Will education funding ball stay on the tee?

The State Board of Education and Education Commissioner Bob Corkins don’t think the Legislature needs to fully fund public education next year, as calculated by a legislative audit. They are recommending that the state spend $150 million more on schools, $250 million less than what the audit said was needed. As Corkins noted, their total likely isn’t much lower than the multiyear funding approaches being considered by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and lawmakers. But would it satisfy the Kansas Supreme Court and the state constitution? Wichita attorney Alan Rupe, who’s representing midsize school districts in the funding lawsuit, told the Lawrence Journal-World that $150 million falls way short. “What Mr. Corkins is proposing,” he said, “is a ball that won’t stay on the tee.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

4 Comments

  1. Joe Williams
    Posted February 10, 2006 at 8:22 am | Permalink

    When is it enough for Alan Rupe? I mean, if we have the money we would have no problem putting more money into schools, but Kansas is falling thin on that. $150 million is no chump change. It is an increase and the schools and teachers unions should be happy about that.

  2. scott
    Posted February 10, 2006 at 9:11 am | Permalink

    When is it enough for the kids? I don’t like taxes either, but I will tell you that in ten yrs of teaching I haven’t had a raise that kept of with cost of living until this year.The problem is that schools are continously struck with unfunded mandates, which are noble in design, but also huge money drains.If we are to educate every kid it will take more money simply because of the societal issues that a district like Wichita faces. Many of these kids need more one on one time to succeed and the only way to get that is more money. Fix societys problems ie high divorce rates, single parent homes, poverty, etc and schools will need much less money.

  3. Marvin Reality
    Posted February 10, 2006 at 2:14 pm | Permalink

    Phillip Brownllee is more biased than ever. Phillip do you do any real investigating before you write your articles? It appears that you do not.

    What is interesting about Rupes group is that school districts are paying into a corporation to pay Rupe to sue the state but the coroporation does not have to say how much schools are paying it (keeping in mind that money is your tax dollars)nor do they have to release any of their financial information.

    So Phillip why haven’t you jumped onto that story? Is it because you would have disclose your friends?

  4. Judge Jones
    Posted February 12, 2006 at 4:07 am | Permalink

    Big whup!

    Some dollar amount that represents more than we an afford still falls short of some arbitrary dollar amount set by some high rolling, self-serving, educrat consultants.

    The KS supreme court can go pound sand. Schools have enough money. Stop the stupid mandates and let the teachers teach. Pay the teachers well, lay off the educator/administrator ciphers in the system, and quit hiring those self-serving consultants.

    This country already spends over one trillion dollars annually on education at all levels.

    Enough already!