By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

TOPEKA, Kan. – A new chapter in Kansas’ long-running feud about K-12 funding will begin this week when the new School Efficiency Task Force holds its first official meeting Monday morning.

The 10-member task force was formed last month by Gov. Sam Brownback, and is charged with developing “guidelines on how to get more funding into classrooms where teachers teach and students learn,” according to a press release from the governor’s office.

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More than half of Kansas’ total spending is directed toward K-12 education. And while public school spending has increased by more than $1 billion since 2000, the number of Kansas elementary and secondary students has remained “almost the same,” the press release notes.

That’s raised obvious concerns about whether the large infusion of cash is being used on student instruction or if it being gobbled up by excessive administrative costs and teacher union-related expenses. Only 15 of Kansas’ 286 school districts use at least 65% of their state funding in the classroom or for instruction, the governor’s office notes.

The efficiency inspection isn’t sitting well with many school leaders, reports CJOnline.com. They argue that classroom instruction involves not only teachers and classroom aides, but also school nurses, librarians, counselors and social workers.

“I just encourage everybody to maybe spend a day in a public school and see all the services we provide,” said Topeka USD Superintendent Julie Ford.

It will be up to the task force to determine which of those service positions count toward a district’s 65 percent goal, CJOnline reports.

Teacher unions and some school administrators complain that more money is needed to improve student achievement.

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They won a big victory in 2005 when the Kansas Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “the state wasn’t meeting its Constitutional mandate to provide every child with a suitable education and ordered the Legislature to pour in $290 million to meet the recommendations of a cost study,” writes CJOnline.com.

Even though lawmakers complied with the court’s funding requirements during in a special legislative session a few months later, complaints of underfunded schools have not gone away.

If Brownback’s School Efficiency Task Force discovers that school districts are using much of their new funding for things that don’t impact overall student learning, it could cause a public relations problem for the education establishment.

State Board of Education member Walt Chappell has already gone on the record as saying that much of the $1 billion in new K-12 spending over the past several years has been spent on “non-instructional staff and sports complexes,” according to CJOnline.com.

If taxpayers discover that members of the education establishment – administrators, union members – been the primary beneficiaries of the extra spending, they may conclude that their government schools have a spending problem, not a funding problem.

Such a result would be an embarrassment to district leaders and the school employee unions, who may have a difficult time negotiating new contracts and passing new levies.