Topeka ? Kansas Education Commissioner Bob Corkins on Wednesday told lawmakers that they shouldn’t use an education cost study ordered by the Kansas Supreme Court as their guide in funding public schools.

“Do not reduce your role to blindly consenting to whatever dollars any given study deems right,” Corkins told the Legislative Post-Audit Committee, which is overseeing the study.

The study, which is scheduled to be finished in January, is expected to be a crucial part of the debate over school funding.

Corkins said the study will provide useful information “but such studies should never be considered as education invoice machines” that could usurp the authority of the Legislature and State Board of Education.

But state Sen. Chris Steineger, D-Kansas City, said Corkins’ arguments seemed pointless because the state must spend whatever it takes to produce a workforce that can compete with the growing economies of China and India.

“We argue and argue and lose sight of the bigger global struggle,” Steineger said. “The study hasn’t even been finished yet, and it’s getting nitpicked to pieces.”

Alan Rupe, the lead attorney for the school districts that successfully sued the state, said Corkins was wrong, and that the upcoming study was important.

“What he and the Kansas Legislature cannot do is retry the case,” Rupe said. “The die has been cast.”

Earlier this year, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the school finance system was unconstitutionally underfunded.

The court eventually approved the Legislature’s $290 million increase with the understanding that lawmakers would conduct a study to determine the true costs of educating the state’s 450,000 students, and how much it would cost to bring all of them to a proficient level.

So far, a 2001 study by consultants Augenblick and Myers has been the basis for school finance cost estimates by the Supreme Court. That study – resented by many state lawmakers – indicates at least $568 million more must be pumped into the $3 billion school system.

But Corkins said such education cost studies can be shortsighted because they cannot anticipate new technologies and innovations.

To emphasize his point, Corkins gave committee members a copy of an article that criticizes experts that make education cost estimates.

The article was written by Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank. Hanushek has testified in Kansas and other school finance lawsuits against interests that seek more school funding.