Senate President Susan Wagle said there is no rush in writing a new school funding formula. We wish they would stop spending so much time on unimportant and harmful education policy and focus on creating a new formula which meets the needs of our students. We would also like to point out that the old formula was repealed a year ago, and more progress should have been made by now. “But the president of the Kansas Senate said Friday that it’s unrealistic to expect lawmakers to devise a new school funding system in the remaining weeks of the...
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Legislators and governor need to fix school funding
“The governor and conservative lawmakers will bluster, accusing judges of ‘a temper tantrum’ and the like, but they brought this trouble on themselves and the state. “The move to block-grant funding last year saddles school districts with a fixed amount of funding for two years, regardless of developments such as an influx of at-risk students or variations in local property taxes. Lawmakers compounded the problem by allocating less for education than they knew would be needed.” Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article59874106.html...
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Leave a Comment Court not the problem in school funding case
“Everybody is sick of the school-finance wars in Kansas. The Montoy case dragged on for seven years; this Gannon lawsuit is at six years and counting, with the adequacy part of the case still pending. But the court is not the problem. “As it said Thursday: ‘While we do not desire to become a supervisor of the school finance system, neither do we abandon our duty to the people of Kansas under their constitution to review the Legislature’s enactments and to ensure its compliance with its own duty under Article 6.'” Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/opinion/editorials/article59909826.html....
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Leave a Comment More legislative responses to the Gannon equity decision
In his response, Sen. Melcher raised the issue of retaliating against the court via retention elections. “‘I think the judges are going to get what’s coming to them in the retention elections,’ Melcher said. ‘I think the public has had enough of their politicizing of the judicial branch and they’re going to demonstrate their displeasure when it comes to judicial retention.’ “Not everyone was ready to condemn the court, however. Rep. Dan Hoffman, R-Coldwater, said he wasn’t sure the court overstepped its bounds. He said the court didn’t require a specific amount of money and only found the...
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