(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 22, 2016)
While we’re all waiting for that 9 a.m. Sept. 21 hearing before the Kansas Supreme Court on the K-12 school finance lawsuit—and the likely post-general election decision—there are some interesting issues floating around the Statehouse on the Gannon vs. Kansas case.
This portion of the near-eternal battle between Kansas school districts and the state is over just how much money the state needs to spend on K-12 education. The test? It’s the constitutional requirement that “the Legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.” That means making sure that all school districts have enough money to meet the educational standard set by the Legislature, and that the Legislature appropriates enough money to make sure they can.
That standard is the one Kansas lawmakers recently bought into when they adopted the so-called “Rose Standards” for accomplishment. Those standards? They mirror closely those adopted by Kentucky in 1989 after a school finance lawsuit. Yes, that sounds a little old, 1989, but they sound pretty good.
Those standards for computing whether schools are doing their job—and whether the state is providing enough money to allow schools to do that job—may be a little difficult to test. Among those standards: communication skills; knowledge of economic, social and political systems; understanding of governmental processes; knowledge of one’s own mental and physical wellness; grounding in the arts; and sufficient preparation in academic or vocational fields to enable students to choose a career and enter either higher education or the workplace.
Now, those all sound like the skills that we want Kansas schoolchildren to carry out of their high schools along with their diplomas. Doesn’t get much better than that, does it?
The state is just starting to test schoolchildren on those skills, and those tests are still being touched-up so that we can tell whether those students are meeting those goals, or some percentage of students are meeting those goals so we can believe we’ve given them a good start for the rest of their lives.
But, that hearing is going to be Sept. 21, and the whole issue gets a little intense because measuring those standards will be difficult. Figuring out what meeting those standards will cost in districts which range from just a few square miles to hundreds of square miles will be tricky. You gotta get the kids to the school building and make sure that they’re fed enough that they aren’t hungry during maybe that class where they are being “grounded in the arts.”
Oh, and while the court will be considering whether it can come up with a number that it will require the Legislature to meet on financing schools, chances are slim that it will be able to, say, subtract the cost of football or basketball or debate or such from the Legislature’s responsibility to provide equal opportunity for the state’s 278 school districts to offer those Rose standard teachings to the students.
It all gets very complicated, and while the school districts challenging the state’s level of funding for K-12 maintain that they don’t have enough state money to meet those standards, the state is maintaining that they have enough money if they’d just spend it on teaching those Rose standards in the classroom with less administrative costs.
What’s the right number for the court to order lawmakers to pony-up? Is that—you gotta love the word— “justiciable.” This spring’s decision by the court that the Legislature wasn’t equitably appropriating its share of Local Option Budgets and capital outlay funds was relative simple. It was a matter of long division that the Legislature probably should have known wasn’t right. But to make sure the Legislature fixed that relatively simple “equity” issue, the Supreme Court did have to threaten to close the schools if lawmakers didn’t fix it.
That equity issue was simple, and relatively cheap—about $42 million or so in additional state funding to fix. But putting a pricetag on adequacy so school districts have enough money to teach to those Rose standards—some estimates are $500 million or more in additional funds—yes, things get complicated quickly.
The Legislature is waiting to see what number the court comes up with…if it determines that it can determine just what adequacy is going to cost.