By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Rep. Kristey Williams and Sen. Beverly Gossage landed on the same page Wednesday in terms of altering the state’s public education system to encourage students to address academic deficiencies by retaking a grade.
“Are we doing these children a favor by just moving them through the grades?” said Gossage, a Eudora Republican serving on the Kansas Legislature’s school finance task force. “We need to take a look at that at each grade level.”
Williams, an Augusta Republican on the task force, said Kansas ought to direct third-graders to summer school programs if those children weren’t academically prepared to enter fourth grade.
In Kansas, however, students couldn’t be compelled to attend summer school. The state’s public schools could mandate a student repeat a grade, Williams said.
“We’re going to have to be a little bit stronger and not just give in on the first whim, the first cry,” Williams said.
Task force member Jim Porter, who serves on the Kansas State Board of Education and couldn’t read when he left third-grade, urged the task force to be wary of unintended consequences tied to holding students back.
“I think the research indicates … that holding kids back one year increases the probability of dropping out. Holding a kid back two years almost guarantees that they will be a dropout,” Porter said.
Task force chairwoman Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican in the Kansas Senate, said students who couldn’t read by third grade were likely to face significant scholarly and behavioral challenges during the remainder of their school years.
“Those are students, in my experience, that become behavior problems in the classroom,” Erickson said. “They’d rather be a behavior problem than look stupid in front of their peers.”
The task force scheduled a series of meetings this summer and fall with the goal of developing by January a blueprint for reforming how the Legislature allocated state tax dollars to K-12 public school districts.
The current education finance system has been found by the Kansas Supreme Court to comply with the state Constitution, but many lawmakers bristle at the cost of public schools and the ability of the state to suitably educate students.
Rep. Susan Estes, a Wichita Republican whose spouse is U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, said the objective should be a formula that guaranteed accountability for spending and improved educational opportunities for students. She said her key priorities were to enhance teacher salaries and concentrate on K-3 student learning.
“It really does come down to being able to redirect money,” she said. “We are trying to put together a 1,000-piece puzzle.”
Democrat Sen. Pat Pettey, a Kansas City, Kansas, member of the task force, said Kansas ought to expand its commitment to preparing 3- and 4-year-old children for public school. She said 90% of brain development occurred before age 5, but Kansas assisted only 47% of families with pre-K programs.
Kansas provided support to at-risk preschoolers for a half-day program despite working parents’ need for a full day of care, said task force member Melissa Rooker, executive director of the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.
“I would love to see us move from basically grant funding preschool offerings in Kansas to something more stable,” she said.
Rep. Nikki McDonald, an Olathe Democrat on the task force, said lawmakers should resist the temptation to micromanage school districts under the oversight of locally elected school boards and the elected state Board of Education.
The key measure of the state’s finance formula should be whether students sufficiently broadened their ability to process information, said Rep. Scott Hill, a task force member and Abilene Republican.
He said reading ability was a leading determinant of whether people were successful people were in life.
“Change for the sake of change is worse than no change,” he said. “Sometimes I think we want to not provide for the garden, but mow the weeds.”
