NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Mark Tallman with the Kansas Association of School Boards reminds us that the school finance situation is finally stabilized in Kansas.
"The sixth year of the Gannon phase in is the first year of what might be called presumed constitutionality," Tallman said. "Anything can be challenged, but at this point, I think the court would say to the legislature, you did what you said you were going to do and what we said had to be done to get back to those standards that were really agreed upon over a decade ago."
There's a whole graduating class of students that haven't had consitutional funding yet. For those who started as kindergarteners in 2010, they really haven't had a fully funded non phase-in year. They are seniors.
"It's important to remember, those assumptions were based on state education goals and legislatively commissioned studies on what it would take to reach those goals and then inflationary adjustments since that time."
Test scores are going down, as well, though there are outside factors that could contribute to that.
"We basically had flat or slightly declining test scores from 2015 through 2019, which was the year before COVID," Tallman said. "We didn't test in 2020. Last year, tests were down pretty much across the board, public and private schools, both, which many people attribute to the loss of learning and other factors associated with COVID."
Legislators are going to ask, now that the money is there, why test scores aren't coming back up. It remains to be seen how much of a political football that becomes next year, as any inflation adjustment would have to be significant, and there will be a new crop of legislators taking a look at the situation.