When you see postcards touting the high priority the legislature has given education as elections near, remember this story, which compiles the impact of the school finance bill on several different districts. “We are running low in our contingency reserve and will have to cut two positions in our career and tech ed programs at Bluestem high school for 2014-15. I have been working in Kansas schools for over 30 years and can definitively say that the legislative support of schools and students in our state is at the lowest point I have seen it in that time....
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Contact federal legislators regarding favoring charter schools
We do not oppose charter schools when they act as they are supposed to-as partners to the public schools in their communities and as innovation laboratories, but we are troubled by increasing support for charters in an era when our true public schools are being told there isn’t money to fund all of their needs. We agree with this statement by NSBA and recommend contacting your FEDERAL LEGISLATORS. http://schoolboardnews.nsba.org/2014/05/nsba-disapprove-congress-attempt-to-expand-charter-schools/...
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Leave a Comment Editorial writer angry about lack of responsible representation in Kansas legislature; we are too
“This is not what is going on in Topeka any longer. Instead we have legislators who believe that fiscal prudence means only one thing: cutting taxes no matter what the effect on institutions of government and on the public. Our legislators no longer seem to care about facts. Important legislation, like the school finance bill, included radical changes to teacher job security without any serious attempt at fact-gathering or public hearings. Our court system’s funding structures were radically altered, again without fact-gathering or adequate hearings and, very possibly, in contravention of the Kansas Constitution. And, of course, a...
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Leave a Comment ALEC policies result in cuts to public ed and other state services without increasing growth
“What’s worst about these ALEC policies, Chinn reports, is that the relentless budget-cutting they require leave crucial state services, particularly education, gasping for breath. That’s a formula for long-term decline, not growth. Indeed, when Chinn mapped the ALEC rankings for all 50 states against their economic growth, he found that, if anything, a higher index score correlates with a worse economic performance. That won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the ALEC follies over time: The Iowa Policy Project found the same negative correlation in 2012. Say this for the ALEC-Laffer Index: It’s a consistently...
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