Schools for Fair Funding

Increase Needed to Achieve Adequacy

Posted on October 17, 2017 Updated on October 17, 2017

1. More funding is needed.

“And we clearly held in Gannon IV that the Kansas public education financing system was unconstitutional—when only 75% of all public school K-12 students were at grade level or above in the basic skills of both math and reading, and a significant group of harder-to- educate students were being left even further behind because of inadequate funding….We expressly noted that student proficiency levels were not only low but also appeared to have steadily regressed after the 2011- 2012 school year through 2015-2016….”

“Accordingly, we concluded more funding was needed to raise performance to at least reach the min
standards….”

2. How much more?
“S.B. 19 as outlier. Finally, we further note other calculations in the record of “new money needed” for fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2019 are considerably higher than the $292.5 million presented by the State.”

“At the high end is $1.7 billion as calculated by the plaintiffs by averaging the legislatively ordered cost studies performed by A & M in 2002 and the LPA in 2005-2006 and then adjusting for inflation.”

“And next highest is approximately $893 million as presented to the governor by the Kansas State Board of Education (SBE) in its budget for fiscal year 2018 (base of $4,604 for around $565 million) and fiscal year 2019 (base of $5,090 for approximately $328 million).” “The next highest is $819 million as calculated by plaintiffs using the panel’s fiscal year 2014 proposed base of $4,980 in fiscal year 2018 and continuing to adjust for inflation by increasing that base to $5,055 in fiscal year 2019.” “The fact these wide-ranging calculations have been presented does not alone resolve the issue of adequate funding. The magnitude of the difference between those calculations and S.B. 19’s, however, emphasizes the need for the State to truly demonstrate the validity of its
funding approach and the financial figures that approach produces.”

The reasonable conclusion is that at least $600M more is needed unless the state can “truly demonstrate” that some lesser amount will dramatically increase achievement to constitutional levels for the 25% of the students in Kansas who are failing.

Feel free to download and share with parents and community leaders: 991385 Increase needed for Adequacy