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“The school districts will make their case to the State Finance Council, which is charged with dispersing up to $12.29 million in emergency aid this fiscal year for schools with extraordinary needs. “That is less than the total applications pending before the council, which add up to $15.07 million. “The single largest request comes from USD 500, which is seeking $2.02 million based on an estimated 500-student jump in enrollment… “Kansas’ emergency aid fund for schools is new. The Legislature created it this spring when it cut more than $50 million in equalization aid statewide. “Equalization aid is...

“Betty Arnold, president of the Wichita Unified School District 259 school board, says she has concerns private schools aren’t playing on a level playing field, because many don’t have to publish academic outcomes such as aggregated standardized test scores and graduation rates. “’The lack of accountability is always a huge concern,’ Arnold said. “Many times, she said, her district has seen children arrive from private schools where they fell behind. “’It’s almost as if they’ve lost a year,’ she said, but because only the public schools are held accountable, they “are the ones that get the black eye.'”...

“That is one reason the tax credit program rankles public education advocates. “’It’s only going to provide education to a very small number of students,’ Patrick Woods, president of the Topeka Unified School District 501 school board, said of the program. “Skeptics like Woods argue many private schools engage in ‘cherrypicking’ — choosing the best students, who have natural academic talents and stable, supportive families, and shying away from those who need intensive academic, emotional or other support. “Heather Ousley, of Game On for Kansas Schools, a parental group that argues Kansas is underfunding K-12 education, says it...

“Sheryl Spalding, president of the Johnson County-based Mainstream Coalition and a former Kansas legislator and member of the Blue Valley school board, doesn’t agree. She points to Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution: ‘No religious sect or sects shall control any part of the public educational funds.’ “’And yet they are giving directly to private schools,”’she said. ‘That would seem to fly in the face of what the Kansas Constitution thinks, and has since its inception, is a good idea.’ “Spalding argues tax credits are a mechanism that diverts money from state revenue to something the state wants...