We agree with our friends at Stand Up Blue Valley who posted the following text on Facebook on May 2, 2019.

The games they play: Pit services against each other/Who’s the bad guy?

Yesterday during the Senate floor debate on whether or not to discuss Medicaid expansion we heard a couple of the familiar anti-public education games being played. Blue Valley area Senators Jim Denning AND Molly Baumgardner BOTH explained, “We can’t expand Medicaid now; what if schools sue again and then we won’t have enough money?” Alert: this post isn’t about Medicaid. It’s about the games they play – using the Medicaid discussion as one example.

Here we see two of their favorite games in action. 1. Public education is the Bad Guy for wanting to be funded adequately, and 2. We can’t fund other services if we fund schools.

No, and No. It does not have to be either/or. We hold legislators responsible for a budget that provides adequate revenue to do what is needed for our schools AND other essential services. Remember the Brownback tax experiment (that failed…or did it?)? No more experimenting with the revenue needed to adequately fund our schools. Kansas does not need another risky tax experiment. And if the ksleg would fund public schools adequately, there would be no more court cases.

Originally posted to Facebook on 05/02/2019.