Here’s perspective from Reno County on the school district consolidation bill. “’I don’t hear anybody in the state clamoring for this,’ said Hutchinson USD 308 Board of Education President Jeff Nichols. “Such decisions need to be made by local voters, Nichols said. ‘Not by partisan hacks in Topeka that have political agendas,’ he said… “Hutchinson USD 308 school board member Tad Dower said, speaking personally, he’s not opposed to looking at the issue of consolidation… “Laura Meyer Dick, president of the Buhler USD 313 school board, said she personally saw very few benefits in the bill. “’When I...
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Top 10 reasons school choice is no choice
In honor of school choice week, and the rally being hosted by Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity tomorrow, we’re sharing this article. To be clear, we support school choice. In Kansas, we have traditional public schools, magnet schools, charter schools, private secular and religious schools, and home schools, and we wouldn’t take any of those choices away. We oppose the diversion of public tax dollars away from public schools for the benefit of non-public schools that don’t serve all children and have no accountability, especially given how the school choice movement has become a vehicle for dismantling support for...
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Leave a Comment Kevin Huffman describes inability to shut down failing K12 school
In honor of school choice week, we’re sharing this article by Kevin Huffman, who has been a supporter of choice describe his experience trying to shut down a failing e-school. “And yet, the ‘marketplace’ fails when we are not able to ensure that parents know that the school they are choosing has a running track record of failure. Clearly, there is a critical regulatory role, and we cannot simply assume that an unfettered choice environment will automatically lead to good outcomes. “In theory, K12, Inc’s stock should be hammered by its terrible performance in Tennessee, but it’s actually...
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Leave a Comment Llopis_Jepsen shows impact of district consolidation bill
We’re sharing the content of a Facebook post by Celia Llopis-Jepsen, a reporter at the Topeka Capital-Journal. A bill in the Kansas Legislature would require school districts to consolidate into countywide districts for all counties that have fewer than 10,000 students. In Kansas, that’s 98 of 105 counties. Here I’ve produced a map that shows them in red, and a second map that shows the 22 counties that currently do only have one school district based in them. (State data lists district enrollment according to where each district is based, but district boundaries can spill over into more...
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