A three-judge Kansas court has now ruled that Kansas funding of public schools falls short of long-established constitutional standards.
This, as the story notes, is a result of the state underfunding of public schools. It underfunded public schools to pay for Gov. Sam Brownback’s big income tax cut.
Arkansas operates under a well-established standard for school funding adequacy. We have an incoming governor determined to add $100 million in income tax cuts on top of $50 million-plus already in the pipeline. We have uncertainty about continuation of a federal Medicaid windfall under the private option insurance plan. We have a legislature full of lawmakers anxious to put more people in prison longer.
It is a near perfect storm.
Unless ….. the Arkansas Supreme Court will back off the Lakeview standard. The new membership’s signals are not promising.
