Thank you, Ed Tranin! We hope the business community joins us in getting more vocal about the impact of education cuts. “I didn’t ask for this. As a Kansas small business, I no longer pay taxes on my business profits. “I moved to Kansas 20 years ago because of the excellent schools. I no longer have children in the Blue Valley district, but I still find it painful to watch the effect of the ongoing school funding crisis. Some districts have had to shorten their school years, and all have had to cut back on programs and services....
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Kansas should avoid the charter school mistake
We fully anticipate seeing another ALEC charter bill to expand charters in Kansas next legislative session. Here’s part of why we’ll oppose it. “As large as the gulf can be between charter cheerleading and charter reality, it doesn’t represent the greatest danger of these schools. They have become the leading edge of a long-cherished ideological crusade by the far right to turn education into a consumer choice rather than a civic obligation. “Abandoning public schools for a free-market system eviscerates our basic obligation to support them whether our own children are in public schools, private schools or religious...
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Leave a Comment Brownback exploring early childhood coordination, but what does it mean?
Pardon our skepticism, but we remember when the governor toured public elementary schools last winter saying he supported funding all-day kindergarten. That didn’t happen. Now he’s talking about early childhood education. We believe the lack of early childhood education places a higher burden on the K-12 system and misses an opportunity to help Kansas children succeed. But we want to see real progress on this issue rather than posturing. “Shannon Cotsoradis, president and chief executive officer of Kansas Action for Children in Topeka, wasn’t invited to join Brownback’s working group… “Cotsoradis said Kansas could have greater resources for...
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Leave a Comment Framing education as business is inappropriate
We have been concerned with the increasing use of business terms when talking about schools. Schools are very different from most businesses, and we find those hostile to public education use the “business speak” the most. “The marketplace excels in many ways—it keeps capital circulating, it spurs innovation, finds efficiencies, and all the rest. But business is also prone to overhyping its capabilities to believing its own press, to adopt reductive thinking too readily in the interests of simplicity. The ‘ROI’ in the classroom takes a thousand forms, and in many cases bears no fruit for years after...
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