So can they do a thing like no child left behind where if the legislature fails to obey the state constitution for three years in a row, the court can declare it “failing” and replace everyone?
“Still, we remain dedicated to Republican government in this state,” one Kansan said. “To own the libs.”
Kansas clearly wasn’t thinking about “free-market” orthodoxy when they drafted their constitution. Putting educational provisions in the state’s founding document is really not good if you want to deregulate/defund public schools. Clearly, Kansans are not true free-marketers. After all, Free-Market Capitalism cannot fail. It can only be failed.
You want to attract rural Americans, you do it by helping them improve their schools. Since Brown v. Board we have all assumed that white schools are adequate and black schools are inadequate. I have news for a lot of you, but in much of rural America there is equality in education. It sucks. In Missouri and other states rural school districts are talking about going to a 4 day school week. They have all kinds of happy justifications for the move, but make no mistake they just don’t have the money to pay teachers for a full work week. We just aren’t turning out educated kids, white, black or brown. The reason is in a lot of states, mostly red states, rural schools aren’t being funded. Instead money needed for education is being returned to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts.
That is what the Kansas Supreme Court is fighting. The Kansas State Constitution says all kids have a constitutional right an adequate education. The Brownback tax cuts deprived Kansas students of their right to an adequate education. Show rural voters the Democratic party cares about education and the Democratic party will be rewarded.
Bear with me. California, along with pretty much every state in the union, has a State Constitutional requirement to pass a balanced budget each year by June 15th. Problem though, there was no or else clause attached to that, so it never happened. Eventually, voters got fed up. Proposition 25, the On-Time Budget Act of 2010, amends the State Constitution to include an or else clause. Every day after June15th that the Legislature fails to pass a balanced budget, state legislators do not get paid – no salary and no reimbursement for expenses. California now has a state surplus. Kansas needs an or else clause in their State Constitution.
I grew up in a small rural Kansas town – there were between 50 and 60 students in the high school graduating classes. We had a new school building, built in 1965, mostly good and some very good teachers, and there wasn’t any discussion of whether education was a good thing or not, everyone assumed it was. The jocks and cheerleaders got most of the attention, as always and everywhere, but there was a place for nerds like me and academic achievement was generally appreciated by the town residents. I can’t imagine how Kansas got to their current situation in education. It is all so unnecessary, which makes it even more depressing. It is going to take decades to turn this around, if it is ever done at all. I look at the educational opportunities that I had and I am convinced I would never have been able to achieve the same things if I was growing up now.
People generally won’t argue if you tell them you want to lower their taxes. But when it’s done right, you can make people understand, by showing them the comparative starting salaries and so forth, that rural school districts with rock-bottom taxes simply can’t afford to hire and retain talented teachers. You explain to them that their kids suffer, their opportunities are limited because of that, and you may get people listening. I’ve seen it done. It flies in the face of decades of propaganda, but it’s their kids you’re talking about.
“Meh,” the court ruled. “We know the state’s broke. And like all Kansans we know that Sam’s economic miracle will take place, with any luck, sooner rather than later. At that time, we expect the state to fund schools as mandated. Unless they can’t. So be it.”
And so it goes.
I’m not hating on the balanced budget idea but there is this thing where Republicans don’t do math, accounting, and tell the truth about their numbers. We’ve seen it in the Tax Cut, Cut, Cut plan, and here in Missouri a similar thing with more tax cuts being passed on top of previous tax cuts. There needs to be truth in accounting for these spending and tax cutting bills put forth.
Brownback was the protoTrump.
Before trump’s effect is over, expect the whole nation to suffer the same pattern of failure that led Kansas to this sorry state of affairs.
Well, we had that in California too. Prop 25 was part of the solution, not part of the problem. Thing with the school budget in Kansas is that there’s no incentive to meet the State Constitutional requirement. The only incentives Legislators have is to patronize their donors and propagandize their constituents. That incentive structure needs to change for things to improve.
Will the last rational person to leave Kansas please blow out the kerosene lamp, and close the barn doors?
According to the interview Jerry Brown gave to 60 Minutes last night, a $6 billion surplus
That means more tax cuts are needed.
Too late.
Yep. Voting out the GOP obstructionists did wonders for California’s finances.
Ah, who wants educated children anyhow? Ignorant people vote against their own self interest, just like the GOP wants. Sickening, but very happy to see the courts have not yet been polluted with Federalist Society idiots. Who could imagine that cutting taxes would lead to budget deficits! Sam Brownback told me otherwise and I have no reason to disbelieve him.
The best way forward for Republicans is an un-educated public… Kansas is attempting to show the way.
It’s not so much that the kids of Kansas aren’t learning, it that their parents and “leaders” never did.