To the editor: Rep. Kasha Kelley, on her Facebook page discussing educational funding, starts by citing Kansas Association of School Boards legislative testimony last spring and a KASB research publication.

Evidently, Rep. Kelley felt compelled to keep her answer short as compared to telling the whole story.

She notes the KASB statement, “We have made it clear to our members and others state spending on schools is at a record high.” They then go on to say operating budgets “are shrinking” when inflation is factored in.

So the question she sidesteps is, “What good is a level of spending, record or not, when it doesn’t keep up with the costs of doing business?” Programs across the state have been and will continue to be cut under this model. Rep. Kelley is essentially saying schools, and their students, just need to make do with whatever the legislature appropriates regardless of whether it gets students to where they need to be or not.

The second “incomplete story” is her assertion that Kansas follows only Alabama in the percentage of the state budget spent on education. She is partially correct in that Kansas schools get a high percentage of their money from the state, not local sources. Rep. Kelley is essentially saying this is bad policy. Do you agree? Do you want to see local property taxes at the pre-1991 level, which was the whole purpose of the school funding shift.

But most importantly, she throws up this smoke screen to hide the fact Kansas is 27th — yes 27th — in revenue per pupil, almost 10 percent lower than the national average.

The data cited here can be found at http://tallmankasb.blogspot.com/2016/05/does-kansas-rank-third-in-funding-k-12.html. The sources for the different graphs are cited.

And lastly, the real numbers simply don’t support her assertion: “Student population growth and teacher hiring increases are dwarfed through the years by growth in managerial and administrative positions and salaries.” Core support staff positions, which includes superintendents, have increased by 341 since 1998. Direct educators have increased by over 7,000. (It should be noted principals are in this category.  Those positions have actually decreased by 53 in that time period.) See https://www.dropbox.com/s/qj76sxlcod84662/School%20Staffing%20in%20Kansas%202016-05.pdf?dl=0

The bottom line is that Rep. Kelley is very interested in shifting state resources to private schools that have little or no accountability to you, the taxpayer.  By making incorrect and diversionary statements, she hopes to undermine support for public schools.

Insist she tell the whole story.

Sincerely,

• Cindy Blunk, USD #501 teacher, and South Haven Schools Teacher’s Association representative
• Amy Futhey, USD #360, Caldwell Schools School Board President
• Gage Overall, USD #360, Caldwell Schools Government Relations Representative and school board member
• David Stinemetze, USD #470, teacher and past president of Arkansas City Teacher’s Association
• Mike Wilmoth, USD #353, social studies teacher

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