Opinion: Blake West on School Funding
The following is a response by KNEA President Blake West to an article criticizing KNEA's work to improve school funding
Steve Rose has long been an advocate for funding our public schools and for allowing Johnson County districts to have more ability to raise funds locally in an effort to provide Johnson County students with more opportunities and experiences.
Mr. Rose's comments are usually well-articulated, well-reasoned and well-thought out. Unfortunately, that is not the case his Oct. 26 column, "School funding upgrade possible."
We agree with Mr. Rose that "local districts should have local authority." Where we disagree is at what cost this would come to the rest of the children in Kansas and the reasons why they don't really have much local authority today.
When the current formula was passed in 1992, it was intended to provide equity across the state and to offer additional local opportunities via the local option budget. To support equity, the Legislature set a statewide mill levy for education at 35 mills. After the Democrats lost control of the Legislature, a Republican-controlled Legislature cut the mill levy to 20 mills and initiated a pattern of sub-inflationary increases to school funding, typically an increase of $50 per pupil each year.
As a result, local school districts were forced to utilize local option budget dollars to make up for shortfalls in state aid. The local option budget went from its original promise of providing local school districts with a vehicle for funding enrichment programs or expanded programs based on community needs and desires to de facto state aid.
Mr. Rose, whose Republican credentials are well-established, seeks to blame Democrats for what he sees as a formula that punishes Johnson County. But this has never been a partisan issue. Republicans from outside Johnson County have repeatedly voted against changes to the formula that would exacerbate equity issues. And Johnson County Democrats have repeatedly voted for the kinds of changes Rose would like to see. Kansas citizens have been pitted against one another, rural against urban, east against west, with no school district receiving the funding promised.
Mr. Rose goes one step further in his blame game in singling out Kansas NEA teachers as the culprit. Says Rose, "KNEA is adamantly opposed to changing the formula because they have more clout in Topeka than they would if local districts went their own way."
We will set the record straight. First, KNEA does not oppose changes to the formula unless those changes would create a system in which the quality of a child's education would be determined by his or her ZIP code. We adamantly support funding the formula - whatever formula that makes equity a reality. We have said on many occasions that it is not possible to determine if the 1992 formula works because that formula has never been appropriately funded.
Johnson County and Shawnee Mission schools have not been alone in suffering crippling cuts.
Further, we wonder why Mr. Rose chose to single out KNEA. Many groups, including the Kansas Association of School Boards and United School Administrators of Kansas, are concerned that formula changes may not adequately fund a quality education for all students in Kansas. It is unfortunate that Mr. Rose, usually an articulate advocate for Johnson County schools, chose instead to use his column simply to attack Democrats and the teachers while sparing members of his own party who share responsibility in his "blame game."
As the president of the Kansas National Education Association, I represent teachers across the state. As both a resident of Shawnee Mission and a teacher in Blue Valley, I share the passion of my colleagues to ensure great schools in our communities. But we are not willing to throw school children from western Kansas or our urban centers under the proverbial bus in order to let the state ignore its constitutional duty.
