The Hutchinson News, March 10
Legislature needs to pay for public education, then look at changes
Someday, maybe, the Kansas Legislature will pay for schools in a way that stops the need to litigate, and the state’s highest court will stop finding itself in the unenviable position of settling the dispute.
Once again, the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s formula for financing public education fails to meet the constitutional requirement for equity. The ruling stated that the block grant formula authorized by the previous legislature left poor and minority students at a disadvantage compared to their better-off peers across the state.
The court didn’t specify how much money must be infused into the state’s public education system, instead leaving that up to lawmakers. Attorneys for the plaintiffs estimate the state will need to produce an additional $800 million to satisfy the court order. Such an amount will only further complicate an already complicated budget that already is lagging by $270 million. The Legislature has until June 30 to act.
Gov. Sam Brownback - whose income tax cuts are viewed as partly to blame for the state’s budget shortfall and inadequate funding of education - said that the Legislature has an opportunity to enact “transformative educational reform,” including a call for more school choice for parents who would rather send their kids to private, charter or experimental schools.
There will be a time for such discussions, but that time is not now. Little progress or change for the future can be made while there is an immediate, overwhelming need that must be addressed. The Legislature this session must move to satisfy the court’s ruling in a way that curbs the continuous litigation that has plagued the state for the better part of the last 20 years.
Once - and only once - that is settled should the state’s lawmakers consider changes that would fundamentally alter the way Kansas finances public education. When that time comes, all sides must be willing to recognize that this cycle of litigation has been damaging to students and teachers and work to find a way to end it.
Part of that discussion should center on how to pay for education, and part of the discussion should focus on new methods and innovative ways to provide a high-quality education for all the state’s students - regardless of where they live or their family’s income. But the talk should center on what’s best for Kansas students - the vast majority of whom will always obtain their education from public, rather than private, schools.
____
The Lawrence Journal-World, March 12
Nothing is more important to democracy than a government that is open, transparent and responsive.
In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln defined our representative democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
As we mark the beginning of Sunshine Week, it’s important to remember that a government can only be of the people, by the people and for the people if it operates with transparency and openness at all levels.
Sunshine Week is a national initiative spearheaded by the American Society of News Editors to educate the public about the importance of open government and the dangers of excessive and unnecessary secrecy. It was established in March 2005 with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
News media like the Journal-World have long served as advocates of open government. But while open government is a key to newspapers’ watchdog role, openness is the public’s cause, not the media’s.
Government officials serve the public. Government records belong to the public. Given the choice between openness and secrecy, elected officials and public servants too often err on the side of the latter by withholding documents, sealing records or conducting business behind close doors. That shouldn’t be.
A couple whose home was raided by law enforcement shouldn’t have had to spend $25,000 and years of legal wrangling just to gain access to a probable cause affidavit explaining the justification for searching their home. A family whose son went missing almost 30 years ago shouldn’t still be waiting to see the police records in their son’s missing-person’s case. A University of Kansas student shouldn’t have to pay $1,800 for access to basic open records.
Yet, all of the above have happened in recent years in northeast Kansas.
Each year, legislators take steps to address such issues, including this year.
A Senate Bill, sponsored in part by Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, would establish reasonable and uniform fees for access to public records. Another Senate Bill, sponsored by Sen Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, would release police records in missing-persons cases after 25 years. Both bills have been approved in committee and await legislative votes.
But not all bills advocate for openness. Legislators advanced a bill this session exempting from the Kansas Open Records Act records held by the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training - including the state’s list of registered law enforcement officers and records on officers who are fired or have complaints filed against them. Lawmakers said the bill is necessary to protect officers. But who is protecting the public’s right to know about the history of law enforcement officers serving their communities? The bill is a setback for open government.
The Journal-World will continue to serve as an advocate for open records and open government. Because government of the people, by the people and for the people can’t be conducted in the dark; you have to let the sun shine in.
____
The Manhattan Mercury, March 10
Reasonable, or retaliatory?
Perhaps state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Republican, is wrong about a new bill in the Kansas Legislature to bolster one of the nation’s strongest concealed carry laws.
Perhaps the bill, which would nullify university or college policies regarding concealed carry on their campuses and strip the Kansas Board of Regents and colleges and universities of the authority to draft such policies isn’t retaliation for efforts by those institutions to keep concealed weapons off campuses.
Rep. Clayton, who introduced a measure this session that would repeal campus carry, can’t find another reason. “I think that those institutions are being retaliated against,” she said, “and I just can’t stand for it.”
But Rep. Blake Carpenter, a Derby Republican who introduced the bill, denies that, and said he is willing to work with gun advocates and schools to find “reasonable” solutions.
Reasonableness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Travis Couture-Lovelady, a former Republican lawmaker from Palco who in 2015 cut short his brief legislative tenure to become a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, told members of the House Federal and State Affairs Committee on Thursday that he thinks university gun policies are excessively complex and restrictive.
“I believe a lot of these issues on the university- level policies are just trying to make it more confusing and make it more restrictive so that students and faculty will just give up and choose not to carry for risk of violating one of these policies.”
That perspective is not a surprise, given that Mr. Couture-Lovelady was one of the lead proponents of the “Constitutional Carry” law, which killed the requirement that Kansans undergo training and acquire a permit to carry concealed weapons. He seems more interested in arming people than in ensuring that individuals who carry concealed handguns even know how to use them responsibly.
In our view, giving the Board of Regents and universities some flexibility with the law is eminently reasonable. After all, students, faculty and administrators overwhelmingly think the presence of guns will make campuses more dangerous instead of more safe, and they know vastly more about the college environment than most legislators do. And given the number of college students’ parents who also have qualms about allowing guns on campuses, the Kansas Statehouse is one of the few places where support for forcing universities to allow unrestricted concealed carry on campus is so popular.
Resistance in academia to concealed guns on campus isn’t the problem. The problem is lawmakers’ insistence that they know best how to ensure safety at Kansas colleges and universities.
____
The Topeka Capital-Journal, March 11
Bizarre comments about Medicaid
Does Roger Marshall really think some Medicaid recipients ’just don’t want health care’?
Marshall recently spoke with Stat reporter Lev Facher about efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and he explained his opposition to Medicaid expansion during the interview: “Just like Jesus said, ’The poor will always be with us.’ There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.” He went on: “Just, like, homeless people. . I think just morally, spiritually, socially, (some people) just don’t want health care.”
These bizarre comments are insulting to millions of Americans, and they betray an ignorance of the research on health care access and Medicaid. Like Marshall or anyone else in the country (including homeless people), most Medicaid recipients don’t want to suffer unnecessarily or ignore serious health issues when treatment options are available. While Marshall used words like “group of people” and “some people” to make his vast generalizations slightly more palatable, his implication was clear: Medicaid expansion doesn’t make sense because potential beneficiaries won’t take advantage of the care being offered.
There’s substantial evidence that this isn’t true. Although a 2013 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (commonly referred to as the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment) argued that Medicaid coverage “produced no statistically significant effects on physical health or labor market outcomes,” the researchers also pointed out that “Medicaid increased health care utilization, reduced financial strain and reduced depression.” Marshall may want to note those words: “Medicaid increased health care utilization.”
Other research suggests that greater access to medical care has a positive impact on health outcomes. After mandatory health insurance was implemented in Massachusetts, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that the policy was “associated with a significant decrease in all-cause mortality compared with the control group.” A principal investigator of the Oregon experiment, Katherine Baicker, said this indicated that “expanding insurance substantially improves the well-being of people who get it.”
According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine last October, states that expanded Medicaid (such as Kentucky and Arkansas) saw “significant increases in outpatient utilization, preventive care, and improved health care quality; reductions in emergency department use; and improved self-reported health.” A 2012 study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that Medicaid expansion was “associated with a significant reduction in adjusted all-cause mortality” and increased access to care.
Even without reading these studies, Marshall should have known better. After all, he’s the one who says many of his patients “drove over a hundred miles to see us as I was the only OB clinic to accept Medicaid.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.