TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly committed to building a comprehensive early childhood education system in Kansas during a second term as governor that makes child care more affordable, expands preschool and invests in literacy programs.
She said reform would be streamlined under a secretary of early childhood education and would be paired with a plan to fully finance special education in public schools. Such adjustments would need to pass the Kansas Legislature, which has a two-thirds Republican majority.
“I’ve said time and time again that it’s my goal to leave office having built the most robust, comprehensive early childhood education system in the country,” Kelly said.
She is running for reelection against Republican nominee Derek Schmidt, who has served more than a decade as the state’s attorney general. With two weeks remaining in the general election, both candidates aimed Monday to reinforce campaign attacks and remind voters about what priorities they would pursue if elected the state’s chief executive on Nov. 8.
Schmidt released a lengthy statement that pointed to his first-term objectives on education and other issues. He addressed Kelly’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to state and national emergency declarations and decisions to transition Kansas public schools to an online format rather than in-class instruction.
He said the state’s governor “rushed to lock kids out of their classrooms” and that children and parents ought to be the first consideration when implementing education policy. His remarks, first released to Fox News, didn’t address how he would have dealt with the COVID-19 health risks to teachers, staff and administrators if mass gatherings in schools continued when the pandemic struck in 2020.
“Our current self-proclaimed education governor … has done more damage to more of our children than any other governor in state history,” Schmidt said.
The economy
Kelly’s outline of second-term priorities included investment in recruiting businesses and jobs to Kansas. She would emphasize expansion of apprenticeship programs, lowering of college costs and construction of more affordable housing.
She would commit the state to delivery of high-speed internet to every hospital, school, business or home that sought it.
“In just four years,” Kelly said, “we’ve put Kansas back on track, built an award-winning stable economy and broke records for new business investment. But there is more we must do.”
The Kelly administration claims to have attracted $14 billion in new business investment, including a $4 billion Panasonic manufacturing plant, and to creating or retaining 51,000 jobs.
Schmidt, who served in the Kansas Senate with Kelly, said an influx of federal funding associated with the pandemic had inflated state budgets approved by the GOP-led Legislature and the Democratic governor to unsustainable levels.
He referred to Kelly’s time as governor as a period of “big spending, big government.” On Sunday during a speech at a Kansas Capitol rally with members of the Kansas Patriots, Schmidt said socialists in Washington, D.C., had taken over instruments of political power. That’s a direction “that is simply not right for so many of us in Kansas,” Schmidt said.
The sparsely attended event in Topeka included remarks by Justin Spiehs, a Lawrence resident arrested at least twice for protesting COVID-19 policies. He directed his ire at “milquetoast” government officials, including Republicans, and lauded the repeated demand by one person in the crowd to “get rid of these traitors.”
