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“Conservatives in the Kansas Legislature this weekend took advantage of a serious problem — inequities in public school funding — to attack teachers and create new problems. In a deplorable sneak attack, Senate leadership and allies in the House tied the elimination of due process for teachers to crucial elements of school funding. That issue hadn’t been dealt with in the normal committee process. Conservatives rammed it through without caring whether lawmakers were fully informed of the consequences. . . Kansas is in a hole without a ladder. Other states are using rising revenues to restore money cut from...

We agree. This is bad policy and bad government. “Where was the love for those ‘great’ schools as the Legislature voted to strip teachers of their due-process rights, subsidize private education with a corporate income-tax credit, and pass unproven ideological reforms while trampling on the policymaking responsibilities of the Kansas State Board of Education? There was no groundswell of support for nullifying Kansas teachers’ 57-year-old right to challenge their dismissal. Though the Kansas Association of School Boards supports making some changes to due process, this wasn’t its proposal. There wasn’t even a legislative hearing on the proposal this...

“Diane Gjerstad, lobbyist for the Wichita district, said she’s not sure what the bill will mean, fiscally or policy-wise, for the district because on Monday it had not even been published. ‘The dilemma is that because the legislative process was short-cut, we did not have the opportunity … for input,’ she said. . . Larry Smith, who teaches history at East High School in Wichita, said he was disappointed by bill’s passage but encouraged by the number of teachers, parents and others who rallied to protest it. ‘This is going to be an issue now that is going...

“If you want to see the origin of this bill, follow the straight line between the Koch bothers, AFP, Brownback and the Senate. This lineage truly comes into focus when Sen. Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) questioned Sen. Tom Arpke (R-Salina) about the amendment he allegedly authored. When Fransico asked why the education bill that would remove due process for only K-12 teachers, Arpke could not answer on either the content or intent of ‘his’ Amendment. He is merely a puppet and could find no answers since no one was there to move his strings. That is the problem with the...