Blog

We posted about Sen. Smith’s bill that would allow him to go back to teaching at the pay he was at when he left for the legislature after he spends his legislative career claiming our schools are overfunded and that there’s no “data” to support greater funding. Here’s an editorial:  http://www.hutchnews.com/Editorialblogs/edit–re-employment-bill  ...

So when someone like Kansas Governor Sam Brownback crows ‘Look out Texas. Here comes Kansas!’ it might be he didn’t read the brochure before planning this particular trip.” http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2013/02/anti-tax_credo_keeps_texas_kid.php  This article takes a look at why people who care about public schools don’t want Kansas to be like Texas....

“To be blunt, money does matter. Schools and districts with more money clearly have greater ability to provide higher-quality, broader, and deeper educational opportunities to the children they serve. Furthermore, in the absence of money, or in the aftermath of deep cuts to existing school funding, schools are unable to do many of the things they need to do in order to maintain quality educational opportunities.” Bruce Baker in Revisiting that Age-Old Question: Does Money Matter in Education? http://www.shankerinstitute.org/images/doesmoneymatter_final.pdf...

 Our governor wants to proceed with third grade retention for non-proficient readers, despite evidence that holding kids back often does more harm than good, as part of an initiative to raise fourth grade reading scores, and he’s going to fund it by cutting . . . early childhood education programs. Here’s a new entry in the “we can’t make this stuff up” file. This is another Florida Reform initiative we’d like them to keep in Florida. http://www.khi.org/news/2013/feb/04/brownback-reading-initiative-questioned-education/#continued...