Calling the Kansas Legislature back to Topeka is a good step, but it’s only the first step in addressing a recent Kansas Supreme Court ruling on school finance.

It would be interesting to know whether anyone in Las Vegas is setting odds on how likely it is that the special session called by Gov. Sam Brownback will produce any significant action on school finance — let alone a solution that will cause the court to pull back on its threat to block an unconstitutional funding system for the state’s K-12 public schools.

When the Legislature ended its regular session on June 1, lawmakers were deeply divided about how to respond to the court ruling. At one end of the spectrum were legislators who wanted to revert to the state’s previous school finance formula. At the other end were those who wanted to defy the court ruling and were focusing their efforts on actions that would block the ruling and/or protect officials who refused to implement it.

What, if anything, has changed? Unless there has been a shift in attitudes, it’s difficult to see how the Legislature can make any progress.

In announcing the special session, Brownback made the curious statement that, “I will do everything I can to keep this session focused on education.” What else does the governor think it might focus on? Does he have reason to think that legislators will focus more on politics or on finding ways to punish the court or block its ruling? Or is that just his way of saying that he doesn’t want to see talks about school funding to include any discussion of state tax policy?

One way to make sure the focus remains on education would be for the governor to show some leadership by proposing his own plan for addressing the school finance dispute. Unlike state legislators, the governor isn’t facing a re-election campaign, so he’s in a strong position to come up with a proposal to break the current standoff on education funding. The most expedient way to address the court’s concern about the equity of school funding would be to revert to the previous finance formula. It would be difficult to come up with the estimated $38 million it would take to fund that formula, but does the governor have a better plan? If so, Kansas legislators and Kansas residents would like to hear it.

Each day of the special legislative session will cost Kansas taxpayers in the neighborhood of $40,000. Voters will have plenty of time between now and November to hear political rhetoric — for free. What they’d like to see now is some concrete action to make sure Kansas schools are able to open in the fall.