The governor’s block grant proposal is a cut in public education spending. “[H]is budget recommendation actually calls for a 4 percent reduction in four key classroom funding categories: general state aid, supplemental state aid, capital outlay aid and the school district finance fund. K-12 schools will get $127 million less in those categories next year…Schools will get an additional $8 million next year under the current law to fund bond and interest on capital improvements and another $6.5 million to maintain the state’s match on federal aid for special education, but they also will be expected to pay...
Read more
Leave a Comment Blog
Districts pass LOB issues
Shawnee Mission, Blue Valley, Olathe, Gardner-Edgerton, DeSoto and Lawrence have passed LOB issues. Here are comments from SMSD. Shawnee Mission School District Voters Pass LOB and Bond Election Proposals In the district’s first mail-in ballot election, Shawnee Mission voters have endorsed both the local option budget and bond proposal questions. Unofficial results indicate voters overwhelmingly approved maintaining the local option budget at the current level by approximately 83 percent in favor and 17 percent in opposition. Voters also approved a $223 million bond for districtwide capital improvements with approximately 80.5 percent voting in favor of the bond and...
Read more
Leave a Comment Report outlines fraud, waste and abuse in charters
Please read this report to understand why Kansas should not expand its charter laws to match what other states have done. We don’t need these problems. “This report will bring into focus some of the consequences of having inadequate charter regulations. We focus on just one symptom – the growing problem of fraud, waste, and abuse perpetrated by some charter school operators. The problem is pervasive; our search, despite being limited to fewer than half of the states with charter schools, found over $100 million in public tax funds lost to waste, fraud, and abuse.” http://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/FraudandMismgmt5-3-14(FINALx3.0)REV.pdf...
Read more
Leave a Comment What you can do
Many of you are wondering what you can do to help. Here are several items. 1. Continue talking to your friends, family and neighbors about the impact of school funding and policy on the children in your lives. Help them see the dangers of moving elections, and changing judicial selection and mandatory retirement ages and their relationship to public education. Encourage them to like this page. 2. Participate in a Valentine’s Day project to send your legislators some love and let them know how much we love our public schools. Those of us with kids in elementary schools...
Read more
Leave a Comment