It’s disappointing to see the state’s new commissioner of education try to discredit a legislative study of education costs before the study is even completed.

The Kansas Legislature’s Department of Post Audit has put all other projects aside to concentrate on the education study which it plans to complete by the opening of the 2006 legislative session in January. The department has a strong reputation for doing credible work. For this study, it is conducting an extensive review, including consultations with top experts in the field, to give the Legislature the best information available about the actual costs of educating Kansas youngsters.

Even though the whole purpose of the study is to give legislators an objective basis for school funding, Education Commissioner Bob Corkins told members of the Legislative Post Audit Committee last week that they shouldn’t depend on the report when making their school funding decisions.

Corkins also shared with committee members an article that criticizes experts who make education cost estimates. Interestingly, Corkins, who has opposed additional school funding, criticized the studies on the basis that they didn’t anticipate new technologies and innovations. Rather than reducing costs, such innovations would seem likely to increase funding demands for state schools.

Corkins comments also seem like an effort to whip up further dissension between the legislative and judicial branches of Kansas government. The Legislative Post Audit study was ordered by the Kansas Legislature under pressure from the Kansas Supreme Court that legislators base their school funding decisions on the actual costs of education rather than on history, political expediency or other factors. Legislators wanted a new study, because they question the findings of the earlier Augenblick and Myers study on which the court has based its latest funding decisions.

Legislators shouldn’t blindly accept the Post-Audit report and any dollar figures included in it, but it is equally wrong to assume the report will not provide a reasonable basis for the funding of Kansas schools. Corkins, whose own resume includes no professional experience in education, may have a low opinion of experts in that field, but state legislators shouldn’t be as dismissive in their assessment of the report – especially before it even reaches their desks.