“However, the real joke is on public schools in the state. Whether they realized it not, each of them contributed to this $12.3 million fund… “Lawmakers weren’t forthcoming that extraordinary funding was actually being deducted (or stolen, you use your own description) from state aid that districts were supposed to be getting this year. Lost funding for the Scott County school district is $21,560; in Wichita County it’s $11,965; and in the Dighton district it’s $6,859. “Conservative lawmakers were content with taking credit for their generosity until confronted with the truth by Dan Brungardt, superintendent of the Bonner...
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Kansas School Finance: At a Crossroads
This is a well-written summary. Click here for the blog post and embedded photos: https://stephanametzger.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/kansas-school-finance-at-a-crossroads/ Kansas School Finance: At a Crossroads by Stephan A. Metzger I’m back to my roots. Education finance in Kansas has been getting a fair amount of news coverage in recent weeks, and for good reason. The first is that the Governor has created a new committee tasked with doing leg work in creating a new finance formula for the state’s 286 school districts. This is a big deal. It makes the prospect of going back to the old, not at all broken, formula virtually...
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Leave a Comment Governor’s communications director derisive
We agree. “Melika Willoughby apparently is paid to be derisive – and with public tax dollars, no less. Gov. Sam Brownback’s deputy director of communications mocked ‘ever-litigating’ school districts and the media in a newsletter e-mailed last week. She called criticisms of school-funding levels ‘flimsy’ and ‘easily refuted’ — even though the state has lost every school-funding lawsuit. In a newsletter last month, she accused editorial boards and union leaders of engaging in ‘bombastic talk’ about school funding. Earlier in the summer, she claimed that Kansas City, Kan., school district complaints about funding were the latest example of...
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Leave a Comment Merit pay for teachers doesn’t work
Governor Brownback is now promoting teacher merit pay. We posted earlier about the issues of tying teacher pay to test results. Here’s an article, with cited research, showing why merit pay doesn’t work. “It is curious that teachers vigorously oppose merit pay, even though they are the ones who are supposed to reap the rewards. What do they know? They know that merit pay undermines collaboration and teamwork. They know that it corrupts the culture of the school… “Merit pay has been tried again and again since the 1920s. Sometimes scores go up, sometimes they don’t, but the...
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