NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Mark Tallman with the Kansas Association of School Boards notes that Kansas kids are doing better educationally than might be assumed from the amount of funding they receive.
"Kansas continues to spend less per pupil than most states," Tallman said. "We rank about 28th in the country. We spend about 10% less per pupil from all sources. However, we continue to have, across an average of a number of educational outcomes, pretty strong educational results. Probably for the last five or six years, we've used a measure tracking things like national test scores, ACT, SAT, graduation rates. The most recent update we have is that Kansas is 13th in the country."
Kansas is competitive with its neighbor states.
"We're about in the middle point of the region, a little bit higher," Tallman said. "We've consistently been around the same as the region. What we've noticed, however, is that going back about 10 years, every state except Oklahoma has increased its funding per pupil more than Kansas."
Kansas provides more state funding than the U.S. average, but its school districts receive much less local and federal aid, so total funding is lower. This is a problem that the legislature might not be as able to easily solve, as there is a disparity in property value that already is equalized as part of the school finance formula.
"Lower wealth districts, districts with less property wealth, a much higher share of their budget will come from the state," Tallman said. "Our system now really does say that even property wealthy districts still get a lot of money from the state. Those districts may also be, if you kind of break it down by county, we're also talking about the share of income tax that goes to education, the share of sales tax. Property taxes, of course, are only a portion of school funding and in Kansas, a smaller portion than more states. We rely more heavily on state sales and income tax to fund education than some states do."
Per-pupil funding affects how states can compete based on salaries, class size, and the range of academic and student support programs.
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