In an important opinion piece in the New York Times, David Sciarra and Wade Henderson explain how a court decision in Kansas might have national reverberations.
In 2009, Kansas, like many other states, slashed school funding while approving tax breaks that benefited mostly upper-income Kansans. Spending on education dropped far below 2008 levels, leading to larger classes, layoffs of teachers and other staff, and cuts to essential services. At the same time, the legislature enacted higher standards. This is a typical “reform” pattern: higher standards accompanied by funding cuts.
Parents filed a lawsuit against the cuts and won last year. But Governor Samuel Brownback is appealing the decision, and the outcome of the court case could affect similar situations in other states.
Sciarra and Henderson write:
KANSAS, like every state, explicitly guarantees a free public education in its Constitution, affirming America’s founding belief that only an educated citizenry can preserve democracy and safeguard individual liberty and freedom.
And yet in recent years Kansas has become the epicenter of a new battle over the states’ obligation to adequately fund public education. Even though the state Constitution requires that it make “suitable provision” for financing public education, Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-led Legislature have made draconian cuts in school spending, leading to a lawsuit that now sits before the state Supreme Court.
The outcome of that decision could resonate nationwide. Forty-five states have had lawsuits challenging the failure of governors and legislators to provide essential resources for a constitutional education. Litigation is pending against 11 states that allegedly provide inadequate and unfair school funding, including New York, Florida, Texas and California.
Many of these lawsuits successfully forced elected officials to increase school funding overall and to deliver more resources to poor students and those with special needs. If the Kansas Supreme Court rules otherwise, students in those states may begin to see the tide of education cuts return.
If the Court sides with the parents, legislators are threatening to amend the state constitution to remove the term “suitable,” so that there are no constraints on their ability to cut the budget for education.
And that is how Kansas plans to reform its schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, in Washington State, our Supreme Court, in early 2012, said that our state legislature had NOT been fully funding education and ordered them to come up with a plan. Some money has flowed since then but again, the Court told the legislature to come up with a timeline.
We are tired of being in the bottom third for funding and I believe the voters will demand this money come to our schools. That said, there is still a push for dumb ed reform (like grading schools A-F).
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When will the Emporia Gazette publish a new version of William Allen White’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Very sad and astonishing.
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I predict that this pattern will continue in some states whose politics are dominated by tea party ideas. The basic idea is to starve government to death, but with eduacation, there is the additional catalyst of being able to increase standards to impossible levels, then call them “failing” to build political momentum for closing the schools entirely.
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It’s not just Tea Party states. “Starving the beast” is happening in New York, Illinois, California, New Jersey, Wisconsin, etc. – all pretty blue states.
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The short funding is only part of the story in KA. Here’s a post by Bill Black that describes the chilling effect of the KA legislator’s on college professors: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/theyre-back-poltergeists-kansas-senate-renew-attack-education.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
Kansas is an indication of what would happen if the Koch-ALEC agenda was acted out on a national level, as very nearly happened in the 2012 election: we’d have draconian cuts to social services and education, generous tax breaks for businesses, and a constant search for professors and teachers whose views do not parallel those of the group in power.
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Interestingly, most of these “starve the beast” people have no interest in doing so when that beast is the department of “defense,” the drug “war,” and the for-profit “corrections” system. In those cases, the more taxpayer $$$$s spent, the better.
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And once education is fully privatized, there will be a sudden loss of interest in starving that beast too.
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We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto!
We are in a sick world where some politicians believe that corporate profits are more valuable than the future of the children. The citizens of Kansas must return from their land of OZ and rid themselves of these right-winged monkeys that call themselves representatives of the people and for the people.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIaN9Koa9oM
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