Mrs. Laura Bush
The White House
Washington D.C.
Dear esteemed first lady,
Thanks for swinging by Topeka last week to promote your favorite cause: reading. We all appreciate your support for literacy in the Sunflower State. Speaking of which, please congratulate the President for the honorary degree he was awarded by the Texas Phonics Institute for his improved speech-reading ability in the midst of the current war. But enough jokes about George, because my reasons for writing are very serious.
During your visit, you were probably so busy reading "Picky Mrs. Pickle" to the kids that you missed hearing the hoopla about our state's looming educational catastrophe. Craig Grant, chief lobbyist for the Kansas chapter of the National Education Assn., sums up the problem well.
"For years we gave back taxes to Kansas taxpayers," he says. "Now we don't have the base to support the needs of our schools."
According to the governor's staff, an estimated $3.69 billion wasn't paid to the state because of tax reductions passed by the legislature during Gov. Bill Graves' administration, with more than $900 million of that coming from the 2001 fiscal year alone. Given the ongoing recession, we're facing a Texas-sized slash in educational resources. Legislators are threatening to hack next year's education budget even more, producing a grim picture for the poorly financed state school system. It's too bad you didn't get to read "Peter Rabbit Gets His School Funded" to Kansas lawmakers while you were visiting.
Dale Dennis, deputy commissioner from the Kansas State Department of Education, explains the crisis: "Our schools have had numerous challenges. One is being able to recruit and maintain teachers whose salaries rank 41st in the nation. We have some schools that don't even have health insurance for teachers. There were 13 or 14 districts with schools with no insurance."
No health care? Paltry salaries? (And to think there's actually nine states that rank below us.) As a former teacher, surely you understand the gravity of the situation. But it gets worse.
According to the KSDE, for the last two years, our schools have started the year with more than 500 teacher vacancies, with critical shortages in math, science and special education.
"How much would it take you to teach in northwestern Kansas?" Dennis asks. "Prospective teachers find better offers elsewhere. One teacher in Ellis County took a job as an assistant manager at Arby's because of higher benefits and salary. They like the kids, like to teach, but they have families."
Now that's food for thought. Kansas youth will certainly be ready to compete in the information age with the state's trained educators serving them Beef 'N Cheddars and curly fries. For a more concrete picture, Mrs. Bush, consider how the Solomon school district is reacting to the cuts. Supt. Skip Landis explains the Spartan existence that awaits the district.
"We will have to reduce services. Our main focus will be to keep our educational delivery where it's presently at," he says. "It's those support service programs that we will cut."
Landis says that in light of the impending budget slashes, his district will reduce food and custodial services, teacher aides and transportation staff. For next year, there will be no salary increases, no new textbook adoptions and no athletic uniform purchases.
He continues, "We are completely dropping the summer school program for junior high and elementary students."
Sounds like the plot for "How The Bobbsey Twins Failed the New Federally Mandated Achievement Test."
As if all of this weren't bad enough, madam first lady, your No. 1 cause is in jeopardy.
"Reading instruction, I hate to say, is going to suffer," Landis laments, citing inevitably larger class sizes. "Our better quality teachers are going to leave education and go into the private field and be compensated at a higher rate with better benefits."
But there can be a happy ending to this version of "Nancy Drew and the Case of the Disappearing Teachers."
To save the state's educational system from tragedy, the Kansas State Board of Education is recommending a $1.1 billion increase in funding over the next three years, which would increase per-pupil spending from the current $3,870 to $5,076. Unfortunately, this happily-ever-after scenario isn't guaranteed. To get the required dough, legislators will have to increase taxes. Some are flatly opposed to this, while others have suggested raising the sales tax, a regressive measure that passes on state expenses to lower-income earners.
We need a more equitable method, such as a reinstatement of the property taxes that were cut, the single largest source of lost revenue for the state. With a property tax, the more one owns, the more one pays. It doesn't take Hardy Boys to discover which system is more fair.
That's where you come in, Mrs. Bush. Your fellow Republicans were the force behind the original cuts and control both houses of the legislature. Maybe you could urge them to quit reading "James and the Giant Tax Cut" and instead pick up "Horton Hears a Property Tax Hike." Carrying out this urgent plea, you would be a hero to thousands of children across the state. Maybe some fourth-grader will pen "Laura Bush and the Tale of Equitable School Funding."
Thanks for caring,
Greg Douros, concerned Kansas citizen
P.S. Please remind your hubby that he still needs to return "Curious George Gets a Job" to the Austin public library. It's two years' overdue.
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