Lori Taylor, a professor and researcher at Texas A&M University, and Jason Willis of the nonprofit education consulting firm WestEd, review notes before briefing Kansas lawmakers Feb. 23, 2018, on the study they are performing to determine how much it will cost to comply with a Kansas Supreme Court mandate to provide adequate funding fo Kansas public schools.

Topeka ? The state of Kansas may need to overhaul major parts of its school funding formula to make sure all students have access to an adequate education, but exactly how much additional money that will take, if any, remains unclear.

That was the message two consultants who have been hired by the Legislature to conduct a new cost analysis of the Kansas public education system gave to lawmakers Friday.

Lori Taylor, a professor and researcher at Texas A & M University, and Jason Willis, a consultant with the nonprofit firm WestEd based in San Francisco, told lawmakers that the cost for schools to achieve certain educational outcomes varies widely from one district to another and even from one student to another, based on a host of variables, some of which are not fully accounted for in the state’s current funding formula.

“The research literature has been clear, and there’s near consensus, that it costs more to serve student populations with higher needs, such as economically disadvantaged students, English language learners and students with disabilities,” Willis told a joint meeting of the House and Senate Education committees.

“The caveat here,” he added, “is that there is no consensus as to how much more is necessary for these populations to achieve desired outcomes.”

Lori Taylor, a professor and researcher at Texas A&M University, and Jason Willis of the nonprofit education consulting firm WestEd, review notes before briefing Kansas lawmakers Feb. 23, 2018, on the study they are performing to determine how much it will cost to comply with a Kansas Supreme Court mandate to provide adequate funding fo Kansas public schools.

The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled in the ongoing school finance lawsuit that in order for funding to be considered adequate it must be “reasonably calculated” to enable all students to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to get a productive job and be active participants in their communities — outcomes known as the “Rose standards.”

But the cost of achieving those outcomes varies greatly among districts, depending on factors such as the size of the district, the cost of living in a particular area and, in some cases, how much it costs to entice teachers to move to a particular area, especially if its far removed from an urban center.

And even among students with special needs, Willis said, there is great variation from one student to another.

He noted that living below the poverty line can be more difficult in areas where housing costs are higher. He also said the cost of educating a student with disabilities can vary depending on how severe that disability is. And the cost of teaching English language learners can be greater in high school than in kindergarten.

The current Kansas school funding formula is based on a base per-pupil aid amount for each district. But that amount is then adjusted with various “weightings” to reflect the additional costs associated with teaching students with certain challenges.

An economically disadvantaged student, for example, counts as 1.484 students for funding purposes under the state’s current formula, while a student from a non-English speaking family can be counted for as much as 1.395 students, depending on how many hours per week the student needs additional English instruction.

But Taylor and Willis suggested the formula may need to be more nuanced to reflect the varying costs that exist among different districts and within various subgroups of students.

Taylor said the analysis they are performing will look only at the cost of educating students. It will not examine a host of other costs associated with education such as bus services, food services, debt service or adult education.

“The reasoning is quite simple,” she said. “You’re trying to estimate the relationship between spending and academic outcomes, and transportation services is a very different product than academic outcomes. It’s about bringing students to the building, to the location where they can learn.”

That troubled Rep. Jim Karleskint, R-Tonganoxie, a former school superintendent and adjunct professor who taught school finance.

“There’s a lot of federally mandated things that aren’t taken into consideration,” he said during an interview after the presentation. “They’re not taking into consideration transportation, food costs. Those are all things that school districts have to do, and they’re not taking those into consideration.”

Taylor herself has been the subject of controversy because of testimony she once gave in a Texas school finance lawsuit where a trial court found her cost estimates “simply not credible.”

Her testimony in that case was criticized in the trial court’s decision, which said she overemphasized the higher costs associated with small school districts that don’t have the same economies of scale as larger districts and that she understated the additional costs associated with teaching in urban areas.

But Taylor tried to pre-empt discussion of that during her presentation by reviewing and defending the research she did to produce those estimates, adding, “I think that I am a very good choice to be the expert for this particular project.”

“I am very motivated to get to the understanding of what’s going on in Kansas in the relationship between student outcomes, school resources, student needs, economies of scale and all the other factors that feed into a proper understanding of the cost of education for the state of Kansas,” she said.

Friday’s presentation was intended to describe the methods Taylor and Willis are using in their analysis. They have not yet made any recommendations for a new funding formula.

Their final report is due to the Legislature on March 15. That will give lawmakers barely three weeks to write a new formula based on the report and send it to Gov. Jeff Colyer.

The Legislature is scheduled to adjourn the regular part of the 2018 session on April 6, and they will not return for the wrap-up session until April 26.

The Supreme Court has given the state a deadline of April 30 to submit briefs explaining what the Legislature has done to comply with its order to craft a formula that will pass constitutional muster.

Rep. Melissa Rooker, R-Fairway, who was instrumental in drafting the formula lawmakers passed last year, said lawmakers will have no choice but to work quickly once they receive the final report.

“There really is no way for us to adjourn April 6 without having something in the hands of the attorney general,” she said after the presentation.