairman of the task force and a Kansas State Board of Education member, told state lawmakers in 2013.

“So why do O’Neal and Brownback still cite the discredited goal while also moving the goalpost? Because it supports their political narrative that schools are inefficient and don’t need more funding.”

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/opinion/editorials/article39351012.html

Also see this piece on school funding: http://tallmankasb.blogspot.com/2015/08/calculating-dollars-for-instruction.html?m=1