Saying that, except for school finance, the 2004 session of the Kansas Legislature was a productive one is a little like asking Mrs. Lincoln following her husband’s assassination, “Otherwise, how did you like the play?”

Certainly, good things happened in this session, notably the passage of the life sciences initiative, but the Legislature’s adjournment without approving any additional public school funding was so stunning as to overshadow most of the body’s successes. The post-session statements by Republican leaders are frustrating, and the future of K-12 education in Kansas is worrisome.

Senate President Dave Kerr has served well in his leadership role, but his effort to cast blame on the House for not passing what turned out to be the Senate’s final funding plan is a bit mind-boggling. “We tried to tee it up for them,” he said, “and in my opinion they blew it.”

So the Senate’s idea of “teeing it up” was to present a plan completely funded by money borrowed from the state’s comprehensive transportation plan? Not only were there fears that the loan would endanger important projects, but the Senate’s plan came only a couple of months after the state approved issuing $150 million in bonds to try to get the transportation fund back on its feet. And this came on the heels of a Senate plan that delayed a payment to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System and dipped deeply into the state’s ending balances, all in an attempt to avoid any tax increase for education.

Rather than blame the Senate, House Speaker Doug Mays wanted to spread the responsibility more widely, saying, “The only people who have the right to point fingers are the children.”

What does that mean? That members of the bipartisan House coalition that pushed through a $155 million funding package have only themselves to blame for the lack of additional school funding? There are plenty of Kansas voters who will be pointing fingers at legislators who refused to consider tax increases to provide school funding.

The politics of this situation are interesting and, in the minds of many, were the primary driving force behind the inability of legislators to reach a funding compromise. One has to wonder, for instance, how hard conservative GOP House leaders fought for the $155 million plan supported by House Democrats and moderate Republicans. In the long run, it also served their purpose to have the Senate propose plans almost certain to fail in the House because of their unacceptable funding mechanisms.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has indicated she may call the Legislature back into session later this year to deal with school funding, but there’s no reason to do so unless there is some evidence the legislators will have more success than they had last week. Sebelius and Democratic legislators already can go to voters in the fall as representatives of the party that favored increased school funding, so they have little to gain politically in a special session.

The same is true of Republicans if they are satisfied to go into fall campaigns hoping their no-tax banners will override voters’ concerns about school funding. Without some pressure from the courts, there may be little chance that a special session would produce positive results.

Maybe Mays is right; the only real losers from this session are the children. And who cares about them? Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be the Kansas Legislature.