Our legislators make choices when using numbers about school finance. They can focus on all funding from all sources or focus on operational funding. They can explain the funds include capital projects approved by voters in their communities or not. They can label broad categories of staff who aren’t teachers as “administration” or not. They can mention increasing costs in terms of higher numbers of students in need, or higher technology costs, or inflation or not. How does your legislator talk about funding and why? Sen. Melcher is not the only one in Johnson County talking about school funding this way.
“Why are people going out of their way to make costs appear to be as outrageous as possible?
“Why do they want to paint Shawnee Mission and other districts in the worst light possible?
“The answer is obvious. They want to cut state funding to districts like Shawnee Mission, and the best way to sell that to taxpayers is to trump up the charge that spending is out of control.
“Or, another way they put it is, schools are ‘inefficient.'”
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/steve-rose/article12865235.html