Wichita Eagle, Sept. 21
Expect wailing and gnashing of teeth if the Kansas Supreme Court orders the state to increase funding to K-12 public schools - perhaps by more than $500 million. But the blame for such a ruling should fall squarely on Gov. Sam Brownback and state lawmakers, who put cutting taxes before adequately funding schools.
The court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether the Legislature is meeting its constitutional obligation to “make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.” Based on past decisions, the state likely will lose.
The current lawsuit is essentially a repeat of a school-funding case the state lost more than a decade ago. In response to that ruling, the Legislature and then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius increased funding by nearly $300 million in 2005 and then promised in 2006 to phase in about $500 million in additional funding over three years.
But then the recession hit, and then-Gov. Mark Parkinson sharply cut state education funding during the third year of the increase, temporarily replacing it with federal stimulus funding.
Rather than restore the promised funding as the economy improved, Brownback cut taxes, which left the state short of money. He and the Legislature then revoked the school funding formula and replaced it with block grants that essentially froze school funding at the lowered level.
Though total education funding increased while Brownback has been in office, most of that increase has gone to the pension system or was ordered by the court to fix funding inequities. Net operating aid to schools increased only 0.67 percent during the past six years, according to the Kansas Association of School Boards.
Funding has not kept up with inflation during that time (8.9 percent) or accounted for increases in student enrollment. Nor has funding returned to the level promised in the previous court case.
As a result, it is difficult to fathom the Supreme Court ruling in the state’s favor.
A three-judge panel of the Shawnee County District Court already has ruled twice that the state is inadequately funding schools. Its cost estimate for restoring suitable funding is about $800 million.
Such an order would put the state in a fiscal bind. It has already burned through its ending balance reserves trying to cover the revenue lost from the tax cuts. And it continues to miss its monthly tax collection estimates.
But this is primarily a self-inflicted fiscal problem and is not the fault of the court or the state’s schoolchildren.
Brownback and GOP legislators knew the state was not honoring the school-funding agreement, yet they cut taxes anyway. If the court rules against the state again, they have only themselves to blame.
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Lawrence Journal-World, Sept. 25
Bernadette Gray-Little has made history during her tenure as chancellor of the University of Kansas.
Gray-Little, 71, became KU’s first black chancellor and first female chancellor when she took the job in 2009. Her announcement this week that she will step down next summer affords the KU community the opportunity to salute her for a job well done during a tenuous time.
“During the past seven years, we have made tremendous strides as a university and positioned KU for even greater achievements in the future. We have completed many critical initiatives, and many more are nearing completion,” Gray-Little wrote in a message to campus shared Thursday.
“Now is an ideal time for the University of Kansas to identify a new leader to guide the next chapter in the university’s history.”
Kansas has made strides under Gray-Little’s leadership, most notably “Far Above: The Campaign for Kansas,” the enormously successful, five-year $1.66 billion fundraising campaign completed last summer. Far Above, the largest higher education fundraising effort in Kansas history, will have a profound and sustained impact on the university for generations to come.
Gray-Little, it should be noted, also has provided steady leadership during one of the most challenging eras of public funding for higher education in the state’s history. Gray-Little took the helm in the midst of the Great Recession. During her tenure, higher education cuts from the Legislature have been the norm. Some of the state’s legislative leaders have been vocal critics of the university and have even relished shifting dollars away from KU. The university has moved forward in spite of such challenges under Gray-Little’s leadership.
Gray-Little’s leadership also has been key in addressing diversity on the KU campus. Her leadership of a town hall forum on race last fall was noteworthy, and led to the creation of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisory group. Ongoing reforms include efforts to provide more support for minority and international students and to recruit more diverse staff to the university and to enhance education through discussions on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Other accomplishments during Gray-Little’s tenure include creating new admission procedures, revamping financial aid by creating four-year renewable scholarships and expanding the Jayhawk Generations Scholarship, securing state funding for KU’s Foundation Distinguished Professor initiative, launching KU’s first universitywide curriculum, the KU Core, and overseeing the university’s expansion of its KU School of Medicine-Wichita program and the creation of the new School of Medicine at Salina.
By announcing her pending retirement so far in advance, Gray-Little has provided the Board of Regents with plenty of time to fill one of the most important leadership positions in the state, certainly the most important position in Kansas higher education. The board would do well to find someone who can lead KU as capably as Gray-Little has.
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Topeka Capital-Journal, Sept. 24
A recent study conducted by Truth in Accounting - a Chicago-based research organization - found that Kansas has the third-highest taxpayer burden in the Midwest. Among Great Plains states - Kansas, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming - our burden is the highest.
The burden is calculated by adding up a state’s unfunded liabilities and dividing by the number of taxpayers. In Kansas, each taxpayer would have to contribute $6,500 to cover all of the state’s debts and obligations, making it one of only two Great Plains states (the other is Montana) without a taxpayer surplus. This problem has been exacerbated by short-term budget “solutions” like delaying KPERS payments.
The authors of “The Financial State of the States” (the Truth in Accounting report) criticize governments that rely on short-term measures instead of attempting to address structural problems with their budgets: “States sink further into debt while keeping the budgets ’balanced’ through such tricks as borrowing money to balance the budget, delaying the payment of current bills until the next fiscal year, and inflating revenue assumptions.” None of these arguments are unfamiliar to Kansans - we’ve grown accustomed to the fiscal “tricks” employed by Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature.
Of the $1.3 trillion states owe in unfunded debt, $684 billion is the result of pension deferments. Not only will these withheld contributions eventually be due, but they will also have to be paid back with interest. When Moody’s affirmed its negative outlook on Kansas revenue bonds in August, it again cited the pension delay: “By continuing to balance its budget with unsustainable, nonrecurring resources, including pension underfunding, it is accumulating large and expensive long-term liabilities that it will be paying off for a long time.”
Truth in Accounting CEO Sheila Weinberg said she thinks Kansas should do more to address its unfunded liabilities: “We encourage Kansas and Montana government officials to increase transparency and decrease their taxpayer burdens like their neighboring states. Taxpayers in Kansas and Montana deserve a state in good financial health.” As we noted last week, instead of pledging to make the next pension payment as soon as possible, lawmakers are already predicting it will likely be postponed again.
Kansas’ taxpayer burden is the 27th worst in the country and all of our neighbors are in better shape. This is a status quo that needs to change immediately, and Kansans need to put pressure on Brownback and next year’s Legislature to find sustainable ways to fund the government. As the Truth in Accounting report explains, our state’s unfunded liabilities impose a “real cost that taxpayers will eventually have to pay, whether it’s in the form of higher interest rates, tax increases, or less government programs.”
The report continues: “Perhaps your state won’t fall into complete crisis in your lifetime, but your children or grandchildren will be on the hook.” It’s our responsibility to prevent this from happening.
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Salina Journal, Sept. 24
The high school dropout rate in the U.S. has been decreasing steadily over the past two decades - from 12.1 percent in 1990 to 6.5 percent in 2014. However, there are still hundreds of thousands of students quitting high school every year (the number was 750,000 in 2012), and dropout rates are disproportionately high for black, Hispanic and Native American students.
Students who drop out can expect to earn about $20,000 a year - $10,000 less than high school graduates and about $36,000 less than those who finish college. Moreover, low levels of educational attainment correspond with high levels of unemployment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of March 2015, the unemployment rate for people with bachelor’s degrees was 2.8 percent. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for those with high school diplomas was 5.4 percent and the rate for dropouts was 8 percent.
To prevent students from losing interest in school, teachers and administrators are increasingly relying upon career and technical education (CTE) programs. CTE programs can help students narrow their career interests, acquire marketable skills and direct their academic efforts toward tangible goals. This is why CTE was emphasized at a monthly meeting held by the Kansas State Board of Education on Tuesday - it’s a tool to equip students for life beyond high school.
The chairwoman of the Kansas State Department of Education’s CTE advisory committee, Lynette Yevak, explained the importance of focusing on students’ post-secondary academic and professional aspirations: “We know everyone needs something beyond high school to be successful. That’s the role of this committee. We are here to make sure that all students are getting the best education possible.”
The state recently implemented programs to teach students about careers in government and public administration while giving them a chance to earn credits toward four levels of certification: “participant,” ’’concentrator,” ’’completer” and “CTE scholar.”
Board members also would like to increase the number of internship and job-shadowing opportunities at Kansas schools, create unique, career-based educational plans for all middle- and high-school students by the end of next school year and provide career counseling instruction for teachers over the next few years.
Research conducted by the College & Career Academy Support Network at UC Berkeley indicates that students are more likely to stay in school if they have access to CTE programs. For example, the average dropout rate at career academies - which the Association for Career and Technical Education defines as “smaller learning communities with a focus on CTE” - was “about half the rate in the general population of California students, despite the fact that state-funded academies are required to recruit a majority of students who are economically or educationally disadvantaged.”
At the meeting on Tuesday, education commissioner Randy Watson noted the surging demand for post-secondary training: “That’s a dramatic change in the workforce in one generation. This is not our father or grandfather’s economy anymore.”
We commend our state officials for recognizing this and working to prepare Kansas students.
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