“Get what you can, and get out,” was the reader’s advice. “Kansas is becoming the symbol of what’s wrong with our society.”
The comment was one of hundreds that ran alongside a story about the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling on school finance that appeared in Saturday’s New York Times.
“I received an OK high school education in a small Kansas town, an exciting education at KU, and have done well. I doubt I could do the same under the administration of these folks,” the contributor wrote.
Oh my, do we have a PR problem.
If for no other reason than repairing Kansas’ woeful image, the state Legislature should throw bucket loads of money at education.
Forget the state’s economic development efforts, its tourism department or any other incentives to lure outsiders our way. All are for naught as long as the Legislature is seen as an enemy to education.
This is what the outside world sees:
• Kansas cut taxes on the back of education.
• Kansas legislators believe they are above the law when they threaten to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling.
• Kansas is on track to creating a generation of “underperforming” kids.
KANSAS legislators have said goodbye to $3.9 billion over the next six years through the elimination of state personal income taxes. That’s 12.8 percent of our budget. Gov. Sam Brownback says the cuts are part of his “experiment” for an “American renaissance” right here in Kansas.
Legislators are taking umbrage at the high court’s insistence that it, not they, has the responsibility to interpret and enforce the state constitution’s mandate that children deserve equal access to education. Up until now, Kansas has relied on this balance of power to prevent one branch of government from getting a swollen head. For years, Kansans have stood proud as the state that issued the definitive ruling against racial discrimination in schools with the 1954 ruling in “Brown vs. Board of Education.” Friday’s ruling on the state’s obligation to provide an adequate education for all children is every bit as important as that ruling of 60 years ago.
It takes adequate resources to educate children. Either we are going to do it, or not. If not, we are sending a message our children are not worth the investment because they are not critical to our future.
If a business, a church, a family, adopted that same philosophy — all would go bankrupt — morally and financially.
