Oooh, Raise Taxes, how scary. /s
The Senate previously approved a plan to phase in a $274 million funding increase over five years.
Five years. I believe I heard that KS, similar to OK schools, operate on a four day school week. How is it possible to have an educated workforce when these kids canât hope to compete with kids who are getting a stronger education?
Short version: State Supreme Court mandated a change (increase) and after much debate running down to the very end of the session, The Kansas legislature (again) rejects the more Brownbackism regarding taxes and schools.
Ding Dong the witch is (sorta) dead!
Reminder of the dangers of Supply side tax plans which are about to visit us all across the country due to Trumps âTax Cutsâ and budget.
http://prospect.org/article/kansas-sam-brownback-and-trickle-down-implosion-0
Well one senator railed on for more than 10 minutes that the problem isnât funding (that the GOP cut dramatically) it is due to the USSC ruling removing prayer from schools.
Of course, $533 million of that is for new textbooks denying climate change and evolution, and flat earth globes for the classrooms.
It is Kansas after all.
Who knew that if you want something of quality, you have to pay for it!
Most of the school districts in KS and OK that are going on 4 day weeks are rural, which makes me wonder a couple of things.
Do rural districts have good internet?
And how does DeVos school choice work in rural America?
It isnât possible. These kids wonât be able to compete.
But hey, their parents never had to deal with a state tax increase, so allâs well!
A conservative Kansas lawmaker is suggesting that problems facing public schools arenât a matter of money but a shift away from God in recent decadesâŚthat problems with society and public education stem from U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the early 1960s declaring school-sponsored prayer and Bible reading unconstitutional.
Rep. Randy Garber concluded his speech by telling his colleagues: âIf we donât fix society, we wonât fix our schools.â
He added, âI say the way to fix our schools is to put prayer and the Bible back and give it a chance.â
Oh, Randy. Providing an adequate public education is required by the Kansas State Constitution. And that takes money which is raised by taxes and sensible budgets. The problem with funding education in Kansas started when you decided to cut taxes and cut school funding. Schools cost money to build, repair, heat, make safe. Up-to-date books, computers, and learning resources and supplies cost money. Teachers, administrators, social workers, custodians, bus drivers, coaches cost money. And those costs go up over time.
Youâre getting school funding confused with community and school climate and culture. But, there are ways to address climate, culture, character, responsibility and behavior in schools without bibles or the Koran or other religious history and guide books. Those are for church and the mosque and the synagogue. But, thereâs nothing to prevent you from trying to pray the debt away. Have at it. You just canât require it at a public school.
The Senate approved a bill early Sunday to phase in a $534 million increase in education funding over five years.
Meanwhile, in another part of Kansas, "Advocacy groups tied to conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch pledged to spend nearly $400 million this year on initiatives tied to the midterm election cycle.
The Kochs could fund the education funding increase themselves, save their fellow Kansans from their fear of a tax increase, and still have $300 million left to fuck over the rest of the country. The senator who wants to put his Bible back in the schools should have a talk with the Kochs about âwhatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.â
Some of the districts that are going to 4 day weeks are thinking of the move as a way to recruit teachers. I guess the teachers can then supplement their incomes as substitutes in 5 day districts.
Nope. 5 days. Just like everyone else in the real world. Oklahoma is alone in that regard.
âLetâs be like the Taliban, but Christian,â he added.
They donât want an educated workforce. They donât want educated people. Critical thinking is not a thing that is taught there, certainly not where I went to school in KS. And somebody in the legislature need to publicly excoriate the âbring back the bible and prayerâ idiot for complete lack of problem solving ability.
Trickle-Down doesnât work. Not for Kansas, not for Republicans in Washington.
Whatâs the Matter with Kansas is a great read (Frank, 2004) as a study of how a state with a history of being fiercely progressive turned over time and why.
Itâs real value is an an effort to understand the rise of the new right and the far right, particularly how the leaders of the right keep issues and fights in front of people knowing full well that finding solutions is not the goal of the wealthy and elected right - just keeping the fight going.
There is critical examination of this thesis, but we have watched this play out in Kansas, and other âfly overâ states, and now on the national scene.
Kansas can thank the likes of Sam Brownback and his ilk for the desperate situation they are in now. And, the price they will pay is far more than $534m to get back to some level of normal.
The idea of âdrowning governmentâ in the bathtub does nothing but kill the social compact we took so long to build.
Education is critically important to securing our society.
Even my younger sister who lives in Kansas is realizing she has been had by these crooks.
Kansas is an excellent laboratory for how current conservative policies donât work.
RESIST -Harder!
The very first public building built in every single town west of the Mississippi was the school. The school had a dual purpose: 1) to teach children problem solving skills so that the children would become more advanced than their parents, and 2) to teach children to be able to read the Bible. Immigrant communities settling the western States in the 19th Century were all Christian, and these purposes were the very reason for their being American (as opposed to where they came from). This purpose of the public school, interestingly enough, was not exercised in southern states. This goes a long, long way toward understanding the cultural differences between the north, and the south.However, even in the northern schools, the Bible was not used as curriculum. The Bible was taught by the parents at home, and in Sunday School.
It is fascinating to realize that immigrants understand what it means to be an American far, far better than Republicans.
âSenate GOP leaders backed a plan to phase in a $274 million increase. They said the bigger plan will eventually force a tax increase.â
This endless loop the Republicans have devised of cutting taxes, then saying we donât have enough money and cutting services, the saying if we have a surplus letâs cut taxes, then saying we have to cut services, etc., is the shell game to end all shell games. And the American public still canât find the pea.
This bit from the AP article is worth a comment:
Senators were having a lengthy debate over another bill rewriting income tax laws to head off the possibility that changes in federal tax laws last year might cause some Kansas residents to pay more state taxes.
The change would be in allowing people to itemize deductions on state taxes, which would result in a considerable reduction in state revenuesâenough, in fact, to put into jeopardy the increase for school funding. Thatâs why the debate was âlengthy.â
More on all of this here, in case anyoneâs interested: http://amp.kansas.com/latest-news/article208263239.html