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From our friends at Educate Lawrence, “The Kansas Supreme Court established the ‘Rose capacities’ as the standard for evaluating adequate funding of our public schools and sent the judgment on adequacy of school funding back to a three-judge panel. The Rose standard includes measurements of student’s knowledge of civics, economics, fine arts, and possessing the communication skills necessary for entering college or the workforce. The K-12 Student Performance and Efficiency Committee discussed various legislative bills but could only come to agreement on recommending a new study commission to investigate the Rose standard. If passed by the legislature, this...

So now we’re being told that KPERS cuts aren’t cuts to education, even though during the past year we were told that KPERS funding did count as education funding. We’re also being told that education and KPERS funding are not sustainable, and the legislature will look at “structural reforms”. We are fully aware that “structural reforms” that result in less spending are “cuts” no matter what you call them. We believe that it’s the current tax cuts that are unsustainable, not education and promised pensions. At least if we read really closely between the lines, we almost get...

Any discussion of Kansas test scores, achievement gaps and overall K-12 performance and funding needs that fails to explicitly acknowledge that over 50% of Kansas public school children are now low-income is fundamentally flawed. “Fellow board member Kathy Busch, R-Wichita, said the upward trend could mean schools need more resources. ‘It’s pretty indicative of what we’ve been dealing with for a while in Wichita,’ Busch said, ‘but it’s pretty eye-opening when we’re dealing with the whole state.'” http://cjonline.com/news/2014-12-09/kansas-low-income-students-exceed-50-first-time...