When you are running for governor, you tend to establish a signature issue. In Kansas, Democratic Laura Kelly has begun her campaign for better schools and a functional state Government. Greg Orman has made his issue selling books left over in a warehouse somewhere. And Kris Kobach has made his big issue, drumroll please: defunding Kansas schools.
No, that isn’t a joke, he’s literally said it. Out loud.
Brad Cooper, at the always worthwhile Sunflower State Journal, lays it out from Kobach’s appearance before the Republican state primary winners.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Kris Kobach said Thursday he would like to see the Kansas Legislature adopt a constitutional amendment limiting the courts’ involvement in school finance cases as early as his first year as governor.
“My hope would be that we would get it done this first session and get it on the ballot very quickly,” said Kobach, adding it could go to voters as early as the fall of 2019.
A constitutional amendment is expected to be a challenge since it takes support from two-thirds of the Legislature and needs to be ratified by votes. It’s unclear still how this year’s election might affect support for an amendment in the Legislature.
Kobach has made his signature issue, the first issue he will take on, to remove from the Kansas Constitution the role the courts play in establishing that schools be adequately and equitably funded. Checks and balances? Not for Mr. Kobach!
The constitutional amendment comes up frequently in the state house, often promoted by Dave Trabert, representative of KPI, an entity which won’t disclose its donor base, but is widely believed to be the conservative mouthpiece of AfP/Kochs and others.
Promoted in the state house as a way to stop the Kansas Supreme Court (from preventing the gutting of education), the decision to pass a constitutional amendment would immediately put Kansas back to pre-1992 funding methods. In other words: if you are in Johnson, Shawnee, Douglas, and Sedgwick county, things will be great, you’ll keep more of your local funds. If you live elsewhere, you are going to face real concerns as to whether or not your school survives.
While Trabert is certainly a fan of this now — at one point in time, he recognized the problem, with this as a solution:
Oh, what that Republican money will do to your values, right Dave?
The Kansas City Star had this thought on the proposal:
That's right. These legislators want to upend the historic doctrine of the separation of powers. They'd do it by enshrining into the state constitution a prohibition barring the courts from reviewing the school spending approved by the Legislature. The funding of schools, according to one proposed amendment last session, would be "exclusively a legislative power."
So whatever the Legislature comes up with for the biggest single appropriation in the state budget would stand, no questions asked.
The arrogance of such a proposal is a wonder to behold. You can only surmise that within a year or two of such an idea passing that lawmakers would be back with an amendment demanding exclusive control over social service spending or prisons. Why stop at schools?
All this makes as much sense as an amendment declaring that the governor, and the governor alone, could determine highway spending.
It's ludicrous on its face. And, hey, while they're at it, the Legislature might consider a law halting public school teachers from grading the assignments given to their students. Let's put that in the hands of parents who pay for education through the taxes they pay. Parents are the only ones who can judge their kids' progress, right?
Kobach, however, may find that last sentence appealing — as a parent who home schools, he has promoted almost exactly that idea.
From the Wichita Eagle:
Kris Kobach thinks fewer dollars should be spent on public education in Kansas. What’s more, he thinks some of that smaller amount should sometimes be spent at private schools.
That’s not the way it should work. But if he’s elected governor, it may be.
Kobach, secretary of state and a gubernatorial candidate, spoke about a school-grading plan last week to the Pachyderm Club, a Wichita Republican group. If elected, he said he’d implement a plan where public schools would be graded based on standardized test scores. Employees at a school that raises its grade by a letter year-to-year would receive raises or bonuses.
Students at schools receiving an F would get a voucher and funding to go “wherever they want to go,” Kobach said, including private schools, religious schools or home schooling.
Kobach’s big, bold idea: destroy public schools. Well, at least he isn’t even trying to disguise it.