Signed by Governor Laura Kelly

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to adopt a conference report that appropriates an additional $90 million for K through 12 public education.

Highlights:

• Requires the state Department of Education to prepare and submit a performance accountability report and a longitudinal achievement report for all students enrolled in public schools in the state, each school district, and each school operated by a school district, to the governor to the legislature (Sec. 1)

• Requires each performance accountability report to be single-paged, and contain information required by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Every Student Succeeds Act, college and career readiness metrics developed by the state Board of Education (Sec. 1).

• Requires each longitudinal achievement report to provide the achievement rates on the state assessments for English, language arts, math, and science (Sec. 1).

• Requires the state Board of Education to pay for all ACT college entrance exams and 3 ACT workkeys assessments that are required to earn a national career readiness certificate to each student enrolled in grades 11 and 12, and the pre-ACT college entrance exam to each student enrolled in grade 9 (Sec. 3).

• If the enrollment in a school district in the prior school year has decreased from enrollment in the second previous year, the enrollment of the school district in the current school year means the sum of (Sec. 13).

• Defines “base aid for student excellence” or “BASE aid” as an amount appropriated by the legislature for a fiscal year, and the amounts are as follow (Sec. 13):

• $4,165 for the school year 2019-2020’

• $4,439 for the school year 2020-2021;

• $4,576 for the school year 2021-2022;

• $4,713 for the school year 2022-2023; and

• For the school year 2023-2024 and each school year after, the BASE aid will be the BASE aid amount for the immediate preceding school year plus an amount equal to the average percentage increase in the consumer price index for all urban consumers in the midwest region, as published by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, during the 3 immediately prior school years.

• Requires the state Board of Education to determine full-time enrollment of bilingual education programs, and to determine the number of students enrolled in bilingual education programs (Sec. 14).

• Requires the legislative post audit committee to conduct a performance audit of bilingual education funding, and should be conducted and submitted to the legislature on or before January 15, 2022 (Sec 17).

• Requires the legislative post audit committee to conduct a performance audit of the cash balances of each school district and should evaluate the annual accumulations of cash balances for the previous 10 years, annual expenditures, and how school districts are spending such money (Sec. 17).

• Authorizes the use of tax credits for educational scholarships for that do not exceed $8,000 per school year per student, for private schools that comply with requirements of the program (Sec. 10).

• Establishes a legislative task force dedicated to dyslexia, and  will make recommendations to the governor, legislature, and state Board of Education on matters concerning the use of evidence-based practices for students with dyslexia (Sec. 23).

• Requires the dyslexia task force to submit an annual report, beginning January 30, 2019, that includes recommendations regarding evidence-based practices and activities to address dyslexia, identification, and screening and evaluation assessments (Sec. 23).

Full Bill Text