We hope parents are making their voices heard as well. Apparently sometimes legislators forget that our school districts are speaking on behalf of our children and not for themselves. “The only groups that testified in favor of the bill were the Kansas Chamber of Commerce; the Kansas Policy Institute, a free-market think tank; and the tea party group Kansans for Liberty. “Will lawmakers listen to the school districts, as Ryckman promised, or will they do the bidding of special interests?” Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/opinion/editorials/article13144613.html...
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Legislature on cusp of narrowly passing bill to abolish school funding formula
Here are the votes on House Sub SB 7 (the block grant bill repealing the current formula and underfunding our schools for the next 2 years). The final vote will be held today at 8 am. Keep contacting your legislators! On roll call the vote was: Yea – (64): (Are they representing you?) Anthimides, Barker, Barton, Bradford, Bruchman, Brunk, Campbell, Carpenter, Carpenter, Claeys, Concannon, Corbet, Couture-Lovelady, Davis, DeGraaf, Dove, Esau, Estes, Garber, Grosserode, Hawkins, Hedke, Highland, Hildabrand, Hoffman, Houser, Huebert, Hutchins, Hutton, Jones, Jones, Kahrs, Kelley, Kelly, Kiegerl, Kleeb, Lunn, Macheers, Mason, Mast, McPherson, Merrick, O’Brien, Osterman, Pauls,...
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Leave a Comment Senate Ways and Means to hear block grant bill March 10
The Senate Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on SB 273 (block grant bill identical to HB 2403) tomorrow. Contact Senate Ways and Means committee members, and urge them to vote NO on SB 273. Ty.Masterson@senate.ks.gov, jim.denning@senate.ks.gov, laura.kelly@senate.ks.gov, tom.arpke@senate.ks.gov, steve.fitzgerald@senate.ks.gov, Dan.Kerschen@senate.ks.gov, Jeff.Melcher@senate.ks.gov, Michael.ODonnell@senate.ks.gov, Larry.Powell@senate.ks.gov, Caryn.Tyson@senate.ks.gov...
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Leave a Comment Coverage of the House Appropriations hearing on block grant bill
“Cynthia Lane, the superintendent of Kansas City, Kansas, schools… said that the block grant, which would tie funding levels to current appropriations, would cap resources and only give districts flexibility in deciding what to cut. “Rep. Gene Suellentrop, R-Wichita, questioned a representative from the Kansas Association of School Boards about how districts could say they were underfunded when overall spending has increased consistently over the past 20 years. “‘What is enough?’ Suellentrop said. ‘Where’s the end? How much do we owe?’… “Rep. Don Hill, R-Emporia, called this provision the ‘don’t worry, be happy’ section and complained that the...
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