The Kansas State Board of Education is at risk of being taken over by extremists. We believe these candidates, including incumbents Chair Melanie Haas and Betty Arnold, will be strong, traditional board members who will ensure Kansas children get the best opportunity for a high quality education....
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General Election Rosters 2024
Game On for Kansas Schools is releasing its rosters for the November 5, 2024 races for the Kansas State Board of Education, Senate, and House. Incumbents who have consistently supported public education while serving in office are on the “Varsity Squad.” Challengers we believe will be the best advocates for public education are on our roster of “Top Recruits,” while incumbents who have repeatedly failed to support public education are “Benched for academic ineligibility.” While national races get a lot more attention, the outcomes of these local elections have tremendous impact on your lives and on our children’s...
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Leave a Comment There is Nothing Conservative About Undermining Public Education
There is nothing conservative about undermining public education and running for an office you are unqualified to hold. Falsely claiming schools are not focused on academics is irresponsible and an insult to teachers and administrators. The four members of the board who currently don’t vote to accept federal funding for our schools and engage in culture war issues are extremists who either support the destruction of public education as we know it or are pawns for that movement. If we get one more of them, the board will be deadlocked, and if we get two more, the extremists...
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Leave a Comment Croft, Williams, and Thomas Treat School Boards and Teachers as Enemies
Over the past two weeks on our Facebook page we have shared videos from #ksleg leadership including House Majority Leader Chris Croft, Chair of the K-12 Education Budget Committee Kristey Williams and Chair of the House Education Committee Adam Thomas showing them treating teachers and school boards as enemies, scheming how to continue to underfund special education, and talking about how to dissolve local school boards. This is who they really are and what they think about public education. It’s particularly offensive that their campaigns don’t share what they say in private. They know their constituents support public...
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Leave a Comment Deep Dive into Board of Education Candidates
The following is a deeper dive into the tremendous risk we face of losing our State Board of Education to extremists, adapted from a piece by former Lawrence BOE member Marcel Harmon. Where Things Currently Stand After the 2022 elections we were left with six traditional State Board of Education members, and four extremists embracing various policy positions of anti-public education activists. These included Danny Zeck in District 1, Michelle Dombrosky in District 4, Cathy Hopkins in District 5, and Dennis Hershberger in District 7, the latter two defeating more centrist opponents in the primaries. During their candidacies...
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Leave a Comment Do Your Legislators Support Vouchers?
Legislators and candidates who claim to support vouchers (whether they say tax credit scholarships, ESAs or some other made up reference to helping kids in so-called failing schools) and claim to support public education are either being dishonest or willfully ignorant. There will be a renewed effort to pass vouchers in 2025 and legislators’ past votes are more reliable indications of their true level of support for public education than public statements during their campaigns. On March 15, 2023, 64 members of the Kansas House voted to pass an Education Savings Account (ESA) bill modeled after Arizona’s disastrous...
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