To the editor:
The editorial titled “Patience,” published on Nov. 9 acknowledged that Kansas schools will be hurt by budget reductions, but “now is not the time to pursue it.” Just when would be a good time? After a year or two of K-2 kids having lost the window of learning that will boost them up toward success?
Education is NOT a business! We cannot reduce the number of widgets in our inventory or in any way cut holes in the educational momentum and casually pick up again later at a more convenient time. Education is a continuum and relies on uninterrupted, accumulated efforts over time to produce the desired result.
I remember during a previous governor’s administration when taxes were cut, much to the glowing pride of fiscal conservatives. I wondered at the time when the rainy day would come. I also wondered if these same legislators would run their family budgets the same way.
All the tax savings that got to stay in “our” pockets aren’t helping us now. Whatever small tax saving each of us got would have collectively made a powerful reserve the state could fall back on to avoid drastic cuts to education. It is alarming that even in better times, it took a lawsuit to remind lawmakers of their responsibilities.
As for the editorial, the image of anyone in education stomping and threatening is a show of disrespect to all the individuals, and districts alike, who persevere in the face of cultural influences, impossible legislation and lack of funding.
Comments
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Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
The notion that schools are suffering from a lack of funding is outrageously false. According to the US Department of Education:
"Total education funding has increased substantially in recent years at all levels of government, even when accounting for enrollment increases and inflation."
http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/...
Education spending has increased in Kansas every single year for the past 10 years.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/d...
If anything the budget needs to be severely cut, not increased.
kansasfaithful (anonymous) says…
Here we go again. Those children, my children, schools in Kansas are so under funded. 60% of every single tax dollar in kansas goes to our government schools. Let me break that down a little more so that all of us understand. For each dollar we pay in taxes we give 60 cents to the department of education and our government schools. With that said how do we fund other areas of need such as government health departments, shelters, Burt Nash, roads, treatment plants, welfare, social services. After all they have to all split the other 40%. Those poor government schools and all those children. They are not getting their fair share.
bkgarner (Brent Garner) says…
I have observed that there are two things that are never satisfied. The first is the grave and the second is the tax man.
SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
You'll get little sympathy, Ms. Kelly. Kansas schools are by far the biggest feeder at the government trough.
Family budgets are tighter than they've been in decades, with thousands of Kansans out of work. Calls for tax increases to fund a government school system that consumes billions in tax dollars every year (and that refuses to reduce school districts, stop wasteful spending on athletic facilities or kick the NEA out of its affairs) is short-sighted and wrong-headed.
grammaddy (anonymous) says…
Education SHOULD be the biggest feeder at the government trough. I can't think of an issue that is more important. We can pay our celebrities ungodly amounts of money but the poor teachers are grossly underpaid. These are the people we trust our childrens' future to.Priorities!
consumer1 (anonymous) says…
Gramdaddy, My Taxes do not pay athelete or movie star salaries. Get your comparison's right.
jafs (anonymous) says…
If the comments about the schools not being underfunded are correct, why did the Supreme Court conclude that the legislature is not funding them adequately?
eastsidepride (anonymous) says…
3 million was cut from our school district alone this year! many costs are passed to the parents... especially if your children are in sports! Busing for Lawrence kids was drastically cut. Sucks for parents who have to work jobs that they cant get away from and there children have to walk home on rainy and cold days! What choice do they have. I recently went to my sons school confrence and had a conversation with his teach about many things their class room needed, and in order to get those things the teacher has bought many things out of her own pocket... is this right??? I dont have the answers but I agree with Linda Kelley our children is where our future lies... educate them well and we might not need to throw money to organizations like Shelters, Bert Nash, welfare, social services. Just a thought! Good Letter Linda!!!!
Fixed_Asset (anonymous) says…
Underfund the schools = build more prisons.
Sad that so many of you refuse to invest in the future of our children.
SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
jafs,
Umm, because the Kansas Supremes are in it up to their eyeballs with the government education establishment? How else could they pick an arbitrary funding number out of thin air and call it the mandatory funding level?
KSManimal (anonymous) says…
STRS -
It wasn't an arbitrary number. It was a number arrived at by multiple cost studies, commissioned by the legislature, to determine the cost of meeting the constitutional obligation of the legislature re - public education.
2001:
http://www.ksde.org/LinkClick.aspx?fi...
2006:
http://www.kslegislature.org/postaudi...
Not only that, but even after losing the lawsuit, the legislature only increased funding by slightly less than half the amount called for by two separate studies using two methods each. Four cost studies - same answer any way you slice it.
Now, about half that additional funding has been cut again. Meanwhile, the legislature has no problem looking at new taxes to fund $10 billion in highway projects.
Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. Funding has gone up over the last ten years, yet somehow schools are now underfunded? (well, er, umm, some government study says the government needs more money....) Can we think of any better example of how inept the state is at producing anything? We've thrown money at the schools for the last ten years and they only ask for more and more. Why are you people siding with this? Are you so blinded by the notion that as long as it's for education and for children no expense should be spared that you can't see reality?
Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
Education is too important to leave it to the government....
sherlock (anonymous) says…
Poor America! We have gotten so greedy! Never enuf---need more for schools, need homeless shelters---and so it goes on and on. Now polls show that Americans even want to take money from the rich to pay for their health insurance. Whats this ? Robin Hood ideas surfacing again? Now I am sure not rich, so no money would come from me in this venture, but after all the so called rich have had to work , why should they have the government tell them: Oh by the way you must share youre wealth with millions of people so they can have insurance too????????? Charity is fine, but should not be forced. Sorry but I thought we lived in a democratic country? Is this what is coming for all of us? Dictatorship?
merrill (anonymous) says…
Privatizing public education will require far more tax dollars let's not kid ourselves. That is what privateers like about it...all of those tax dollars.
Look at the most expensive medical insurance industry in the world that BTW in 2009 received $1.2 trillion dollars.
Don't raise taxes for pork barrel road projects raise taxes to support education a best bang for the tax buck.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Why did Scott Morgan approve a $20 million sports project knowing full well this matter needed to be resolved?
*School Maintenance
http://www2.ljworld.com/polls/2007/oc...
Recall for fiscal negligence……
4getabouit (anonymous) says…
To answer your question Merrill.......Because capital projects are funded, by state law, outside the general fund. The USD capital fund is healthy because due to carry over dollars and leverage bonds. That levy has gone done over the past 5 years. The general fund pays salaries and soft costs like paper, textbooks etc. and comes almost entirely from the State of Kansas.Capital funds build things like classroom additions, athletic and PE facilities. Dislike the sports fields if you want, but don't confuse the issues. You could spend nothing on capital projects and still need to find general fund efficiency.
Jimo (anonymous) says…
"why did the Supreme Court conclude that the legislature is not funding them adequately?"
Because it relied on the evidence? The legislature commissioned a study that concluded the schools were underfunded. That was it. All of the evidence.
The legislature wanted the freedom to trash the study and insert it's own opinion in it's place. The Supreme Court, relying upon the express constitutional requirement, fell back on the only evidence submitted.
Jimo (anonymous) says…
Have to agree with Liberty to an extent. If money could buy educational success with our current educational system then the mountain of money we pour down the edu-hole right now should be buying 12 year old Ph.D.s. Instead, we get 18 year olds, half of whom seem to know not much of anything (and then come online as LJW commentators) while the money that should be going to the effective teachers get's siphoned off to administrative overhead and worthless job-fillers sucking at the public teat.
Reform the system to produce results. I'll pay whatever it takes.
parrothead8 (anonymous) says…
The population of Kansas has gone from 2.5 million to 2.8 million in the last ten years. That means more kids in schools. Also, thanks to our consumer-driven lifestyles, things cost more now than they did ten years ago.
So we have more kids in school and the stuff they need for school costs more than it used to. That doesn't sound like we're raising school budgets for fun...it sounds like we're just trying to keep up with population growth.
Even someone who went to public school should be able to figure out that simple math.
parrothead8 (anonymous) says…
kansasfaithful (Anonymous) says…
Here we go again. Those children, my children, schools in Kansas are so under funded. 60% of every single tax dollar in kansas goes to our government schools. Let me break that down a little more so that all of us understand. For each dollar we pay in taxes we give 60 cents to the department of education and our government schools.
Where did you get this figure from? The Kansas state government website shows that the figure is actually 30%.
http://www.kansas.gov/KanView/state_e...
bkgarner (Brent Garner) says…
Parrot: Your comment creates the impression that education is a minority in the state budget. Here are the figures from the graph your link goes to:
Education 31%
Human resources: 31%
Transportation: 7%
Agriculture: 2%
Public safety: 4%
General gov't: 25%
As you can see, education is tied with human resources for first place. So please don't try to create the impression that education is the poor relative in the state's budget.
jafs (anonymous) says…
If the legislature's own study showed the system was underfunded, why did they want to "trash" it?
And, if I remember correctly, it was massively underfunded, not just a little bit.
It's reminiscent of Lawrence's tendency to hire consultants to do studies, and then ignore the results.
Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
parrothead8 (Anonymous) says…
"The population of Kansas has gone from 2.5 million to 2.8 million in the last ten years. That means more kids in schools. Also, thanks to our consumer-driven lifestyles, things cost more now than they did ten years ago."
According to the US Department of Education, even considering inflation and rising populations, we still spend more today than we did in the past. Sorry, but school underfunding is a myth. They are getting plenty of money, it's just not being spent wisely. Why are you defending this?
parrothead8 (anonymous) says…
Liberty_One
Why am I defending this? That's kind of a silly question, isn't it? I am defending it for the same reason you aren't...because it's an issue I believe in. I believe school funding is important. Kansas ranks 30th out of 50 states in spending per student, so don't tell me that our schools are getting "plenty of money." I guess you'd rather I just sit back and not speak up. Perhaps it would make things a lot easier on you. Sorry. I'm an American, and where I come from, speaking up is the American way.
bkgarner
The only "impression" I created was in your mind. I stated one fact, which I backed up by providing a link. If I created an "impression" by posting a fact, imagine the "impression" created by the person who posted the wrong information. I noticed you didn't bother to call them out for "creating an impression." Instead, you grabbed hold of their so-called fact to create your own "impression" here and in another thread.
bkgarner (Brent Garner) says…
Parrot: If school funding was all it took to give us brilliantly educated children with great jobs the we in the US should have the most brilliantly educated children on the planet. The fact is that education funding does not determine the quality of the education being received. There are numerous other factors,with attitude being the biggest one. You, and others like you, would have us all believe that if we would just pour more money into education then the problem would be solved. First, you who make such an argument need to be able to quantify how much is enough. But you either can't or won't so instead you cry that we aren't putting enough money into education.
jafs (anonymous) says…
The quantification was provided by the legislature's own study.
That amount was then required by the Supreme Court when the legislature failed to apply it.
moose (anonymous) says…
Jimo,
You got what you asked for. The dramatic increase in funding for schools created an equally dramatic increase in student achievement on state assessments. You can find this on the KSDE website. Educators did exactly what they said they would do. When you see the actual graphs showing student achievement it is undeniable. There also has been a legislative post audit study confirming the same thing.
Are you sure you really mean what you say that you will pay whatever it takes if we get results? We did.
For the others of you who are questioning the Augenblick and Myers study, there were actually 3 separate studies commissioned by the legislature and all came up with essentially the same number of underfunding. Since the legislature didn't like what the studies said, they ignored them. Unfortunately for the legislature, those studies were the only ones introduced in the court case and it killed their own case.
Moose
Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
parrothead8 (Anonymous) says…
"Kansas ranks 30th out of 50 states in spending per student, so don't tell me that our schools are getting “plenty of money.”"
Considering that Kansas ranks 49th in cost of living it sure sounds like we are overpaying. Why are you defending corruption?
deskboy04 (anonymous) says…
I don't think that education has too much money. I think that it is spent on the wrong things...mainly administrative costs and the latest "educational trends of the day".
windex (anonymous) says…
L1 - KS ranks 49th in cost of living? Really? Provide your source, please.
Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
windex--49th out of 51--that's including DC. Unfortunately that was from a post I wrote years ago and I didn't put a link in that post so I don't know where I got that number. But checking the current numbers Kansas is definitely in the bottom 10, so my point remains. We are overpaying for education, and is that any wonder?
parrothead8 (anonymous) says…
bkgarner
My mother was a teacher for 30 years, and I was a pretty decent student myself, so I've got a pretty good idea of what it takes. I'm not willing to speculate on a dollar amount because I don't know. I don't know because the whole system is flawed. The system is flawed because the money is going to the wrong places, not because there's too much money.
I'm not the one who quoted an education budget that was actually twice what the state spends. That was you. You didn't even know what we WERE spending until I told you (thanks to my education for teaching me how to research.) I know you don't like my ideas, but you don't seem that informed on this, so maybe you shouldn't be weighing in on the issue either.
Me, and others like me? You don't even know me, man. God, if I had MY way with the education system, the dollars would go so far they'd be dying to give me more.
parrothead8 (anonymous) says…
Liberty_One
The fact that Kansas ranks 49th (or is it "definitely in the bottom 10"?) in cost of living means it costs less to live here. That doesn't mean we shouldn't spend a healthy percentage of our state budget on education. The issue I had wasn't the number of dollars, but the percent of state budget we were spending. Someone above quoted a ridiculous figure of 60% of the state budget being spent on education, to which they provided no source, so I posted a link showing that the number was actually 31%. Some people don't like being called out for misinforming, so I'm the bad guy. Boo hoo.
I don't think we are overpaying for education. As I told bkgarner, the problem isn't how much we're spending, it's where the money is going. Teachers work their butts off for peanuts, and students spend as much time in school as they did 30 years ago.
You know what's changed? Parents and administrators. Parents are less involved, and administrators are more involved. If you figure out a way to switch those, I guarantee you the same dollars will go twice as far.
Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
Teachers work for peanuts? Hardly. According to teacherportal.com the average teacher's salary in Kansas is $41K--that's only for nine months of work. Pro-rated for the whole year that'd be $54K. Plus they get all kinds of benefits. If anything they're overpaid considering how poorly they teach. Public education is a racket but since it's for education and for children there will always be people who support every increase in spending.
Kookamooka (MJ Browne) says…
Hear Hear Ms Kelly! Well put. I'll never forget the day I got my measley tax refund and thought..."who do I give this back to so teachers don't have to lose their jobs?"
Kookamooka (MJ Browne) says…
I also distinctly remember sitting down to a 403-b meeting, at a school district, where the financial services rep made a big deal about PRE-Tax savings. "Keep the money out of old Uncle Sams hands!" was his argument. So I stood up and said, "You mean the same Uncle Sam who pays my salary?"