I support a quality public education from early childhood and beyond. I believe we should have accountability with adequate funding, while treating our teachers as the professionals that they are.
FUNDING:
I supported the equalized funding of public education this past session, but when, at the last minute, new provisions were added to the funding bill that had not been heard in committee or in either chamber, I, along with Senator Steve Abrams and almost a majority of Senators and Representatives, voted to send the bill back to conference committee. I was against allowing schools to hire uncertified teachers with no background checks, using public funds to allow corporations to provide scholarships for some students to attend private schools, eliminating a large amount of at-risk funding, eliminating some transportation funding for public schools and eliminating teacher due process. None of these actions guarantee a quality public education or were necessary to equalize funding.
I would bring funding for base state aid per pupil back to at least the level budgeted for 2008-2009 before the cuts. For more than fifteen years, schools have been promised that when the economy improves there will be increased State revenue for education. It is time to live up to that promise. School funding adjusted for inflation is below 1992 levels. Funding needs to be real and not just an accounting trick. Just because schools must now count KPERS contributions in their budgets and the State is now taking credit for the first 20 mills of local effort, doesn't mean that schools have new money for classrooms. That is like your employer suddenly counting your pension and health insurance as salary and claiming you got a big raise, when you get the same amount as before.
The Governor did not increase spending for education, he just increased what you count for education.
I would also support and adequately fund the Career and Technical Education plan adopted in 2012 . I have always supported the concept that we should be funding the attainment of industry certifications as well as degree completion.
QUALITY ASSESMENT:
I favor a return to more realistic and meaningful state assessments. Schools should be accountable, but "No Child Left Behind" places impossible conditions on schools while not adequately measuring student growth. I am willing to listen to the debate surrounding the new Common Core Standards, but I do not approve of the misinformation being disseminated by "Kansans for Liberty". Here are some things I believe people need to know when it comes to Common Core Standards:
They are not a federal mandate. "No Child Left Behind" is a federal mandate.
They were created by the Association of State Governors and the Council of State Chief Educational Officers, through a state compact.
States have chosen to adopt these standards because they are voluntary not manditory.
The idea behind the standards is to have states teach the same general concepts at the same grade level. For example, it is suggested that all states teach the concept of division at a specific grade level. Each state is free to decide what students should learn in regard to the concept and schools are free to decide how they will teach these concepts. This makes it much easier on children who are moved from school to school because of the business their parents are in or because they belong to military families.
States are free to set up their own testing standards.
Teachers actually have much more freedom than under "No Child Left Behind." In Kansas teachers decide how a concept is taught. Common core standards do not dictate how a concept will be taught, just what skills the child should know at what level.
As a teacher of 33 years, as the Ranking Minority Member on the House Education Committee, and as a person who knows a large number of teachers, I have heard from no teachers who are opposed to the standards. No teacher who is currenly teaching testified against the standards in Topeka.
The U.S. Military and the Business Roundtable, a group of Fortune 500 companies, support the standards.
Since all states have the ability set up their own programs, some states take a different approach than Kansas. So, comparing states like New York to Kansas is like comparing apples to oranges. Bad examples from other states frequently could not or do not happen in Kansas.