Kansas public schools have made progress in helping students at all achievement levels improve assessment scores in recent years, a Kansas Association of School Boards lobbyist said Monday during a Lawrence forum.

“The concern is that’s going to be very difficult and very costly and extremely difficult to do if we continue to face budget cuts at the state level,” said Mark Tallman, the KASB’s assistant executive director for advocacy.

Tallman gave a one-hour public presentation about state education issues at Lawrence school district headquarters, 110 McDonald Drive. Several Lawrence school board members and state legislative candidates attended.

Education funding has been a hot topic in the state for the past decade as a 2004 Kansas Supreme Court decision declared the state’s school finance formula unconstitutional and mandated increased funding, especially for at-risk students.

The national recession caused revenue to dry up, and state officials cut nearly $1 billion from the budget, forcing cuts to schools and other state services.

The state still faced another $500 million shortfall this year, but a bipartisan coalition in the Legislature passed some budget maneuvers and voted for a state sales tax increase to keep school districts from having to cut deeper.

Much of Tallman’s presentation was aimed at critics who suggest Kansas school districts operate inefficiently. He presented slides that said Kansas spent less per pupil than all the other states ranked in the top 10 on six education achievement measures.

He also said overall proficiency growth among students either equaled or exceeded the real increase in funding.

Frank Harwood, the Lawrence district’s chief operations officer, said Kansas districts have shown improvement when expected to do more in recent years. He cited the state’s improvements on average composite ACT test scores, growing from 21.6 in 2000 to 21.9 in 2009, which outpaced growth in the region among Big 12-area states and the national average.

“The average number of students taking the ACT has gone up,” Harwood said. “More and more students are taking it and they’re doing better. We are focusing on students that are getting prepared to go to college.”

The KASB is conducting similar forums across the state this summer.