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“Voters must be baffled by competing claims regarding the funding of K-12 public schools in Kansas. The Brownback administration says it is going up; most everybody else says it is going down. “Does the truth lie somewhere in the middle? We simply would say: No. “Gov. Sam Brownback and the conservative lawmakers who approved austere budgets in an attempt to balance the effects caused by massive cuts in personal and business income tax don’t like to talk about base state aid per pupil, which has dropped 12.5 percent since 2009. “Per-pupil spending has declined 14.6 percent between 2009...

“A quick run through the numbers: In the just completed fiscal year 2014, state revenue dropped $688 million from the year before, and Kansas spent $329 million more than it took in. Now, three months into fiscal year 2015, revenue remains below last year’s levels, placing the state on a track to spend more than $650 million above receipts. Except, that cannot happen. The state’s savings account does not have enough money left to cover the difference between rising expenses and falling revenue… “Other states ask: ‘How can we invest to make our schools the best?’ while in...