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WaPo Article on Financial Literacy Requirements

We opposed a bill to mandate financial literacy as a graduation requirement for Kansas high school students for multiple reasons. This article explains part of what’s wrong with such mandates. “Maybe we could design financial education more closely aligned with the financial needs and choices of average Americans, and divine a way to deliver it at the exact right moment. But until we do, kids would be much better off spending more time in ordinary math classes rather than trendy financial-education courses. One study — which also found no effect for financial education — found that additional math...
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New Research on Vouchers and Math Scores

A fellow school advocacy group, Public Schools First NC, posted this interesting article from Chalkbeat.org on their Facebook page… New research on a school voucher program in Louisiana found that it hurts students’ math scores — and those scores don’t improve. The voucher program also didn’t improve students’ chances of enrolling in college. http://ow.ly/3zOv30owu1g Originally posted to Facebook 04/24/2019....
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We Agree it’s Wrong to Pit Services Against Each Other

We agree with our friends at Stand Up Blue Valley who posted the following text on Facebook on May 2, 2019. The games they play: Pit services against each other/Who’s the bad guy? Yesterday during the Senate floor debate on whether or not to discuss Medicaid expansion we heard a couple of the familiar anti-public education games being played. Blue Valley area Senators Jim Denning AND Molly Baumgardner BOTH explained, “We can’t expand Medicaid now; what if schools sue again and then we won’t have enough money?” Alert: this post isn’t about Medicaid. It’s about the games they play...
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SM Post Article re: Gannon Decision

We believe the Kansas Supreme Court made the right decision in finding the legislature substantially complied with its Gannon VI mandate. While legislative action is rarely perfect, we appreciate the bipartisan effort to increase school funding and believe this will provide our school districts a level of budgetary certainty that allows investment in staff and programs in ways that have been lacking for many years. We also believe this funding is sustainable and that the court showed appropriate deference to legislative and agency decision-making. We urge our community to remember this case isn’t merely about money, but is...
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