We had a nice break from Action Alerts and assaults on Kansas public education that looked they wouldn’t move beyond committees, but the 2018 and 2020 elections saw the replacement of multiple pro-public education legislators with ultra cons. Wednesday, January 26th both the Senate Education Committee and the House K-12 Education Budget Committee heard another attempt to expand the Kansas Tax Credit Scholarships, which are a form of neo-vouchers. We oppose tax credit scholarships and we oppose this expansion which would eliminate the requirements that students come from the 100 lowest-performing elementary schools in the state and would expand eligibility from those receiving free lunch to also include those who qualify for reduced-price lunches. The bill still fails to impose any accountability standards on private schools receiving tax credit scholarship funds while removing up to $10 million per year from the State General Fund. Read our testimony below (we only attached one, since our testimony was the same for the identical bills) or watch recordings of the hearings on YouTube.

Originally posted to Facebook 1/27/2021