Here’s a recap of the Gannon decision from Kansas PTA.
A few key highlights from the three-judge panel’s 100 plus page report:
• “We find the Kansas public education financing system – through structure and implementation – is not presently reasonably calculated to have all Kansas public education students meet or exceed the Rose factors…”
• Current funding “… is inadequate from any rational perspective of the evidence presented or proffered to us.”
• “… the Kansas public education financing system provided by the legislature for grades K-12 – through structure and implementation – is not presently reasonably calculated to have all Kansas public education students meet or exceed the Rose factors.”
• “… history and the evidence … revealed that, yes, money makes a difference, such that from the infusion of new money into the K-12 educational system, beginning in 2005 … until … the BSAPP had reached $4,433 for FY2009…, student performances/achievements, based on accepted testing methods, evidenced considerable progress …”
• “Nevertheless, we understand the self-imposed fiscal dilemma now facing the State of Kansas, both with or without this Opinion. Since the obligations here declared emanate from our Kansas Constitution, avoidance is not an option…”
• Data “… evidences, a bottom range of reasonableness is reflected to be somewhere near $4,654 per pupil, but only when that BSAPP is coupled with increases in weightings, the LOB is intended to be consumed substantially in full to meet the Rose factors, and a fail-safe exists that would kick in that would backstop any shortfall.”
• “At a BSAPP of $4,980, only about one-half of the LOB funds statewide would remain for what before stood as local efforts and sacrifice to improve their local system beyond merely adequate.”
• “However, if the LOB, as a financial resource, is to be to some substantial degree maintained for locally determined purposes, then a BSAPP funding threshold in the range of $4,980 or above in 2014 dollars could likely be needed just as a matter of having available dollars in an LOB for those purely local choices.”
Tuesday’s ruling is consistent with the2006 and 2013 court ruling that school funding is unconstitutionally low. Look for legislative leadership and the governor to call for a new school finance formula and education “reforms” that in reality seek to privatize K12 public education and shift the funding burden off of the state. In the words of a fellow public school advocate, stay tuned …