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Plaintiffs not frivolous, State 0-9 in school funding cases

We posted a response to an email the governor’s office sent last week attacking critics of school funding in Kansas. Schools for Fair Funding also responded to the email, and a second email from the governor’s office followed. “In the most recent message, Melika Willoughby, Brownback’s deputy director of communications, criticizes the media and attorneys for Schools for Fair Funding, the group representing school districts suing the state for more education funding. She calls their criticism ‘flimsy” and “easily refuted.’… “She singled out John Robb, an attorney for Schools for Fair Funding who has been vocal on the...
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Economic freedom reality not as promoted

“So what happens when your costs go up? Well, then you have the freedom to cut spending wherever you want. Maybe you can quit busing kids to school, or cut staffing for your ESL students. “Isn’t freedom a wonderful thing? “What legislators are calling budget freedom is, in reality, forcing school districts to stretch the same dollars even further as costs continue to climb. “But the delusion runs even deeper. “While lambasting Kansas newspapers and educators for their ‘bombastic talk’ about inadequate funding, the governor’s deputy communications director Melika Willoughby sent out a news release identifying the improvements...
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KASB provides information on new KS Assessment scores

The new Kansas Assessment scores will be released soon. Here’s information from KASB on what they mean. “Kansas has made its reading and math tests much tougher by raising expectations, which means that performance will look lower. The new tests measure more than just knowing the basic facts of reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, the tests are designed to tell if a student is learning to think critically and solve more advanced problems – to handle the more complex demands of college, technical education and the workplace. “These tests are different from the types of tests students have...
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