Fasten your seat belts for more state school board turbulence

Bill Wagnon of Topeka is part of the moderate minority on the Kansas State Board of Education. In an online chat with readers of the Lawrence Journal-World, he warned of more board wars to come: “Evolution was just a warm-up for choice of commissioner, which is just a warm-up for a wholesale assault on curriculum standards. The issue of funding education as directed by the Supreme Court will lead to all sorts of movement that attempt to limit the Legislature’s liability for funding schools. Defining ’suitable’ is the next big issue” — as in, the state’s constitutional mandate of a “suitable education.” Wish there was reason to think Wagnon’s wrong about what’s next. There isn’t.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

One Comment

  1. Steven E.
    Posted October 23, 2005 at 2:21 pm | Permalink

    I would recommend reading the link provided above. It is interesting.

    The one thing that confuses me in the above quotes is that the legislature defining “suitable education” should have been done before now and if it had happened, could have headed off the intervention of the KS Supreme Court. So, I guess I am saying that I am not clear on how the BOE antics are related to the legislative inaction on this important subject. I believe the legislature would have done something on the definitions issue even if the BOE had not had all of its problems.